the punishment of one cannot any ways be made the punishment of another and in case it be supposed possible then those in whose stead the other is punished must be actually delivered upon the payment of that debt which was owing to God 1. That one man cannot deserve anothers punishment and therefore one cannot be punished for another for there is no just punishment but what is deserved This being the main Argument insisted on by Crellius must be more carefully considered but before an answer be made to it it is necessary that a clear account be given in what sense it is he understands it which will be best done by laying down his principles as to the justice of punishments in a more distinct method than himself hath done which are these following 1. That no person can be justly punished either for his own or anothers faults but he that hath deserved to be punished by some sin of his own For he still asserts That the justice of punishment ariseth from a mans own fault though the actual punishment may be from anothers But he that is punished without respect to his own guilt is punished undeservedly and he that is punished undeservedly is punished unjustly 2. That personal guilt being supposed one mans sin may be the impulsive cause of anothers punishment but they cannot be the meritorious The difference between them he thus explains The cause is that which makes a thing to be the impulsive that which moves one to do a thing without any consideration of right that one hath to do it Merit is that which makes a man worthy of a thing either good or bad and so gives a right to it if it be good to himself if bad to him at whose hands he hath deserved it Now he tells us that it is impossible That one mans sins should make any other deserve punishment but the person who committed them but they may impel one to punish another and that justly if the person hath otherwise deserved to be punished unjustly if he hath not The reason he gives of it is That the vitiosity of the act which is the proper cause of punishment cannot go beyond the person of the offender and therefore can oblige none to punishment but him that hath committed the fault And therefore he asserts That no man can be justly punished beyond the desert of his own sins but there may sometimes be a double impulsive cause of that punishment viz. His own and other mens whereof one made that they might be justly punished the other that they should be actually but the later he saith always supposeth the former as the foundation of just punishment so that no part of punishment could be executed upon him wherein his own sins were not supposed as the meritorious cause of it These are his two main principles which we must now throughly examine the main force of his book lying in them But if we can prove that it hath been generally received by the consent of mankind that a person may be punished beyond the desert of his own actions if God hath justly punished some for the sins of others and there be no injustice in one mans suffering by his own consent for another then these principles of Crellius will be found not so firm as he imagines them 1. That it hath been generally received by the consent of mankind that a person may be justly punished beyond the desert of his own actions For which purpose Grotius objected against Socinus who appealed to the consent of Nations about one being punished for anothers fault That the Heathens did agree that Children might be punished for their Parents saults and people for their Princes and that corporal punishment might be born by one for another did appear by the Persians punishing the whole family for the fault of one The Macedonians the near kindred in the case of Treason some Cities of Greece destroying the Children of Tyrants together with them in all which the meer conjunction was supposed a sufficient reason without consent but in case of consent he saith They all agreed in the Justice of some being punished for the faults of others Thence the right of killing hostages among the most civilized nations and of sureties being punished in Capital matters if the guilty appear not who were thence called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who were bound to answer body for body In which cases the punishment did extend beyond the desert of the person who suffered it for no other reason is assigned of these sufferings besides the conjunction of the person or his consent but no antecedent guilt is supposed as necessary to make the punishment just We are now to consider what Crellius doth answer to this 1. As to their acknowledgements of Gods punishing Children for their Parents faults he gives the same answer which he doth to the examples recorded in Scripture to that purpose That either they were punished for the sins of others but their own sins deserved the punishment or that the Parents were punished in the Children but the Children were not properly punished 2. As to punishments among men he answers two things 1. That such persons were truly punished but not justly for he acknowledges That in such a case it is a proper punishment and that it is enough in order to that that any fault be charged upon a person whether his own or anothers whether true or false on the account of which he is supposed worthy to be punished And that such a conjunction is sufficient for cruel angry or imprudent men for where ever there is a place saith he for anger there is likewise for punishment So that he consesseth there may be a true punishment and that which answers all the reason and ends of punishment assigned by him where there is no desert at all of it in the person who undergoes it But then he adds that this is an unjust punishment to which I reply That then the reason of punishment assigned by Crellius before is insufficient for if this answers all the ends of punishments assigned by him and yet be unjust then it necessarily follows that those ends of punishment are consistent with the greatest injustice For he before made punishment to have a natural respect to anger and makes the ordinary end of punishment to be a satisfaction of the desire of revenge in men yet now grants that these may be in an unjust punishment Neither can it be said that he considered punishment only naturally and not morally for he tells us that this is the nature of divine punishments which are therefore just because designed for these ends but in case there be no supposal of a fault at all then he denyes that it is a punishment but only an asfliction and an exercise of dominion So that according to him where-ever there is a proper punishment it must be just when-ever God
SERMONS Preached on several Occasions To which a DISCOURSE IS ANNEXED Concerning the TRUE REASON OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST WHEREIN CRELLIUS his Answer to GROTIUS IS CONSIDERED By EDWARD STILLINGFLEET D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty LONDON Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in S t. Paul's Church-Yard and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall 1673. THE CONTENTS PART I. Six SERMONS upon AMOS IV. XI I Have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. pag. 1 PROV XIV IX Fools make a mock at Sin pag. 23 LUKE VII XXXV But Wisdom is justified of all her Children pag. 42 ROMANS I. XVI For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the Power of God unto salvation to every one that believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek pag. 62 HEBREWS II. III. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation pag. 79 HEBREWS XII III. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds pag. 97 JUDE V. II. And perished in the gainsaying of Corah pag. 120 MATTHEW XXI XLIII Therefore say I unto you the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruit thereof pag. 141 JOHN VII XX XIX But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Iesus was not yet glorified pag. 162 ISAIAH LVII XXI There is no peace saith my God to the Wicked pag. 178 II CORINTH V. II. Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men pag. 198 MATTHEW XVI XXVI For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall he give in exchange for his soul pag. 217 PART II. A Discourse concerning the true Reason of the Sufferings of CHRIST CHAP. I. OF the Socinian way of interpreting Scripture Of the uncertainty it leaves us in as to the main articles of Faith manifested by an Exposition of Gen. 1. suitable to that way The state of the Controversie in general concerning the sufferings of Christ for us He did not suffer the same we should have done The grand mistake in making punishments of the nature of Debts the difference between them at large discovered from the different reason and ends of them The right of punishments in God proved against Crellius not to arise from meer dominion The end of punishment not bare Compensation as it is in debts what punishment due to an injured person by the right of Nature proper punishment a result of Laws Crellius his great mistake about the end of Punishments Not designed for satisfaction of Anger as it is a desire of Revenge Seneca and Lactantius vindicated against Crellius The Magistrates interest in Punishment distinct from that of private persons Of the Nature of Anger in God and the satisfaction to be made to it Crellius his great arguments against satisfaction depend on a false Notion of Gods anger Of the ends of divine Punishments and the different nature of them in this and and the future state pag. 239 CHAP. II. The particular state of the Controversie concerning the sufferings of Christ. The Concessions of our Adversaries The debate reduced to two heads The first concerning Christs sufferings being a punishment for sin entred upon In what sense Crellius acknowledgeth the sins of men to have been the impulsive cause of the death of Christ. The sufferings of Christ proved to be a punishment from Scripture The importance of the phrase of bearing sins Of the Scape-Goats bearing the sins of the people into the Wilderness Grotius his sense of 1 Pet. 2. 24. vindicated against Crellius and himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never used for the taking away a thing by the destruction of it Crellius his sense examined Isa. 53. 11. vindicated The argument from Matth. 8. 17. answered Grotius constant to himself in his notes on that place Isa. 53. 5 6 7. cleared Whether Christs death be a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether that doth imply that it was a punishment of sin How far the punishment of Children for their Fathers faults are exemplary among men The distinction of calamities and punishments holds not here That Gods hatred of sin could not be seen in the sufferings of Christ unless they were a punishment of sin proved against Crellius Grotius his Arguments from Christ being made sin and a curse for us defended The liberty our Adversaries take in Changing the sense of words The particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned to sins and relating to sufferings do imply those sufferings to be a punishment for sin According to their way of interpreting Scripture it had been impossible for our doctrine to be clearly expressed therein pag. 265 CHAP. III. The words of Scripture being at last acknowledged by our Adversaries to make for us the only pretence remaining is that our Doctrine is repugnant to reason The debate managed upon point of reason The grand difficulty enquired into and manifested by our Adversaries concessions not to lye in the greatness of Christs sufferings or that our sins were the impulsive cause of them or that it is impossible that one should be punished for anothers faults or in all cases unjust the cases wherein Crellius allows it instanced From whence it is proved that he yields the main cause The arguments propounded whereby he attempts to prove it unjust for Christ to be punished for our sins Crellius his principles of the justice of punishments examined Of the relation between desert and punishment That a person by his own consent may be punished beyond the desert of his own actions An answer to Crellius his Objections What it is to suffer undeservedly Crellius his mistake in the state of the question The instances of Scripture considered In what sense Children are punished for their Parents sins Ezec. 18. 20. explained at large Whether the guilty being freed from the sufferings of an innocent person makes that punishment unjust or no Crellius his shifts and evasions in this matter discovered Why among men the offenders are not freed in criminal matters though the sureties be punished The release of the party depends on the terms of the sureties suffering therefore deliverance not ipso facto No necessity of such a translation in criminal as is in pecuniary matters pag. 295 CHAP. IV. The Death of Christ considered as an Expiatory Sacrifice for sin What the expiation of sin was by the Sacrifices under the Law twofold Civil and Ritual The Promises made to the Iews under the Law of Moses respected them as a People and therefore must be temporal The typical nature of Sacrifices asserted A substitution in the Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law proved
we should be so near a final subversion and utter desolation as the ten Tribes were when none of these things would bring them to repentance but yet the method God hath used with us seems to bode very ill in case we do not at last return to the Lord. For it is not only agreeable to what is here delivered as the course God used to reclaim the Israelites but to what is reported by the most faithful Hisiorian of those times of the degrees and steps that God made before the ruines of the British Nation For Gildas tells us the decay of it began by Civil Wars among themselves and high discontents remaining as the consequents of them after this an universal decay and poverty among them after that nay during the continuance of it Wars with the Picts and Scots their inveterate enemies but no sooner had they a little breathing space but they return to their luxury and other sins again then God sends among them a consuming Pestilence which destroyed an incredible number of people When all this would not do those whom they trusted most to betrayed them and rebelled against them by whose means not only the Cities were burnt with Fire but the whole Island was turned almost into one continued flame The issue of all which at last was that their Country was turned to a desolation the ancient Inhabitants driven out or destroyed and their former servants but now their bitter enemies possessing their habitations May God avert the Omen from us at this day We have smarted by Civil Wars and the dreadful effects of them we yet complain of great discontents and poverty as great as them we have inveterate enemies combined abroad against us we have very lately suffered under a Pestilence as great almost as any we read of and now the great City of our Nation burnt down by a dreadful Fire And what do all these things mean and what will the issue of them be though that be lockt up in the Councils of Heaven yet we have just cause to fear if it be not our speedy amendment it may be our ruine And they who think that incredible let them tell me whether two years since they did not think it altogether as improbable that in the compass of the two succeeding years above a hundred thousand persons should be destroyed by the Plague in London and other places and the City it self should be burnt to the Ground And if our fears do not I am sure our sins may tell us that these are but the fore-runners of greater calamities in case there be not a timely reformation of our selves And although God may give us some intermissions of punishments yet at last he may as the Roman Consul expressed it pay us intercalatae poenae usuram that which may make amends for all his abatements and give us full measure according to that of our sins pressed down shaken together and running over Which leads to the third particular 3. The Causes moving God to so much severity in his Iudgements which are the greatness of the sins committed against him So this Prophet tells us that the true account of all Gods punishments is to be fetched from the sins of the people Amos 1. 3. For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof so it is said of Gaza v. 6. of Tyrus v. 9. of Edom v. 11. of Ammon v. 13. Moab ch 2. 1. Iudah v. 4. and at last Israel v. 6. And it is observable of every one of these that when God threatens to punish them for the greatness of their iniquities and the multitude of their transgressions which is generally supposed to be meant by the three transgressions and the four he doth particularly threaten to send a fire among them to consume the Houses and the Palaces of their Cities So to Damascus chap. 1. 4. to Gaza v. 7. to Tyrus v. 10. to Edom v. 12. to Ammon v. 14. to Moab ch 2. v. 2. to Iudah v. 5. I will send a fire upon Judah and it shall devour the Palaces of Jerusalem and Israel in the words of the text This is a judgement then which when it comes in its fury gives us notice to how great a height our sins are risen especially when it hath so many dreadful forerunners as it had in Israel and hath had among our selves When the red horse hath marched furiously before it all bloody with the effects of a Civil War and the pale horse hath followed after the other with Death upon his back and the Grave at his heels and after both these those come out of whose mouth issues fire and smoak and brimstone it is then time for the inhabitants of the earth to repent of the work of their hands But it is our great unhappiness that we are apt to impute these great calamities to any thing rather than to our sins and thereby we hinder our selves from the true remedy because we will not understand the cause of our distemper Though God hath not sent Prophets among us to tell us for such and such sins I will send such and such judgements upon you yet where we observe the parallel between the sins and the punishments agreeable with what we find recorded in Scripture we have reason to say that those sins were not only the antecedents but the causes of those punishments which followed after them And that because the reason of punishment was not built upon any particular relation between God and the people of Israel but upon reasons common to all mankind yet with this difference that the greater the mercies were which any people enjoyed the sooner was the measure of their iniquities filled up and the severer were the judgements when they came upon them This our Prophet gives an account of Chap. 3. 2. You only have I known of all the Nations of the earth therefore will I punish you for your iniquities So did God punish Tyre and Damascus as well as Israel and Iudah but his meaning is he would punish them sooner he would punish them more severely I wish we could be brought once to consider what influence piety and vertue hath upon the good of a Nation if we did we should not only live better our selves but our Kingdom and Nation might flourish more than otherwise we are like to see it do Which is a truth hath been so universally received among the wise Men of all ages that one of the Roman Historians though of no very severe life himself yet imputes the decay of the Roman State not to Chance or Fortune or some unhidden causes which the Atheism of our Age would presently do but to the general looseness of mens lives and corruption of their manners And it was the grave Observation of one of the bravest Captains ever the Roman State had that it was impossible for any State to be happy stantibus
