the Law had promised to such Obedience 1. Now in order to our making good our first Proposition we must examine what Qualifications are absolutely necessary in order to fit any one to make such Purchase and then enquire farther Whether such Qualifications either do or can belong to any other besides our Saviour alone 1. Now the first and leading Qualification in him who shall be fitted for the Purchase of a Release from the Penalty of the Law which they have incurred who transgress the Law is that he who makes such a Purchase must be one of the same Kind with them to whom the Law was given that is in the present Case must be a Man For the Law was given to Man was broke by Man and therefore also the Breach of it in the Congruity of Things and by the Laws of Common Sense and Justice is to be punished in Man Now tho' our Saviour was not the only Person in the World who had this Qualification for every Man besides is as real a Man as he was yet he was the only Man among all Mankind who by this Qualification was fitted for the effectual enterprising and bring to pass those other Things which are absolutely necessary for the Purchase of the Release spoken of 2. For secondly The next Qualification of him who is fitted for the Purchase of a Release from the Penalty of the Law is that he must be an Innocent Man He was to be a Lamb without Spot or Blemish and to answer to the Paschal Lamb which in this as in several other Things was a Type of that Lamb of God which should take away the Sins of the World For he who is qualified to suffer for others in order to release those others from the Penalty of Sin must not therefore be a Sinner himself because if he be so then he must by the Laws of Justice and even according to the Tenor of that Law which assigns such Penalty suffer the Penalty for his own Sin And he who suffers the Penalty of the Law for his own Sin cannot therefore suffer the Penalty of the Law for the Sin of others at least in the present Case he cannot because the Penalty of the Law upon the Transgression of it being the loss of Life his own Penalty exhausts the whole Stock or Possibility of his so suffering For he who has but one Life and no Man has more can pay that Life but once And therefore if he lays it down for his own Sin he must for that Reason have nothing remaining to lay down for the Sin of others 3. He who is duely qualified to purchase for Mankind a Release from the Penalty of their Sins must be a Man whose Life is of more value than the Lives of all the rest And the Reason for it is plain and obvious because we know that the Lives of all the rest can make no such Purchase And the Lives of all the rest cannot therefore make any such Purchase because the Death of no single Man can make such a Purchase for himself For what no single Man's Death can do for himself that the Death of all Men cannot do for all For there is just the same Proportion between all Men and the Death of all that there is between one Man and the Death of one Besides supposing a Man to be a Transgressor of the Law it looks very absurd to affirm that the Death of such a Man which is the Punishment of his Transgression can be the Purchase of his Release from such Punishment For then the self-same Thing and that is his Death will bear a quite contrary Character for it will be both the Wages of his Sin and the Purchase of his Ransom that is it will be the Vengeance of the Law and the meritorious Cause of his Freedom from the same Vengeance Every Sinner therefore against the Law must be a Sufferer under the Vengeance of the Law and that Law which adjudges those who transgress it to Death does not by so doing design to return them to Life For if it did then by inflicting its Sentence it must design to revoke that Sentence and by making the Punishment a Release from the Punishment must look like Trifling and not like Justice The Loss of no Sinner's Life then is of Value sufficient to put a Period to the Execution of that Sentence which the Law pronounces against those who do transgress it And every Man's Death in the Course of the Law had been eternal were there nothing else to remove it but his own Strength that is in the present Case but his own Death For if the Death of a dead Man can do nothing for him we are sure that no other of his Powers or Merits can For in the Case before us he can have no other Merits of his own to restore him to Life but the Merits of his Death and the Merits of his Death as we have seen are none at all And to expect any Relief from a dead Man's Powers is to expect Relief from no Powers at all for Death crushes all the Powers of all Men whom it seizes Now this being the Condition of all Men who die because they are Sinners we may from hence safely conclude That if any Man who is not a Sinner shall undertake by his own Death to make good the Ransom of all the rest from Death and after that shall make good his Undertaking I say if any Man shall do this we may be sure that his Death or his Life which you will is therefore of more Value than the Life or Death of all the rest because he does by it make that Purchase which all the rest could not do by theirs For in the present Case the Value of the Thing may be truly and justly estimated by the Possibility of the Purchase it can make because the Possibility of the Purchase depends upon the Allowance of the Great and Just God And then when God is willing to release Man from Death in Consideration of the Death of his Innocent Saviour and when he is not so in Consideration of sinful Man 's own Death and when he does professedly declare such his Will in many Places of his Word and by the repeated Attestations of