them and so made it impossible for them to start back in charging God with injustice in punishing them he now applies it to themselves in these words which I suppose ought immediately to follow the 41. verse Therefore say I unto you the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you c. Wherein we have 1. The greatest judgement which can ever befal a people which is the taking away the Kingdom of God from them 2. The greatest mercy can ever be vouchsafed to a nation which is Gods giving his Kingdom to it And give it to a nation c. In the judgement we consider the cause of it therefore say I unto you c. which is either more general as referring to all going before and so it makes the taking away the Kingdom of God to be the just punishment of an incorrigible people or more particular as referring to the sin of the Jews in crucifying Christ and so it makes the guilt of that sin to be the cause of all the miseries which that nation hath undergone since that time In the later part we may consider the terms upon which God either gives or continues his Kingdom to a nation and that is bringing forth the fruits thereof We consider the former with a particular respect to the state of the Jewish nation And therein 1. The greatness of their judgement implyed in those words the Kingdom of God c. 2. The particular reason of that judgement which was crucifying the Son of God 1. The greatness of the judgement which befel the Jewish nation after imbruing their hands in the blood of Christ. And that will appear if we take the Kingdom of God in that double notion in which it was taken at that time 1. It was taken by the Jews themselves for some peculiar and temporal blessings which those who enjoyed it had above all other people 2. It was taken by our Saviour for a clearer manisestation of the will of God to the world and the consequence of that in the hearts of good men and all the spiritual blessings which do attend it So that the taking away the Kingdom of God from them must needs be the heaviest judgement which could befal a people since it implies in it the taking away all the greatest temporal and spiritual blessings 1. We take it in the notion the Jews themselves had of it and in this sense we shall make it evident that the Kingdom of God hath been taken from that people in accomplishment of this prediction of our Saviour For they imagined the Kingdom of God among them to consist in these things especially Deliverance from their enemies A flourishing state The upholding their Religion in Honour chiefly in the pompous worship of the Temple Now if instead of these things they were exposed to the fury of their enemies so as never any nation besides them were if their whole Polity was destroyed so as the very face of Government hath ever since been taken from them if their Religion hath been so far from being upheld that the practice of it hath been rendred impossible by the destruction of the Temple and the consequences of it then the Jews themselves cannot but say that in their own sense the Kingdom of God hath been taken from them 1. They make the Kingdom of God to consist in a deliverance of them from their enemies For this was their great quarrel at our Saviour that he should pretend to bring the Kingdom of God among them and do nothing in order to their deliverance from the Roman Power They either were such great admirers of the Pomp and Splendor of the world or so sensible of their own burdens and the yoke that was upon them that they could not be perswaded that God should design to send his Kingdom among them for any other end but their ease and liberty They apprehended the Crown of Thorns which was put upon our Saviours head was the fittest representation of the nature of his Kingdom for they looked upon it as the meer shew of a Kingdom but the reality was nothing but affliction and tribulation and this was a doctrine they thought of all others the least needful to be preached to them who complained so much of what they underwent already They took it for the greatest contradiction to talk of a Kingdom among them as long as they were in subjection to the Roman Governors But if Jesus of Nazareth had raised an army in defence of their liberty and had destroyed the Romans they would never have enquired farther concerning Prophesies or Miracles this had been instead of all others to them and then they would willingly have given him that title which was set up only in derision as the Elogium of his Cross Iesus of Nazareth King of the Iews But we see how justly God dealt with them soon after when they crucified the Son of God because he preached another Kingdom than they dream'd of God suffers this very pretence of a temporal Kingdom to be the occasion of the ruine of the whole Nation For upon that it was that they denied subjection to the Romans for they were for no other Kingdom but only Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to acknowledge no other King but God was the pretence of the War upon which arose that desperate Faction of the Zealots who like so many Firebrands scattered up and down among them soon put the whole Nation into Flames And from this time there never was a more Tragical story either acted or written than that is of the miseries which this people underwent For if ever there were the marks of divine vengeance seen in the ruine of a Nation they were in that For they were so far from hearkning to the counsel of their wisest men that the first thing they made sure of was the destruction of them Wisdom was but another name for Treason among them and there needed no other evidence to take away the lives of any but to say that they were rich and wise When they had thus secured themselves as they thought against the danger of too much Wisdom by the removal of all such who at least did not counterfeit madness and folly by joyning with them then they began to suspect one another and three Factions at once break forth at Hierusalem who seem'd to be afraid the Romans should not destroy them fast enough for in the several parts of the City where they were they were continually killing one another and never joyned together but when they saw the Romans approaching their Walls least they should take that work out of each others hands By all means they were resolved to endure a seige and as a preparative for that they burnt up all the stores almost of provision which were among them whence ensued a most dreadful famine so great that it was thought reason enough to take away the life of a man because he
Kingdom of God among them to consist 3. That which they thought gave them the greatest title to the being Gods peculiar people was the solemn worship of him at the Temple But what is become of all the glory of that now where are all the pompous Ceremonies the numerous sacrifices the magnificent and solemn Feasts which were to be constantly observed there how is it then possible for them to observe the Religion now which God commanded them since he likewise forbid the doing these things any where but in the Place which himself should appoint So that they are under an unavoidable necessity of breaking their Law if they do them not they break the Law which commands them to be done if they do them they break the Law which forbids the doing them in any other place but at the Temple at Hierusalem And this I am apt to think was one of the greatest grounds among them after the destruction of the Temple of their setting up traditions above the written Law for finding it impossible to keep the written Law if they could gain to themselves the Authority of interpreting it they were not much concerned for the Law it self And this is one of the strongest holds of their infidelity at this day For otherwise we might in reason have thought that their infidelity would have been buried in the ashes of their Temple when they had such plain predictions that the Messias was to come during the second Temple that the prediction of Christ concerning the destruction of this Temple was so exactly fulfilled that all attemps for the rebuilding of it were vain and fruitless Of all which none promissed so fair as that in Iulians time who out of spight to the Christians and particularly with a design to contradict the prophecy of our Saviour gave all encouragement to the Iews to build it he provided at his own charge all materials for it and gave command to the Governour of the Province to take particular care in it and the Jews with great joy and readiness set about it but when they began to search the ground in order to the laying the Foundations the earth round about trembles with a horrible earthquake and the flames of a sudden break out which not only consumed the undertakers but a great multitude of spectators and the materials prepared for the building In so much that an universal astonishment seized upon them and the rest had rather leave their work than be consumed by it This we have delivered to us not by persons at a great distance of time from it but by such who lived in the same age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are all witnesses saith St. Chrysost. of the truth of these things not by one or two but the concurrent Testimony of the writers of that age Not only by St. Chrysost. But Gregorius Nazianzenus Ambrose Ruffinus Socrates Sozomen Theodoret. And lest all these should be suspected of partiality because Christians we desire no more to be believed concerning it than what is recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus a Heathen Historian of that time who was a souldier under Iulian in his last expedition and he asserts the substance of what I have said before And what a strange difference do we now find in the building of a third and a second Temple In the former though they met with many troubles and difficulties yet God carried them through all and prospered their endeavours with great success Now they had all humane encouragements and God only opposes them and makes them desist with the loss of their workmen and materials and perpetual dishonour to themselves for attempting to fight against God in building him a Temple against his will From which we see that in all the senses the Jews understood the Kingdom of God it was remarkably taken from them within so many years after Christ the true Passover was slain by them as had passed from their first Passover after their going out of Aegypt to their entrance into Canaan The difficulty will be far less and the concernment not so great as to the Jews to prove that the Kingdom of God in the sense our Saviour meant it for the Power of the Gospel was taken from them For the event it self is a clear proof of it In stead of that therefore I shall now prove that this taking away the Kingdom of God from them was the effect of their sin in crucifying Christ. Therefore I say c. To make this clear I shall proceed by these following steps 1. That it is acknowledged by the Jews themselves that these great calamities have happened to them for some extraordinary sins For to these they impute the destruction of the City and Temple their oppressions and miseries ever since and the deferring the coming of the Messias For some of them have confessed that all the terms prefixed for the coming of the Messias are past long ago but that God provoked by their great sins hath thus long deferred his appearance and suffered them in the mean while to lye under such great calamities 2. The sin ought to be looked on as so much greater by how much heavier and longer this punishment hath been than any inflicted upon them before For if God did in former captivities punish them for their sins when they were brought back again into their own land after 70. years we must conclude that this is a sin of a higher nature which hath not been expiated by 1600. years captivity and dispersion 3. The Jews have not suffered these calamities for the same sins for which they suffered before For then God charged them with Idolatry as the great provoking sin and it is very observable that the Jews were never freer from the suspicion of this sin than under the second Temple and particularly near their destruction They generally pretended a mighty zeal for their Law and especially opposed the least tendency to Idolatry in so much that they would not suffer the Roman Ensigns to be advanced among them because of the Images that were upon them and all the History of that time tells us of the frequent contests they had with the Roman Governours about these things and ever since that time they have been perfect haters of Idolatry and none of the least hindrances of their embracing Christianity hath been the infinite scandal which hath been given them by the Roman Church in that particular 4. It must be some sin which their Fathers committed and continues yet unrepented of by them to this day Their Fathers committing it was the meritorious cause of the first punishment their Children not repenting of it is the cause why that judgement lies still so heavy upon them And now what sin can we imagine this to be but putting to death the true Messias which they will acknowledge themselves to be a sin that deserves all the miseries they have undergone and it is
it were possible for them would bring vertue more out of countenance than sin is yet after all their endeavors though vice hath the stronger interest vertue hath the greater Reverence Thus considering humane nature as it is we find indelible characters remaining upon it of the natural differences of good and evil but then if we consider it with a respect to the Maker of it that will cast a clearer light upon them and make those characters appear more discernible For nothing can be more absurd than to imagine a creature owing its being and all it hath to the bounty of a Being infinite in all Perfections and yet not to be obliged to give all honour worship and service to it To rip up the bowels of a Mother to whom a man owes his coming into the world to assassinate a Prince to whom he owes all the honours and riches he hath in it are crimes of so black a nature that the worst of men can hardly be supposed to commit them nor the worst of Devils to defend them But to blaspheme God and to deride his service seems to have a much greater malignity in it in as much as our obligations to his honuor and service are much greater than they can be to any created Being But if there be no natural differences of good and evil even this must be accounted an indifferent thing as well as the former and what safety can there be in conversing with those men whom no bonds of Religion Nature or Gratitude can tye Let us if it were possible suppose a Society of men constituted of such who make all things equally good and evil in their own nature what a monstrous Leviathan would they make among them no Religion no Law no Kindness no Promises no Trust no Contracts could ever oblige them not to do any thing which they thought might be done with safety By which it appears that these principles are so inconsistent with humane Nature and all the bonds of Religion and Duty that whoever owns them must suppose mankind more savage than the beasts of prey he must renounce his reason destroy all Religion and disown a Deity For if there be a God we must be inviolably bound to observe and obey him and the very notion of a God implies a being infinitely perfect and if there be such perfections in God they cannot but be so in their own nature and if they be so in their own nature they must in their degree be so in us as well as in him so that if goodness holiness and righteousness be absolute perfections as they are in God they must be perfections so far as they are in us and the contrary must be imperfections which makes the differences of good and evil so far from being arbitrary that those things which agree to the perfections of God as well as his will must needs be good and those which are repugnant to them must needs be evil The result of all is that if a wicked man can have no peace in his mind without overthrowing the differences of good and evil he can have no peace without the greatest violence offered to God to nature and himself and if this be the way to Peace let his Reason judge 2. The second foundation which a wicked man must build his peace upon is that supposing there be such a thing as sin yet that men have no cause to disturb themselves with the fears of so great a punishment to follow after as that which sinners are afrighted with But what security can a sinner have against the fears of punishment when his conscience condemns him for the guilt of his sins Is it that God takes no notice at all of the actions of men that he will not disturb his own eternal peace and happiness by observing all their follies So some of old imagined who pretended that out of meer kindness to the Deity they gave him his Quietus est and took from him as much as in them lay the care and government of the world but it was really a greater kindness to their lusts which made them do it and makes many now a days so willing upon the same frivolous pretences to exclude the providence of God out of the world for can any man who considers what God is think his providence inconsistent with his happiness If we speak of such weak and imperfect beings as the wisest of mankind are it might not a little contribute to their peace to be eased of the cares of Government But the reason of that is because all things cannot be foreseen by them before they happen nor well managed when they do whence come oversights and disappointments and consequently all the uneasie effects of these But when we speak of God we speak of a being infinitely Wise and Powerful from whom nothing can be hid and whom nothing can resist and what can be imagined more easie than for a conjunction of infinite Wisdom and Power to contrive and manage all the affairs of the world If therefore wicked men could suppose that God could not know what they did or could not punish them if he knew it they might indulge themselves in greater security but to suppose his Wisdom so great that he cannot but know their actions and his Power so irresistible that it is impossible for them to stand before him when he designs to punish to flatter themselves with the hopes of impunity is an extravagant piece of folly and madness Or is it then that though God doth take notice of their actions he will not be so much displeased as to punish them but this is as repugnant to the Justice and holiness of God as the other was to his Wisdom and Power Will not the righteous God who hath made Laws to govern mankind see to the execution of them for if he did not hate sin why did he so strictly forbid it if he doth hate sin he will severely punish it Nay hath he not been severe already in the execution of his judgements upon the world for sin what did Adam and his posterity suffer for the first sin what did the old world Sodom and Gomorrah the people of the Jews suffer for their wickedness And is not he the same God still Is his hand shortned that he cannot strike or doth his heart fail that he dare not punish Surely of all nations we have no cause to think so and of all Ages not in this of ours wherein we have smarted so much by the just displeasure of God against our sins But where then lies the sinners hope Is it at last that though God may sometimes punish men in this life for their sins he will never do it in that to come If he could have said it was impossible he should do it and proved it sufficiently there might have been some ground for his security but that is impossible he should ever do but to hope
punishments of the future state So that the ends of punishment here are quite of another kind from those of another life for those are inflicted because persons have been unreclaimable by either the mercies or punishments of this life but these are intended that men should so far take notice of this severity of God as to avoid the sins which will expose them to the wrath to come And from hence it follows That whatsoever sufferings do answer all these ends of Divine punishments and are inflicted on the account of sin have the proper notion of punishments in them and God may accept of the undergoing them as a full satisfaction to his Law if they be such as tend to break men off from sin and assert Gods right and vindicate his honor to the world which are the ends assigned by Crellius and will be of great consequence to us in the following Discourse CHAP. II. The particular state of the Controversie concerning the sufferings of Christ. The Concessions of our Adversaries The debate reduced to two heads The first concerning Christs sufferings being a punishment for sin entred upon In what sense Crellius acknowledgeth the sins of men to have been the impulsive cause of the death of Christ. The sufferings of Christ proved to be a punishment from Scripture The importance of the phrase of bearing sins Of the Scape-Goats bearing the sins of the people into the Wilderness Grotius his sense of 1 Pet. 2. 24. vindicated against Crellius and himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never used for the taking away a thing by the destruction of it Crellius his sense examined Isa. 53. 11. vindicated The argument from Mat. 8. 17. answered Grotius constant to himself in his notes on that place Isa. 53. 5 6 7. cleared Whether Christs death be a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether that doth imply that it was a punishment of sin How far the punishments of Children for their Fathers faults are exemplary among men The distinction of calamities and punishments holds not here That Gods hatred of sin could not be seen in the sufferings of Christ unless they were a punishment of sin proved against Crellius Grotius his Arguments from Christ being made sin and a curse for us defended The liberty our Adversaries take in Changing the sense of words The particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned to sins and relating to sufferings do imply those sufferings to be a punishment for sin According to their way of interpreting Scripture it had been impossible for our doctrine to be clearly expressed therein THese things being thus far cleared concerning the nature and ends of punishments and how far they are of the nature of debts and consequently what kind of satisfaction is due for them the resolution of the grand Question concerning the sufferings of Christ will appear much more easie but that we may proceed with all possible clearness in a debate of this consequence we must yet a little more narrowly examine the difference between our Adversaries and us in this matter for their concessions are in teâ—ms sometimes so fair as though the difference were meerly about words without any considerable difference in the thing it self If we charge them with denying satisfaction Crellius answers in the name of them that we do it unjustly for they do acknowledge a satisfaction worthy of God and agreeable to the Scriptures If we charge them with denying that our salvation is obtained by the death of Christ they assert the contrary as appears by the same Author Nay Ruarus attributes merit to the death of Christ too They acknowledge that Christ dyed for us nay that there was a commutation between Christ and us both of one person for another and of a price for a person and that the death of Christ may be said to move God to redeem us they acknowledge reconciliation and expiation of sins to be by the death of Christ. Nay they assert that Christs death was by reason of our sins and that God designed by that to shew his severity against sin And what could we desire more if they meant the same thing by these words which we do They assert a satisfaction but it is such a one as is meerly fulfilling the desire of another in which sense all that obey God may be said to satisfie him They attribute our salvation to the death of Christ but only as a condition intervening upon the performance of which the Covenant was confirmed and himself taken into Glory that he might free men from the punishment of their sins They attribute merit to Christs death but in the same sense that we may merit too when we do what is pleasing to God They acknowledge that Christ died for us but not in our stead but for our advantage that there was a commutation but not such a one as that the Son of God did lay down his blood as a proper price in order to our redemption as the purchase of it when they speak of a moving cause they tell us they mean no more than the performance of any condition may be said to move or as our prayers and repentance do The reconciliation they speak of doth not at all respect God but us they assert an expiation of sins consequent upon the death of Christ but not depending upon it any otherwise than as a condition necessary for his admission to the office of a High Priest in Heaven there to expiate our sins by his power and not by his blood but they utterly deny that the death of Christ is to be considered as a pròper expiatory sacrifice for sin or that it hath any further influence upon it than as it is considered as a means of the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and particularly the promise of remission of sins on which and not on the death of Christ they say our remission depends but so far as the death of Christ may be an argument to us to believe his Doctrine and that faith may incline us to obedience and that obedience being the condition in order to pardon at so many removes they make the death of Christ to have influence on the remission of our sins They assert that God took occasion by the sins of men to ex ercise an act of dominion upon Christ in his sufferings and that the sufferings of Christ were intended for the taking away the sins of men but they utterly deny that the sufferings of Christ were to be considered as a punishment for sin or that Christ did suffer in our place and stead nay they contend with great vehemency that it is wholly inconsistent with the justice of God to make one mans sins the meritorious cause of anothers punishment especially one wholly innocent and so that the guilty shall be freed on the account of his sufferings Thus I have endeavoured to give the true state of the
controversie with all clearness and brevity And the substance of it will be reduced to these two debates 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion 2. Whether the death of Christ in particular were a proper expiatory sacrifice for sin or only an antecedent condition to his exercise of the Office of Priesthood in Heaven 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion for that it must be one or the other of these two cannot be denyed by our Adversaries for the inflicting those sufferings upon Christ must either proceed from an antecedent meritorious cause or not If they do they are then punishments if not they are meer exercises of power and dominion whatever ends they are intended for and whatever recompence be made for them So Crellius asserts that God as absolute Lord of all had a right of absolute dominion upon the life and body of Christ and therefore might justly deliver him up to death and give his body to the Cross and although Christ by the ordinary force of the Law of Moses had a right to escape so painful and accursed death yet God by the right of dominion had the power of disposal of him because he intended to compensate his torments with a reward infinitely greater than they were but because he saith for great ends the consent of Christ was necessary therefore God did not use his utmost dominion in delivering him up by force as he might have done but he dealt with him by way of command and rewards proposed for obedience and in this sence he did act as a righteous Governor and indulgent Father who encouraged his Son to undergo hard but great things In which we see that he makes the sufferings of Christ an act of meer dominion in God without any antecedent cause as the reason of them only he qualifies this act of dominion with the proposal of a reward for it But we must yet further enquire into their meaning for though here Crellius attributes the sufferings of Christ meerly to Gods dominion without any respect to sin yet elsewhere he will allow a respect that was had to sin antecedently to the sufferings of Christ and that the sins of men were the impulsive cause of them And although Socinus in one place utterly denies any lawful-antecedent cause of the death of Christ besides the will of God and Christ yet Crellius in his Vindication saith by lawful cause he meant meritorius or such upon supposition of which he ought to dye for elsewhere he makes Christ to dye for the cause or by the occasion of our sins which is the same that Crellius means by an impulsive or procatartick cause Which he thus explains we are now to suppose a decree of God not only to give salvation to Mankind but to give us a firm hope of it in this present state now our sins by deserving eternal punishment do hinder the effect of that decree upon us and therefore they were an impulsive cause of the death of Christ by which it was effected that this decree should obtain notwithstanding our sins But we are not to understand as though this were done by any expiation of the guilt of sin by the death of Christ but this effect is hindred by three things by taking away their sins by assuring men that their former sins and present infirmities upon their sincere obedience shall not be imputed to them and that the effect of that decree shall obtain all which saith he is effected morte Christi interveniente the death of Christ intervening but not as the procuring cause So that after all these words he means no more by making our sins an impulsive cause of the death of Christ but that the death of Christ was an argument to confirm to us the truth of his Doctrine which doctrine of his doth give us assurance of these things and that our sins when they are said to be the impulsive cause are not to be considered with a respect to their guilt but to that distrust of God which our sins do raise in us which distrust is in truth according to this sense of Crellius the impulsive cause and not the sins which were the cause or occasion of it For that was it which the doctrine was designed to remove and our sins only as the causes of that But if it be said that he speaks not only of the distrust but of the punishment of sin as an impediment which must be removed too and therefore may be called an impulsive cause we are to consider that the removal of this is not attributed to the death of Christ but to the leaving of our sins by the belief of his Doctrine therefore the punishment of our sins cannot unless in a very remote sense be said to be an impulsive cause of that which for all that we can observe by Crellius might as well have been done without it if any other way could be thought sufficient to confirm his Doctrine and Christ without dying might have had power to save all them that obey him But we understand not an impulsive cause in so remote a sense as though our sins were a meer occasion of Christs dying because the death of Christ was one argument among many others to believe his Doctrine the belief of which would make men leave their sins but we contend for a neerer and more proper sense viz. that the death of Christ was primarily intended for the expiation of our sins with a respect to God and not to us and therefore our sins as an impulsive cause are to be considered as they are so displeasing to God that it was necessary for the Vindication of Gods Honour and the deterring the world from sin that no less a Sacrifice of Attonement should be offered than the blood of the Son of God So that we understand an impulsive cause here in the sense that the sins of the people were under the Law the cause of the offering up those Sacrifices which were appointed for the expiation of them And as in those Sacrifices there were two things to be considered viz. the mactation and the oblation of them the former as a punishment by a substitution of them in place of the persons who had offended the latter as the proper Sacrifice of attonement although the mactation it self considered with the design of it was a Sacrificial act too So we consider the sufferings of Christ with a twofold respect either as to our sins as the impulsive cause of them so they are to be considered as a punishment or as to God with a design to expiate the guilt of them so they are a Sacrifice of Attonement The first consideration is that we are now upon and upon which the present debate
interpretation of the words and draw forth such a sense from them as is most consistent with it self and the tenor of the Scripture But for all his talking of the tenor of the Scripture by the same reason he interprets one place upon these terms he will do many and so the tenor of the Scripture shall be never against him and by this we find that the main strength of our Adversaries is not pretended to lye in the Scriptures all the care they have of them is only to reconcile them if possible with their hypothesis for they do not deny but that the natural force of the words doth imply what we contend for but because they say the Doctrine we assert is inconsistent with reason therefore all their design is to find out any other possible meaning which they therefore assert to be true because more agreeable to the common reason of mankind This therefore is enough for our present purpose that if it had been the design of Scripture to have expressed our sense it could not have done it in plainer expressions than it hath done that no expressions could have been used but the same arts of our Adversaries might have been used to take off their force which they have used to those we now urge against them and that setting aside the possibility of the thing the Scripture doth very fairly deliver the Doctrine we contend for or supposing in point of reason there may be arguments enough to make it appear possible there are Scriptures enough to make it appear true CHAP. III. The words of Scripture being at last acknowledged by our Adversaries to make for us the only pretence remaining is that our Doctrine is repugnant to reason The debate managed upon point of reason The grand difficulty enquired into and manifested by our Adversaries concessions not to lie in the greatness of Christs sufferings or that our sins were the impulsive cause of them or that it is impossible that one should be punished for anothers faults or in all cases unjust the cases wherein Crellius allows it instanced From whence it is proved that he yields the main cause The arguments propounded whereby he attempts to prove it unjust for Christ to be punished for our sins Crellius his principles of the justice of punishments examined Of the relation between desert and punishment That a person by his own consent may be punished beyond the desert of his own actions An answer to Crellius his Objections What it is to suffer undeservedly Crellius his mistake in the state of the question The instances of Scripture considered In what sense Children are punished for their Parents sins Ezec. 18. 20. explained at large Whether the guilty being freed from the sufferings of an innocent person makes that punishment unjust or no Crellius his shifts and evasions in this matter discovered Why among men the offenders are not sreed in criminal matters though the sureties be punished The release of the party depends on the terms of the sureties suffering therefore deliverance not ipso facto No necessity of such a translation in criminal as is in pecuniary matters HAving gained so considerable concessions from our Adversaries concerning the places of Scripture we come now to debate the matter in point of reason And if there appear to be nothing repugnant in the Nature of the thing or to the justice of God then all their loud clamors will come to nothing for on that they fix when they talk the most of our Doctrine being contrary to reason This therefore we now come more closely to examine in order to which we must carefully enquire what it is they lay the charge of injustice in God upon according to our belief of Christs sufferings being a punishment for our sins 1. It is not That the offenders themselves do not undergo the full punishment of their sins For they assert that there is no necessity at all that the offenders should be punished from any punitive justice in God for they eagerly contend that God may freely pardon the sins of men if so then it can be no injustice in God not to punish the offenders according to the full desert of their sins 2. It is not that God upon the sufferings of Christ doth pardon the sins of men for they yield that God may do this without any charge of injustice and with the greatest demonstration of his kindness For they acknowledge that the sufferings of Christ are not to be considered as a bare antecedent condition to pardon but that they were a moving cause as far as the obedience of Christ in suffering was very acceptable to God 3. It is not in the greatness or matter of the sufferings of Christ. For they assert the same which we do And therefore I cannot but wonder to meet sometimes with those strange out-cries of our making God cruel in the punishing of his son for us for what do we assert that Christ suffered which they do not assert too Nay doth it not look much more like cruelty in God to lay those sufferings upon him without any consideration of sin as upon their hypothesis he doth than to do it supposing he bears the punishment of our iniquities which is the thing we plead for They assert all those sufferings to be lawful on the account of Gods dominion which according to them must cease to be so on the supposition of a meritorious cause But however from this it appears that it was not unjust that Christ should suffer those things which he did for us the question then is whether it were unjust that he should suffer the same things which he might lawfully do on the account of dominion with a respect to our sins as the cause of them 4. As to this they acknowledge that it is not that the sufferings of Christ were occasioned by our sins or that our sins were the bare impulsive cause of those sufferings For they both consess in general that one mans sins may be the occasion of anothers punishment so far that he might have escaped punishment if the others sins had not been the impulsive cause of it And therefore Crellius in the general state of this question would not have it whether it be the unjust to punish one for anothers sins for that he acknowledges it is not but whether for any cause whatsoever it be just to punish an innocent person And likewise in particular of Christ they confess that our sins were the impulsive cause and the occasion of his sufferings 5. It is not that there is so necessary a relation between guilt and punishment that it cannot be called a punishment which is inflicted on an innocent person For Crellius after a long dicourse of the difference of afflictions and punishments doth acknowledge That it is not of the nature of punishment that the person who is to be punished should really deserve the
punishment and afterwards when Grotius urgeth that though it be essential to punishment that it be inflicted for sin yet it is not that it be inflicted upon him who hath himself sinned which he shews by the similitude of rewards which though necessary to be given in consideration of service may yet be given to others besides the person himself upon his account All this Crellius acknowledgeth who saith They do not make it necessary to the nature but to the justice of punishment that it be inflicted upon none but the person who hath offended So by his own Confession it is not against the nature of punishment that one man suffer for anothers faults From whence it follows that all Socinus his arguments signifie nothing which are drawn from the impossibility of the thing that one man should be punished for anothers faults for Crellius grants the thing to be possible but denies it to be just yet not absolutely neither but with some restrictions and limitations For 6. It is not but that there may be sufficient causes assigned in some particular cases wherein it may be just for God to punish some for the sins of others For Crellius himself hath assigned divers When there is such a neer conjunction between them that one may be said to be punished in the punishment of another as Parents in their Children and Posterity Kings in their Subjects or the body of a State in its Members either in the most or the most principal though the fewest but we are to consider how far he doth extend this way of punishment of some in others 1. At the greatest distance of time if they have been of the same Nation for he extends it to the utmost degree of Gods patience towards a people For saith he God doth not presently punish as soon as they have sinned but spares for a great while and forbears iu expectation of their repentance in the mean while a great many guilty persons die and seem to have escaped punishment But at last the time of Gods patience being past he punisheth their Posterity by exacting the fu l punishment of their sins upon them and by this means punisheth their Ancestors tâ—o and punisheth their sins in their punishment for saith he all that people are reckoned for one one man of several Ages and that punishment which is taken of the last may be for the sins of the first for the conjunction and succession of them of which we have an example saith he in the destructiof Hierusalem By which we see a very remote conjunction and a meer similitude in comparing a succession of Ages in a people with those in a man may when occasion serves be made use of to justifie Gods punishing one Generation of men for the sins of others that have been long before 2. When sins are more secret or less remarkable which God might not punish unless an occasion were given from others sins impelling him to it but because God would punish one very near them he therefore punisheth them that in their punishment he might punish the other Or in case sins spread through a Family or a people or they are committed by divers persons at sundry times which God dot◠〈◊〉 severally punish but sometimes then when the Head of a People or Family hath done something which remarkably deserves punishment whom he will punish in those he is related to and therefore generally punisheth the whole Family or People 3. That which may be a meer exercise of dominion as to some may be a proper punishment to others as in the case of Infants being taken away for their Parents sins For God as to the Children he saith useth only an act of dominion but the punishment only redounds to the Parents who lose them and though this be done for the very end of punishment yet he denies that it hath the nature of Punishment in any but the Parents 4. That punishment may be intended for those who can have no sense at all of it as Crellius asserts in the case of Sauls sons 2 Sam. 21. 8 14. that the punishment was mainly intended for Saul who was aheady dead From these concessions of Crellius in this case we may take notice 1. That a remote conjunction may be sufficient for a translation of penalty viz. from one Generation to another 2. That sins may be truly said to be punished in others when the offenders themselves may escape punishment thus the sins of Parents in their Children and Princes in their Subjects 3. That an act of dominion in some may be designed as a proper punishment to others 4. That the nature of punishment is not to be measured by the sense of it Now upon these concessions though our Adversaries will not grant that Christ was properly punished for our sins yet they cannot deny but that we may very properly be said to be punished for our sins in Christ and if they will yield us this the other may be a strife about words For surely there may be easily imagined as great a conjunction between Christ and us as between the several Generations of the Iews and that last which was punished in the destruction of Hierusalem and though we escape that punishment which Christ did undergo yet we might have our sins punished in him as well as Princes theirs in their Subjects when they escape themselves or rather as Subjects in an innocent Prince who may suffer for the faults of his people if it be said that these are acts of meer dominion as to such a one that nothing hinders but granting it yet our sins may be said to be punished in him as well as Parents sins are punished properly in meer acts of dominion upon their Children if it be laid that can be no punishment where there is no sense at all of it that is fully taken off by Crellius for surely we have as great a sense of the sufferings of Christ as the first Generation of the Iews had of the suffering of the last before the fatal destruction of the City or as Saul had of the punishment of his Sons after his death So that from Crellius his own concessions we have proved that our sins may very properly be said to be punished in Christ although he will not say that Christ could be properly punished for our sins nay he and the rest of our Adversaries not only deny it but earnestly contend that it is very unjust to suppose it and repugnant to the rectitude of Gods nature to do it And so we come to consider the mighty arguments that are insisted on for the proof of this which may be reduced to these three viz. 1. That there can be no punishment but what is deserved but no man can deserve that another should be punished 2. That punishment flows from revenge but there can be no revenge where there hath been no fault 3. That
was the reason of punishment his own or his fathers sins If his own then he was punished only for his own sins if his fathers then the punishment may be just which is inflicted without consideration of proper desert of it for no man say they can deserve to be punished but for his own sins But it 's said that the sins of Fathers are only an impulsive cause for God to punish the Children according to the desert of their own sins which he might otherwise have forborn to punish Then the sins of the Fathers are no reason why the Children should be punished but their own sins are the reason and their Fathers the bare occasion of being punished for them But in Scripture the reason of punishment is drawn from the Fathers sins and not from the Childrens For then the words would have run thus if the Children sin and deserve punishment by their own iniquities then I will take occasion from their Fathers sins to visit their own iniquities upon them Whereas the words refer to the Fathers sins as the reason of the Childrens punishment So in the words of the Law wherein the reason of punishment ought to be most expresly assigned it is not I will certainly punish the Children if they continue in the Idolatry of their Fathers but I will visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth Generation of them that hate me If it were only because of imitation of the Fathers sins by the Children there could be no reason for the limitation to the third and fourth Generation for then the reason of punishment would be as long as the imitation continued whether to the fourth or tenth Generation And as Alphonsus à Castro observes If the reason of punishment were the imitation of their Fathers sins then the Children were not punished for their Fathers sins but for their own for that imitation was a sin of their own and not of their Fathers Besides if the proper reason of punishment were the sins of the Children and the Fathers sins only the occasion of it then where it is mentioned that Children are punished for their Parents sins the Childrens sins should have been particularly expressed as the proper cause of the punishment But no other reason is assigned in the Law but the sins of the Fathers no other cause mentioned of Canaans punishment but his Fathers sin nor of the punishment of the people in Davids time but his own sin Lo I have sinned and I have done wickedly but these sheep what have they done Which is no hyperbolical expression but the assigning the proper cause of that judgement to have been his own sin as the whole Chapter declares Nor of the hanging up of Sauls sons by the Gibeonites but that Saul their Father had plotted their destruction And in an instance more remarkable than any of those which Crellius answers viz. the punishment of the people of Iudah for the sins of Manasses in the time of Iosias when a through Reformation was designed among them the Prince being very good and all the places of Idolatry destroyed such a Passover kept as had not been kept before in the time of any King in Israel yet it then follows Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Iudah because of all the provocations wherewith Manasses had provoked him withal Who can say here that the sins of Manasseh were only the occasion of Gods punishing the people in the time of Iosias for their own sins when their sins were much less in the time of Iosias than in any time mentioned before after their lapse into Idolatry Nay it is expresly said That Iosiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the Children of Israel and made all that were present in Isreal to serve even to serve the Lord their God And all his days they departed not from following the Lord God of their Fathers To say that this was done in hypocrisie and bare outward compliance is to speak without book and if the reason of so severe punishments had been their hypocrisie that ought to have been mentioned but not only here but afterwards it is said that the reason of Gods destroying Iudah was for the sins of Manasseh viz. his Idolatries and Murther which it is said the Lord will not pardon And if he would not pardon then he did punish for those sins not barely as the occasion but as the meritorious cause of that punishment What shall we say then Did the people in Iosiah's time deserve to be punished for the sins of Manasseh Grandfather to Iosiah Or was God so highly provoked with those sins that although he did not punish Manasseh himself upon his repentance yet he would let the world see how much he abhorred them by punishing those sins upon the people afterwards although according to the usual proportion of sins punishments the sins and of the people in that age did not exceed the sins of others ages as much as the punishments they suffered did exceed the punishments of other ages which is necessary according to Crellius his Doctrine for if God never punisheth by occasion of their Fathers sins the Children beyond the desert of their own sins then it is necessary that where judgements are remarkably greater the sins must be so too the contrary to which is plain in this instance By which we see that it is not contrary to the Justice of God in punishing to make the punishment of some on the account of others sins to exceed the desert of their own measuring that desert not in a way common to all sin but when the desert of some sins is compared with the desert of others For it is of this latter we speak of and of the method which God useth in punishing sin here for the demonstration of his hatred of it according to which the greatest punishments must suppose the greatest sins either of their own or others which they suffer for But hath not God declared That he will never punish the Children for the Fathers sins for the soul that sinneth it shall dye the son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father c. To which I answer These words are to be considered as an answer to a complaint made by the Iews soon after their going into Captivity which they imputed to Gods severity in punishing them for their Fathers sins Now the complaint was either true or false if it were true then though this was looked upon as great severity in God yet it was no injustice in him for though God may act severely he cannot act unjustly If it was false then the answer had been an absolute denial of it as a thing repugnant to the Justice of God Which we do not find here but that God saith
laid on him the iniquities of us all that through the eternal Spirit he offer'd himself without spot to God and did appear to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself that he was made a propitiation for our sins that he laid down his life as a price of Redemption for Mankind that through his blood we obtain Redemption even the forgiveness of sins which in a more particular manner is attributed to the blood of Christ as the procuring cause of it That he dyed to reconcile God and us together and that the Ministery of Reconciliation is founded on Gods making him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and that we may not think that all this Reconciliation respects us and not God he is said to offer up himself to God and for this cause to be a Mediator of the New Testament and to be a faithful high-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people and every high-Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God not appointed by God in things meerly tending to the good of men which is rather the Office of a Prophet than a Priest So that from all these places it may easily appear that the blood of Christ is to be looked on as a sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the World Not as though Christ did suffer the very same which we should have suffer'd for that was eternal death as the consequent of guilt in the person of the Offender and then the discharge must have been immediately consequent upon the payment and no room had been left for the freeness of remission or for the conditions required on our parts But that God was pleased to accept of the death of his Son as a full perfect sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the World as our Church expresseth it and in consideration of the sufferings of his Son is pleased to offer pardon of sin upon sincere repentance and eternal life upon a â—…y obedience to his will Thus much for the things we are to consider concerning the contradiction of sinners which Christ endured against himself Nothing now remains but the influence that ought to have upon us lest we be weary and faint in our minds For which end I shall suggest two things 1. The vast disproportion between Christs sufferings and ours 2. The great encouragement we have from his sufferings to bear our own the better 1. The vast Disproportion between Christs sufferings and our own Our lot is fallen into suffering times and we are apt enough to complain of it I will not say it is wholly true of us what the Moralist saith generally of the complaints of men Non quia dura sed quia molles patimur that it is not the hardness of our conditions so much as the softness of our spirits which makes us complain of them For I must needs say this City hath smarted by such a series and succession of judgements which few Cities in the world could parallel in so short a time The Plague hath emptied its houses and the fire consumed them the War exhausted our spirits and it were well if Peace recovered them But still these are but the common calamities of humane nature things that we ought to make account of in the World and to grow the better by them And it were happy for this City if our thankfulness and obedience were but answerable to the mercies we yet enjoy let us not make our condition worse by our fears nor our fears greater than they need to be for no enemy can be so bad as they Thanks be to God our condition is much better at present than it hath been let us not make it worse by fearing it may be so Complaints will never end till the World does and we may imagine that will not last much longer when the City thinks it hath trade enough and the Country riches enough But I will not go about to perswade you that your condition is better than it is for I know it is to no purpose to do so all men will believe as they feel But suppose our condition were much worse than it is yet what were all our sufferings compared with those of our Saviour for us the sins that make us smart wounded him much deeper they pierced his side which only touch our skin we have no cause to complain of the bitterness of that Cup which he hath drunk off the dreggs of already We lament over the ruins of a City and are revived with any hopes of seeing it rise out of the dust but Christ saw the ruins that sin caused in all mankind he undertook the repairing them and putting men into a better condition than before And we may easily think what a difficult task he had of it when he came to restore them who were delighted in their ruins and thought themselves too good to be mended It is the comfort of our miseries if they be only in this life that we know they cannot last long but that is the great aggravation of our Saviours sufferings that the contradiction of sinners continues against him still Witness the Atheism I cannot so properly call it as the Antichristianism of this present Age wherein so many profane persons act over again the part of the Scribes and Pharisees they slight his Doctrine despise his Person disparage his miracles contemn his Precepts and undervalue his Sufferings Men live as if it were in defiance to his holy Laws as though they feared not what God can do so much as to need a Mediator between him and them If ever men tread under foot the Son of God it is when they think themselves to be above the need of him if ever they count the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing it is not only when they do not value it as they ought but when they exercise their profane wits upon it Blessed Saviour was it not enough for thee to bear the contradiction of sinners upon Earth but thou must still suffer so much at the hands of those whom thou dyedst for that thou mightest bring them to Heaven was it not enough for thee to be betrayed on Earth but thou must be defied in Heaven Was it not enough for thee to stoop so low for our sakes but that thou shouldest be trampled on because thou didst it was the ignominious death upon the Cross too small a thing for thee to suffer in thy Person unless thy Religion be contemned and exposed to as much shame and mockery as thy self was Unhappy we that live to hear of such things but much more unhappy if any of our sins have been the occasion of them If our unsuitable lives to the Gospel have open'd the mouths of any against so
managed it with greater zeal than judgement who have asserted more than they needed to have done and made our Adversaries assert much less than they do And by this means have shot over their Adversaries heads and laid their own more open to assaults It is easie to observe that most of Socinus his Arguments are levelled against an opinion which few who have considered these things do maintain and none need to think themselves obliged to do it which is That Christ paid a proper and rigid satisfaction for the sins of men considered under the notion of debts and that he paid the very same which we ought to have done which in the sense of the Law is never called Satisfaction but strict payment Against this Socinus disputes from the impossibility of Christs paying the very same that we were to have paid because our penalty was Eternal death and that as the consequent of inherent guilt which Christ neither did nor could undergo Neither is it enough to say That Christ had undergone Eternal death unless he had been able to free himself from it for the admission of one to pay for another who could discharge the debt in much less time than the offenders could was not the same which the Law required For that takes no notice of any other than the persons who had sinned and if a Mediator could have paid the same the Original Law must have been disjunctive viz. That either the Offender must suffer or another for him but then the Gospel had not been the bringing in of a better Covenant but a performance of the old But if there be a relaxation or dispensation of the first Law then it necessarily follows that what Christ paid was not the very same which the first Law required for what need of that when the very same was paid that was in the obligation But if it be said That the Dignity of the person makes up what wanted in the kind or degree of punishment This is a plain confession that it is not the same but something equivalent which answers the ends of the Sanction as much as the same would have done which is the thing we contend for Besides if the very same had been paid in the strict sense there would have followed a deliverance ipso facto for the release immediately follows the payment of the same and it had been injustice to have required any thing further in order to the discharge of the Offender when strict and full payment had been made of what was in the obligation But we see that Faith and Repentance and the consequences of those two are made conditions on our parts in order to the enjoying the benefit of what Christ hath procured So that the release is not immediate upon the payment but depends on a new contract made in consideration of what Christ hath done and suffered for us If it be said That by Christs payment we become his and he requires these conditions of us besides the contrariety of it to the Scriptures which make the conditions to be required by him to whom the payment was made we are to consider that these very persons assert that Christ paid all for us and in our name and stead so that the payment by Christ was by a substitution in our room and if he paid the same which the Law required the benefit must immediately accrue to those in whose name the debt was paid For what was done in the name of another is all one to the Creditor as if it had been done by the Debtor himself But above all things it is impossible to reconcile the freeness of remission with the full payment of the very same which was in the obligation Neither will it serve to say That though it was not free to Christ yet it was to us For the satisfaction and remission must respect the same person for Christ did not pay for himself but for us neither could the remission be to him Christ therefore is not considered in his own name but as acting in our stead so that what was free to him must be to us what was exactly paid by him it is all one as if it had been done by us so that it is impossible the same debt should be fully paid and freely forgiven Much less will it avoid the difficulty in this case to say That it was a refusable payment for it being supposed to be the very same it was not in justice refusable and however not in equity if it answer the intention of the Law as much as the suffering of the offenders had done and the more it doth that the less refusable it is And although God himself found out the way that doth not make the pardon free but the designation of the person who was to pay the debt Thus when our Adversaries dispute against this opinion no wonder if they do it successfully but this whole opinion is built upon a mistake that satisfaction must be the payment of the very same which while they contend for they give our Adversaries too great an advantage and make them think they triumph over the Faith of the Church when they do it only over the mistake of some particular persons But the foundation of this mistake lies in the consideration of punishment under the notion of debts and that satisfaction therefore must be by strict payment in rigor of Law but how great that mistake is will appear in the subsequent discourse but it cannot but be wondred at that the very same persons who consider sins as debts which must be strictly satisfied for do withal contend for the absolute necessity of this satisfaction whereas Socinus his Arguments would hold good if sins were only considered as debts and God as the meer Creditor of punishment he might as freely part with his own right without satisfaction as any Creditor may forgive what summ he pleases to a person indebted to him and no reason can be brought to the contrary from that notion of sins why he may not do it But if they be considered with a respect to Gods Government of the world and the honour of his Laws then some further account may be given why it may not be consistent with that to pass by the sins of men without satisfaction made to them And because the mistake in this matter hath been the foundation of most of the subsequent mistakes on both sides and the discovery of the cause of errours doth far more to the cure of them than any Arguments brought against them and withal the true understanding of the whole Doctrine of satisfaction depends upon it I shall endeavour to make clear the notion under which our sins are considered for upon that depends the nature of the satisfaction which is to be made for them For while our Adversaries suppose that sins are to be looked on under the notion of debts in this debate they assert it
depends for if the sufferings of Christ be to be taken under the notion of punishment then our Adversaries grant that our sins must be an impulsive cause of them in another sense than they understand it For the clearing of this I shall prove these two things 1. That no other sense ought to be admitted of the places of Scripture which speak of the sufferings of Christ with a respect to sin but this 2. That this Account of the sufferings of Christ is no ways repugnant to the Iustice of God That no other sense ought to be admitted of the places of Scripture which speak of the sufferings of Christ with a respect to our sins but that they are to be considered as a punishment for them Such are those which speak of Christ hearing our sins of our iniquities being laid upon him of his making himself an offering for sin and being made sin and a curse for us and of his dying sor our sins All which I shall so far consider as to vindicate them from all the exceptions which Socinus and Crellius have offered against them 1. Those which speak of Christs bearing our sins As to which we shall consider First The importance of the phrase in general of bearing sin and then the circumstances of the particular places in dispute For the importance of the phrase Socinus acknowledges that it generally signifies bearing the punishment of sin in Scripture but that sometimes it signifies taking away The same is confessed by Crellius but he saith it doth not always signifie bearing proper punishment but it is enough he says that one bears something burdensome on the occasion of others sins and so Christ by undergoing his sufferings by occasion of sins may be said to bear our sins And for this sense he quotes Numb 14. 33. And your Children shall wander in the Wilderness forty years and bear your whoredoms untill your carcasses be wasted in the Wilderness Whereby saith he it is not meant that God would punish the Children of the Israelites but that by the occasion of their parents sins they should undergo that trouble in wandering in the Wilderness and being deprived of the possession of the promised Land But could Crellius think that any thing else could have been imagined setting aside a total destruction a greater instance of Gods severity than that was to the Children of Israel all their circumstances being considered Is it not said that God did swear in his wrath they should not enter into his rest Surely then the debarring them so long of that rest was an instance of Gods wrath and so according to his own principles must have something of Vindicta in it and therefore be a proper punishment The truth is our Adversaries allow themselves in speaking things most repugnant to Humane Nature in this matter of punishments that they may justifie their own hypothesis For a whole Nation to be for forty years debarred from the greatest blessings were ever promised them and instead of enjoying them to endure the miseries and hardships of forty years travels in a barren wilderness must not be thought a punishment and only because occasioned by their Parents sins But whatever is inflicted on the account of sin and with a design to shew Gods severity against it and thereby to deter others from the practice of it hath the proper notion of punishment in it and all these things did concur in this instance besides the general sense of mankind in the matter of their punishment which was such that supposing them preserved in their liberty could not have been imagined greater And therefore Vatablus whom Socinus and Crellius highly commend thus renders those words dabunt poenas pro fornicationibus vestris quibus defecistis a Deo vestro they shall suffer the punishment of your forications And that bearing the sins of Parents doth imply properly bearing the punishment of them methinks they should not so earnestly deny who contend that to be the meaning of the words in Ezekiel The Son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father viz. that he shall not bear the punishment of his Fathers sins Where in bearing iniquity with a respect to their Parents sins by their own confession must be taken for the proper punishment for otherwise they do not deny but Children notwithstanding that sentence may undergo much affliction on the occasion of their Parents sins But Socinus further objects that bearing sins doth not imply the punishment of them because the Scape-Goat under the Law is said to bear upon him the iniquities of the people and yet could not be said to be punished for them To which Grotius answers that Socinus takes it for granted without reason that the Scape-Goat could not be said to be punished for the sins of the people for punishment in general may fall upon beasts for the sins of men Gen. 9. 5. Exod. 21. 28. Lev. 20. 15. Gen. 8. 21. and Socinus hath no cause to say that the Scape-Goat was not slain for the Iewish Interpreters do all agree that he was and however the sending him into the Wilderness was intended as a punishment and most probably by an unnatural death To which Crellius replies That in the general he denies not but punishment may fall upon beasts as well as men but that he might shew himself true to his principle that one cannot be punished for anothers faults he falls into a very pleasant discourse That the Beasts are not said to be punished for mens sins but for their own and therefore when it is said before the flood that all flesh had corrupted his way he will by no means have it understood only of men but that the sins of the beasts at that time were greater than ordinary as well as mens But he hath not told us what they were whether by eating some forbidden herbs or eâ—…g into conspiracies against mankind their lawful Soveraigns or unlawful mixtures and therefore we have yet reason to believe that when God saith the ground was cursed for mans sake that the beasts were punished for mans sin And if all flâ—sh must comprehend be â—sts in this place why shall not all flesh seeing the glory of the Lord take in the beasts there too for Vâ—â—ablus parallels this place with the other But if saith Crellius any shall contend that some beasts at least were innocent then he saith that those though they were destroyed by the flood yet did not suffer punishment but only a calamity by occasion of the sins of men I wonder he did not rather say that the innocent beasts were taken into the Ark for the propagation of a better kind afterwards But by this solemn distinction of calamities and punishments there is nothing so miserable that either men or beasts can undergo but when it serves their turn it shall be only a calamity and no punishment though it
Psal. 102. 25. Ezra 1. 11. To which I answer 1. That the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place must not be taken from every sense the word is ever used so but in that which the words out of which these are taken do imply and in Isa. 53. 11. it doth not answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word which by the confession of all is never properly used for taking away but for bearing of a burden and is used with a respect to the punishment of sin Lament 5. 7. Our fathers have sinned and are not and we have born their iniquities where the same word is used so that the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here must depend upon that in Isaiab of which more afterward 2. Granting that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth answer sometimes to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet it makes nothing to Crellius his purpose unless he can prove that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth ever signifie the taking away a thing by the destruction of it for where it answers to that word it is either for the offering up of a Sacrifice in which sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is very frequently used as is confessed by Crellius and in that sense it is no prejudice at all to our cause for then it must be granted that Christ upon the Cross is to be considered as a sacrifice for the sins of men and so our sins were laid upon him as they were supposed to be on the Sacrifices under the Law in order to the expiation of them by the shedding their blood and if our Adversaries would acknowledge this the difference would not be so great between us or else it is used for the removal of a thing from one place to another the thing it self still remaining in being as 2 Sam. 21. 13. And he made Sauls bones to ascend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he took them away saith Crellius true but it is such a taking away as is a bare removal the thing still remaining the same is to be said of Iosephs bones Iosh. 24. 32. which are all the places where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used and although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be sometimes taken in another sense as Psal. 102. 25. yet nothing can be more unreasonable than such a way of arguing as this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Crellius signifies taking away we demand his proof of it is it that the word signifies so much of it self No that he grants it doth not Is it that it is frequently used in the Greek Version to render a word that properly doth signifie so No nor that neither But how is it then Crellius tells us that it sometimes answers to a word that signifies to make to ascend well but doth that word signifie taking away No not constantly for it is frequently used for a sacrifice but doth it at any time signifie so Yes it signifies the removal of a thing from one place to another Is that the sense then he contends for here No but how then why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used to render the same word that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though it signifies too a bare removal as Ezra 1. 11. yet Psal. 102. 25. it is used for cutting off 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Hebr. is make me not to ascend in the midst of my days But doth it here signifie utter destruction I suppose not but grant it what is this to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the LXX useth not that word here which for all that we know was purposely altered so that at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is far enough from any such signification as Crellius would fix upon it unless he will assert that Christs taking away our sins was only a removal of them from Earth to Heaven But here Grotius comes in to the relief of Crellius against himself for in his Notes upon this place though he had before said that the word was never used in the New Testament in that sense yet he there saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is abstulit for which he refers us to Heb. 9. 28. where he proceeds altogether as subtilly as Crellius had done before him for he tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Numb 14. 33. Deut. 14. 24. Isa. 53. 12. but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lev. 10. 17. Num. 14. 18. A most excellent way of interpreting Scripture considering the various significations of the Hebrew words and above all of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is here mentioned For according to this way of arguing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall signifie the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies all these and is rendred by them in the Greek Version so that by the same way that Grotius proves that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we can prove that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie to take away but to bear punishment nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the bearing punishment in the strictest sense Ezek. 16. 52 54. and bearing sin in that sense Ezek. 16. 58. Thou hast born thy lewdness and thy abominations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is more frequently used in this than in the other sense why shall its signifying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at any time make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be taken in the same sense with that Nay I do not remember in any place where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is joyned with sin but it signifies the punishment of it so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lev. 19. 8. to bear his iniquity Lev. 20. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bearing their iniquity in one verse is explained by being out off from among their people in the next And in the places cited by Grotius that Numb 14. 33. hath been already shewed to signifie bearing the punishment of sin and that Deut. 14. 24. is plainly understood of a Sacrifice the other Isa. 53. 12. will be afterwards made appear by other places in the same Chapter to signifie nothing to this purpose So that for all we can yet see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be taken either for bearing our sins as a sacrifice did under the Law or the punishment of them in either sense it serves our purpose but is far enough from our Adversaries meaning But supposing we should grant them that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie to take away let us see what excellent sense they make of these words of St. Peter Do they then say that Christ did take away our sins upon the Cross No they have a great care of that for that would make the
of kindness it must be there fore out of enmity and with a design to destroy him and so our sins cannot be understood as Socinus and Crellius would have them as the meer occasions of Christs death but as the proper impulsive cause of it Whether the following word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be taken with a respect to sin and so it properly signifies It is required or with a respect to the person and so it may signifie he was oppressed is not a matter of that consequence which we ought to contend about if it be proved that Christs oppression had only a respect to sin as the punishment of it Which will yet further appear from another expression in the same Chapter vers 5. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed In which Grotius saith the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie any kind of affliction but such as hath the nature of punishment either for example or instruction but since the latter cannot be intended in Christ the former must Crellius thinks to escape from this by acknowledging that the sufferings of Christ have some respect to sin but if it be such a respect to sin which makes what Christ underwent a punishment which is only proper in this case it is as much as we contend for This therefore he is loth to abide by and saith that chastisement imports no more than bare affliction without any respect to sin which he thinks to prove from St. Pauls words 2 Cor. 6. 9. We are chastised but not given over to death but how far this is from proving his purpose will easily appear 1. Because those by whom they were said to be chastened did not think they did it without any respect to a fault but they supposed them to be justly punished and this is that we plead for that the chastisement considered with a respect to him that inflicts it doth suppose some fault as the reason of inflicting it 2. This is far from the present purpose for the chastisement there mentioned is oposed to death as chastened but not killed whereas Grotius expresly speaks of such chastisements as include death that these cannot be supposed to be meerly designed for instruction and therefore must be conceived under the notion of punishment The other place Psal. 73. 14. is yet more remote from the business for though the Psalmist accounts himself innocent in respect of the great enormities of others yet he could not account himself so innocent with a respect to God as not to deserve chastisement from him But Crellius offers further to prove that Christs death must be considered as a bare affliction and not as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or exemplary punishment because in such a punishment the guilty themselves are to be punished and the benefit comes to those who were not guilty but in Christs sufferings it was quite contrary for the innocent was punished and the guilty have the benefit of it and yet he saith if we should grant that Christs sufferings were a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that will not prove that his death was a proper punishment To which I answer That whatever answers to the ends of an exemplary punishment may properly be called so but supposing that Christ suffered the punishment of our sins those sufferings will answer to all the ends of an exemplary punishment For the ends of such a punishment assigned by Crellius himself are That others observing such a punishment may abstain from those sins which have brought it upon the person who suffers Now the question is whether supposing Christ did suffer on the account of our sins these sufferings of his may deter us from the practice of sin or no And therefore in opposition to Crellius I shall prove these two things 1. That supposing Christ suffered for our sins there was a sufficient argument to deter us from the practice of sin 2. Supposing that his sufferings had no respect to our sins they could not have that force to deter men from the practice of it for he after asserts That Christs sufferings might be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to us though they were no punishment of sin 1. That the death of Christ considered as a punishment of sin is a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or hath a great force to deter men from the practice of sin and that because the same reason of punishment is supposed in Christ and in our selves and because the example is much more considerable than if we had suffered our selves 1. The same reason of punishment is supposed For why are men deterred from sin by seeing others punished but because they look upon the sin as the reason of the punishment and therefore where the same reason holds the same ends may be as properly obtained If we said that Christ suffered death meerly as an innocent person out of Gods dominion over his life what imaginable force could this have to deter men from sin which is asserted to have no relation to it as the cause of it But when we say that God laid our iniquities upon him that he suffered not upon his own account but ours that the sins we commit against God were the cause of all those bitter Agonies which the Son of God underwent what argument can be more proper to deter men from sin than this is For hereby they see the great abhorrency of sin which is in God that he will not pardon the sins of men without a compensation made to his Honor and a demonstration to the world of his hatred of it Hereby they see what a value God hath for his Laws which he will not relax as to the punishment of offenders without so valuable a consideration as the blood of his own Son Hereby they see that the punishment of sin is no meer arbitrary thing depending barely upon the will of God but that there is such a connexion between sin and punishment as to the ends of Government that unless the Honor and Majesty of God as to his Laws and Government may be preserved the violation of his Laws must expect a just recompence of reward Hereby they see what those are to expect who neglect or despise these sufferings of the Son of God for them for nothing can then remain but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the Adversaries So that here all the weighty arguments concur which may be most apt to prevail upon men to deter them from their sins For if God did thus by the green tree what will be do by the dry If he who was so innocent in himself so perfectly holy suffered so much on the account of our sins what then may those expect to suffer who have no innocency at all to plead and add wilfulness and impenitency to their sins But if it be replied by Crellius that it is otherwise
among men I answer that we do not pretend in all things to parallel the sufferings of Christ for us with any sufferings of men for one another But yet we add that even among men the punishments inflicted on those who were themselves innocent as to the cause of them may be as exemplary as any other And the greater appearance of severity there is in them the greater terror they strike into all offenders As Childrens losing their estates and honors or being banished for their Parents treasons in which they had no part themselves Which is a proper punishment on them of their Fathers faults whether they be guilty or no and if this may be just in men why not in God If any say that the Parents are only punished in the Children he speaks that which is contradictory to the common sense of mankind for punishment doth suppose sense or feeling of it and in this case the Parents are said to be punished who are supposed to be dead and past feeling of it and the Children who undergo the smart of it must not be said to be punished though all things are so like it that no person can imagine himself in that condition but would think himself punished and severely too If it be said that these are calamities indeed but they are no proper punishments it may easily be shewed that distinction will not hold here Because these punishments were within the design of the Law and were intended for all the ends of punishments and therefore must have the nature of them For therefore the Children are involved in the Fathers punishment on purpose to deter others from the like actions There are some things indeed that Children may fall into by occasion of their Fathers guilt which may be only calamities to them because they are necessary consequents in the nature of the thing and not purposely designed as a punishment to them Thus being deprived of the comfort and assistance of their Parents when the Law hath taken them off by the hand of justice this was designed by the Law as a punishment to the Parents and as to the Children it is only a necessary consequent of their punishment For otherwise the Parents would have been punished for the Childrens faults and not the Children only involved in that which unavoidably follows upon the Parents punishment So that Crellius is very much mistaken either in the present case of our Saviours punishment or in the general reason of exemplary punishments as among men But the case of our Saviour is more exemplary when we consider the excellency of his person though appearing in our nature when no meaner sufferings would satisfie than of so transcendent a nature as he underwent though he were the Eternal Son of God this must make the punishment much more exemplary than if he were considered only as our Adversaries do as a meer man So that the dignity of his person under all his sufferings may justly add a greater consideration to deter us from the practice of sin which was so severely punished in him when he was pleased to be a Sacrifice for our sins From whence we see that the ends of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are very agreeable with the sufferings of Christ considered as a punishment for sin We now consider whether as Crellius asserts supposing Christs death were no punishment it could have these effects upon mens minds or no Yes he saith it might because by his sufferings we might see how severely God would punish wicked and obstinate persons Which being a strange riddle at the first hearing it viz. that by the sufferings of an innocent person without any respect to sin as the cause of them we should discern Gods severity against those who are obstinate in sin we ought the more diligently to attend to what is said for the clearing of it First saith he If God spared not his own most innocent and holy and only Son than whom nothing was more dear to him in Heaven or Earth but exposed him to so cruel and ignominious a death how great and severe sufferings may we think God will inflict on wicked men who are at open defiance with him I confess my self not subtle enough to apprehend the force of this argument viz. If God dealt so severely with him who had no sin either of his own or others to answer for therefore he will deal much more severely with those that have For Gods severity considered without any respect to sin gives rather encouragement to sinners than any argument to deter them from it For the natural consequence of it is that God doth act arbitrarily without any regard to the good or evil of mens actions and therefore it is to no purpose to be sollicitous about them For upon the same account that the most innocent person suffers most severely from him for all that we know the more we strive to be innocent the more severely we may be dealt with and let men sin they can be but dealt severely with all the difference then is one shall be called punishments and the other calamities but the severity may be the same in both And who would leave off his sins meerly to change the name of punishments into that of calamities And from hence it will follow that the differences of good and evil and the respects of them to punishment and reward are but aiery and empty things but that God really in the dispensation of things to men hath no regard to what men are or do but acts therein according to his own Dominion whereby he may dispose of men how or which way he pleases If a Prince had many of his Subjects in open rebellion against him and he should at that time make his most obedient and beloved Son to be publickly exposed to all manner of indignities and be dishonoured and put to death by the hands of those rebels could any one imagine that this was designed as an exemplary punishment to all rebels to let them see the danger of rebellion No but would it not rather make them think him a cruel Prince one that would punish innocency as much as rebellion and that it was rather better to stand at defiance and become desperate for it was more dangerous to be beloved than hated by him to be his Son than his declared Enemy So that insisting on the death of Christ as it is considered as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for of that we speak now there is no comparison between our Adversaries hypothesis and ours but saith Crellius the consequence is not good on our side if Christ suffered the punishment of our sins therefore they shall suffer much more who continue in sin for Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world but they suffer only for their own and what they have deserved themselves To which I answer that the argument is of very good force upon our hypothesis
though it would not be upon theirs For if we suppose him to be a meer man that suffered then there could be no argument drawn from his sufferings to ours but according to the exact proportion of sins and punishments but supposing that he had a divine as well as humane nature there may not be so great a proportion of the sins of the world to the sufferings of Christ as of the sins of a particular person to his own sufferings and therefore the argument from one to the other doth still hold For the measure of punishments must be taken with a proportion to the dignity of the person who suffers them And Crellius himself confesseth elsewhere that the dignity of the person is to be considered in exemplary punishment and that a lesser punishment of one that is very great may do much more to deter men from sin than a greater punishment of one much less But he yet further urgeth that the severity of God against sinners may be discovered in the sufferings of Christ because Gods hatredagainst sin is discovered therein But if we ask how Gods hatred against sin is seen in the sufferings of one perfectly innocent and free from sin and not rather his hatred of innocency if no respect to sin were had therein he answers that Gods hatred against sin was manifested in that he would not spare his only Son to draw men off from sin For answer to which we are to consider the sufferings of Christ as an innocent person designed as an exemplary cause to draw men off from sin and let any one tell me what hatred of sin can possibly be discovered in proposing the sufferings of a most innocent person to them without any consideration of sin as the cause of those sufferings If it be said that the Doctrine of Christ was designed to draw men off from sin and that God suffered his Son to dye to confirm this Doctrine and thereby shewed his hatred to sin I answer 1. This is carrying the dispute off from the present business for we are not now arguing about the design of Christs Doctrine nor the death of Christ as a means to confirm that but as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what power that hath without respect to our sins as the cause of them to draw us from sin by discovering Gods hatred to it 2. The Doctrine of Christ according to their hypothesis discovers much less of Gods hatred to sin than ours doth For if God may pardon sin without any compensation made to his Laws or Honour if repentance be in its own nature a sufficient satisfaction for all the sins past of our Lives if there be no such thing as such a Justice in God which requires punishment of sin committed if the punishment of sin depend barely upon Gods will and the most innocent person may suffer as much from God without respect to sin as the cause of suffering as the most guilty let any rational man judge whether this Doctrine discovers as much Gods abhorrency of sin as asserting the necessity of vindicating Gods honour to the World upon the breach of his Laws if not by the suffering of the offenders themselves yet of the Son of God as a sacrifice for the expiation of sin by undergoing the punishment of our iniquities so as upon consideration of his sufferings he is pleased to accept of repentance and sincere obedience as the conditions upon which he will grant remission of sins and eternal life So that if the discovery of Gods hatred to sin be the means to reclaim men from it we assert upon the former reasons that much more is done upon our Doctrine concerning the sufferings of Christ than can be upon theirs So much shall suffice to manifest in what sense Christs death may be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that this doth imply that his sufferings are to be considered as a punishment of sin The next Series of places which makes Christs sufferings to be a punishment for sin are those which assert Christ to be made sin and a curse for us which we now design to make clear ought to be understood in no other sense for as Grotius saith As the Jews sometimes use sin for the punishment of sin as appears besides other places by Zach. 14. 19. Gen. 4. 13. so they call him that suffers the punishment of sin by the name of sin as the Latins use the word Piaculum both for the fault and for him that suffers for it Thence under the Law an expiatory Sacrifice for sin was called sin Levit. 4. 3 29 5. 6. Psal. 40. 7. Which way of speaking Esaias followed speaking of Christ Esai 53. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he made his soul sin i. e. liable to the punishment of it To the same purpose St. Paul 2 Cor. 5. 21. He made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him To which Crellius replies `` That as there is no necessity that by the name of sin when applied to sufferings any more should be implied than that those sufferings were occasioned by sin no more is there when it is applied to the person nay much less for he saith `` No more is required to this but that he should be handled as sinners use to be and undergo the matter of punishment without any respect to sin either as the cause or occasion of it So he saith The name Sinner is used 1 King 1. 21. and in St. Paul the name of sin in the first clause is to be understood as of righteousness in the latter and as we are said to be righteousness in him when God deals with us as with righteous persons so Christ was said to be sin for us when he was dealt with as a sinner And the Sacrifices for sin under the Law were so called not with a respect to the punishment of sin but because they were offered upon the account of sin and were used for taking away the guilt of it or because men were bound to offer them so that they sinned if they neglected it So that all that is meant by Esaias and St. Paul is That Christ was made an expiatory Sacrifice or that he exposed himself for those afflictions which sinners only by right undergo But let Crellius or any others of them tell me if the Scripture had intended to express that the sufferings of Christ were a punishment of our sins how was it possible to do it more Emphatically than it is done by these expressions the custom of the Hebrew Language being considered not only by saying that Christ did bear our sins but that himself was made sin for us those phrases being so commonly used for the punishment of sin Let them produce any one instance in Scripture where those expressions are applied to any without the consideration of sin that place 1
King 1. 21. is very far from it for in all probability the design of Bathsheba in making Solomon King was already discovered which was the reason that Adonijah his elder Brother declaring himself King invited not him with the rest of the Kings sons All that she had for Solomons succession was a secret promise and oath of David and therefore she urgeth him now to declare the succession v. 20. Otherwise she saith when David should dye I and my son Solomon shall be accounted offenders i. e. saith Crellius We shall be handled as offenders we shall be destroyed But surely not without the supposition of a fault by them which should inflict that punishment upon them The plain meaning is they should be accused of Treason and then punished accordingly But we are to consider that still with a respect to them who were the inflicters a fault or sin is supposed as the reason of their punishment either of their own or others But of our Saviour it is not said That he should be counted as an offender by the Iews for although that doth not take away his innocency yet it supposeth an accusation of something which in it self deserves punishment But in Esai 53. 10. it is said He made his soul sin and 2 Cor. 5. 21. That God made him sin for us which must therefore imply not being dealt with by men only as a sinner but that with a respect to him who inflicted the punishment there was a consideration of sin as the reason of it We do not deny but Gods suffering him to be dealt with as a sinner by men is implied in it for that was the method of his punishment designed but we say further that the reason of that permission in God doth suppose some antecedent cause of it For God would never have suffered his only Son to be so dealt with by the hands of cruel men unless he had made himself an offering for sin being willing to undergo those sufferings that he might be an expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the world And although Socinus will not yield That by being made sin for us should be understood Christs being an expiatory Sacrifice for sin yet Crellius is contented it should be so taken in both places Which if he will grant so as by vertue of that Sacrifice the guilt of sin is expiated we shall not contend with him about the reasons why those Sacrifices were called sins although the most proper and genuine must needs be that which is assigned by the Law that the sins of the people were supposed to be laid upon them and therefore they were intended for the expiation of them But it is very unreasonable to say That Expiatory Sacrifices were called sins because it would have been a sin to neglect them For on the same account all the other Sacrifices must have been called so too for it was a sin to neglect any where God required them and so there had been no difference between Sacrifices for sin and others To that reason of Crellius from our being made righteous because dealt with as such to Christs being made sin only because dealt with as a sinner we need no more than what this parallel will afford us For as Crellius would never say that any are dealt with as righteous persons who are not antecedently supposed to be so so by his own Argument Christ being dealt with as a sinner must suppose guilt antecedent to it and since the Apostle declares it was not his own in those words Who knew no sin it follows that it must be the consideration of ours which must make him be dealt with as a sinner by him who made him to be sin for us But to suppose that Christ should be said to be made sin without any respect to sin is as much as if the Latins should call any one Scelus and mean thereby a very honest man or a Piaculum without any supposition of his own or others guilt But we are to consider that the sufferings of Christ seeming at first so inconsistent with that relation to God as his only Son which the Apostles assert concerning him they were obliged to vindicate his innocency as to men and yet withal to shew that with a respect to God there was sufficient reason for his permission of his undergoing these sufferings That he knew no sin was enough to clear his innocency as to men but then the question will be asked If he were so innocent why did God suffer all those things to come upon him Did not Abraham plead of old with God That he would not slay the righteous with the wicked because it was repugnant to the righteousness of his nature to do so That be far from thee to do after this manner to slay the righteous with the wicked and that the righteous should be as the wicked that be far from thee shall not the Iudge of all the earth do right How then comes God to suffer the most perfect innocency to be dealt with so as the greatest sins could not have deserved worse from men Was not his righteousness the same still And Abraham did not think the distinction of calamities and punishments enough to vindicate Gods proceedings if the righteous should have been dealt withall as the wicked And if that would hold for such a measure of righteousness as might be supposed in such who were not guilty of the great abominations of those places that it should be enough not only to deliver themselves but the wicked too how comes it that the most perfect obedience of the Son of God is not sufficient to excuse him from the greatest sufferings of Malefactors But if his sufferings had been meerly from men God had been accountable only for the bare permission but it is said that he fore-ordained and determined these things to be that Christ himself complained that God had forsaken him and here that he made him sin for us and can we imagine all this to be without any respect to the guilt of sin as the cause of it Why should such an expression be used of being made sin might not many others have served sufficiently to declare the indignities and sufferings he underwent without such a phrase as seems to reflect upon Christs innocency If there had been no more in these expressions than our Adversaries imagine the Apostles were so careful of Christs honour they would have avoided such ill-sounding expressions as these were and not have affected Hebraisms and uncouth forms of speech to the disparagement of their Religion But this is all which our Adversaries have to say where words are used by them out of their proper sense that the Prophets and Apostles affected tricks of wit playing with words using them sometimes in one sense and presently quite in another So Crellius saith of Esaiah That he affects little elegancies of words and verbal allusions which makes him
unto them v. 3. Ye shall not have occasion any more to use this Proverb in Israel if the thing had been plainly unjust which they complained of he would have told them they never had occasion to use it But we find the Prophets telling them before hand that they should suffer for their Fathers sins Ierem. 15. 3 4 where he threatens them with destruction and banishment because of the sins of Manasseh in Ierusalem and in the beginning of the captivity they complain of this Lam. 5. 7. Our Fathers have sinned and are not and we have born their iniquities And Ierem. 31. 28. God saith by the Prophet that he had watched over them to pluckup and to pull down and to destroy and to afflict but that he would watch over them to build and to plant and in those days they shall say no more The Fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge but every one shall dye for his own iniquity Which place is exactly parallel with this in Ezekiel and gives us a clear account of it which is that now indeed God had dealt very severely with them by making them suffer beyond what in the ordinary course of his providence their sins had deserved but he punished them not only for their own sins but the sins of their Fathers But lest they should think they should be utterly consumed for their iniquities and be no longer a people enjoying the Land which God had promised them he tells them by the Prophets though they had smarted so much by reason of their Fathers sins this severity should not always continue upon them but that God would visit them with his kindness again and would plant them in their own Land then they should see no reason to continue this Proverb among them for they would then find Though their Fathers had eaten sowre grapes their teeth should not be always set on edge with it And if we observe it the occasion of the Proverb was concerning the Land of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 super terra Israel as the Chaldee Paraphrast renders it more agreeable to the Hebrew than the other Versions do So that the Land of Israel was the occasion of the Proverb by their being banished out of it for their Fathers sins Now God tells them they should have no more occasion to use this Proverb concerning the Land of Israel for they notwithstanding their Fathers sins should return into their own Land And even during the continuance of their captivity they should not undergo such great severities for the future but they should find their condition much more tolerable than they imagined only if any were guilty of greater sins than others they should themselves suffer for their own faults but he would not punish the whole Nation for them or their own posterity This I take to be the genuine meaning of this place and I the rather embrace it because I find such insuperable difficulties in other Interpretations that are given of it For to say as our Adversaries do That what God saith should not be for the future was repugnant to his nature and justice ever to do is to charge God plainly with injustice in what he had done For the Prophets told them they should suffer for the sins of their Fathers Which sufferings were the ground of their complaint now and the answer here given must relate to the occasion of the complaint for God saith They should not have occasion to use that Proverb Wherein is implied they should not have the same reason to complain which they had then I demand then Do not these words imply That God would not do for the future with them what he had done before if not the proper answer had been a plain denial and not a promise for the future he would not if they do then either God properly punished them for the sins of their Fathers and then God must be unjust in doing so or it was just with God to do it and so this place instead of overthrowing will prove that some may be justly punished beyond the desert of their own sins or else God did only take occasion by their Fathers sins to punish them according to the desert of their own iniquities But then they had no cause to complain that they were punished for any more than their own iniquities and withal then God doth oblige himself by his promise here never to punish men for the future by the occasion of others sins which is not only contrary to their own Doctrine but to what is plainly seen afterwards in the punishment of the Iews for their Fathers sins mentioned by our Saviour after this And if this be a certain rule of equity which God here saith that he would never vary from then the punishing of some on the occasion of others sins would be as unjust as our Adversaries suppose the punishing any beyond the desert of their own sins to be But is it not implyed that Gods ways would be unequal if he ever did otherwise than he there said he would do No it is not if by equal he meant just for his ways never were or can be so unequal but here if it be taken with a respect to the main dispute of the Chapter no more is implied in them but that they judged amiss concerning Gods actions and that they were just when they thought them not to be so or if at least they thought his ways very severe though just God by remitting of this severity would shew that he was not only just but kind and so they would find his ways equal that is always agreeable to themselves and ending in kindness to them though they hitherto were so severe towards them in their banishment and captivity Or if they be taken with a respect to the immediate occasion of them both Ezek. 18. 33. They do not relate to this dispute about Childrens suffering for their Fathers sins but to another which was concerning a righteous mans sinning and dying in his sins and a wicked mans repenting and living in his righteousness which were directly contrary to the common opinion of the Iews to this day which is that God will judge men according to the greatest number of their actions good or bad as appears by Maimonides and others Now they thought it a very hard case for a man who had been righteous the far greatest part of his time if he did at last commit iniquity that his former righteousness should signifie nothing but he must dye in his iniquity To this therefore God answers that it was only the inequality of their own ways which made them think Gods ways in doing so unequal This then doth not make it unequal for God either to punish men upon the occasion or by the desert of other mens sins supposing such a conjunction between them as there is in the same body of
That the effects of a proper Sacrifice for sin are attributed to it Which do either respect the sins committed and are then called Expiation and Remission or the persons who were guilty of them as they stand obnoxious to the displeasure of God and so the effect of them is Atonement and Reconciliation Now these we shall prove do most properly and immediately refer to the death of Christ and are attributed to it as the procuring cause of them and not as a bare condition of Christs entrance into Heaven or as comprehending in it the consequents of it I begin with the Expiation and Remission of sins as to which Socinus doth acknowledge That the great correspondency doth lie between Christs and the Legal Sacrifices We are therefore to enquire 1. What respect the Expiation of sins had to the Sacrifices under the Law 2. In what sense the Expiation of sins in attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ For the due explication of the respect which Expiation of sins had to the Legal Sacrifices we are to consider in what sense Expiation is understood and in what respect it is attributed to them For this we are to enquire into the importance of the several phrases it is set sorth by which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New all which are acknowledged by our Adversaries to have a peculiar respect to the Expiation made by a Sacrifice We shall begin with the former because Crellius objects this against Grotius That he imployed his greatest diligence in the explication of the Greek and Latin words for Expiation of sin and was contented only to say that the Hebrew words would bear the same signification Whereas saith he he ought to have proved that the Hebrew words do require that sense which he takes them in But by Crellius his leave Grotius took the best course was to be taken in words whose signification is so obscure as those are in the Hebrew Language For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being so very rarely used in Scripture in that which Socinus and Crellius contend to be the proper and natural signification of it viz. To hide or cover and so frequently in the sense of Expiation what better way could be taken for determining the sense of it as applied to Sacrifices than by insisting upon those words which are used in the New-Testament to the very same purpose that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in the old For they cannot pretend that which they say is the most proper sense can be applied to this subject viz. To cover with pitch or a bituminous matter which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 6. 14. therefore it must of necessity be taken in another sense here But Socinus contends That it ought to be taken in a sense most agreeable to that which is saith he that the Expiation of sin be nothing else but the covering of it by Gods grace and benignity Thence saith he David saith Blessed is the man whose iniquity is covered But how can this prove that the proper signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to sin is covering by Gods Grace when neither the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here used nor is there any respect at all mentioned of an Expiation by Sacrifice which is the thing we are discoursing of And is the covering of sin such an easie and intelligible phrase that this should be made choice of to explain the difficulty of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by What is it that they would have us understand by the covering sin surely not to make it stronger and more lasting as the Ark was covered with that bituminous matter for that end and yet this would come the nearest to the proper sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that from their own interpretation it appears that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to the expiation of sin by Sacrifices cannot be taken so much as in allusion to that other sense for their sense of Expiation is either by the destruction of sin or deliverance of the sinner from the punishment of it but what resemblance is there between the covering of a thing in order to its preservation and the making it not to be or at least destroying all the power of it But supposing we should grant that it hath some allusion to the sense of covering why must it necessarily be supposed to be done by the meer Grace of God as excluding all antecedent causes which should move to it would not the propriety of the sense remain as well supposing a moving cause as excluding it What should hinder but that God may be said as well to cover sin upon a Sacrifice as to forgive it and this is very frequently used upon a Sacrifice That the sin shall be forgiven But yet themselves acknowledge that the Sacrifices were conditions required in order to expiation if then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath an immediate respect to Gods immediate favour and benignity how comes it to be used where a condition is necessarily supposed in order to it Had it not been more agreeable to this benignity of God to have pardon'd sin without requiring any sacrifice for it than so strictly insisting upon the offering up Sacrifice in order to it and then declaring that the sin is expiated and it should be forgiven from hence we see that there is no necessity why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be used as applyed to sacrifices in a sense most agreeable to that of covering with pitch nor that it is not possible it should have such a sense when applyed to sins and withal that it is very consistent with an antecedent condition to it and therefore can by no means destroy satisfaction Yes saith Crellius it doth for expiation is explained in the Law by non-imputation Deut. 21. 8. Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whâ—m thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israels charge and the blood shall be forgiven them But not to impute saith he and to receive true and full satisfaction overthrow each other and so expiation being the same with that will overthrow it too To this I answer 1. I grant that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here used both as applyed to God and to the sin and that the sense of it is used as to the people when the prayer is that God would not lay it to their charge which is the same with expiating of it 2. We are to consider what the foundation of this Prayer was viz. the slaying of the Heifer for expiation of the uncertain murder and when the Elders had washed their hands over the head of the Heifer then they were to protest their own innocency and to use this prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expiate thy people Israel c. i. e.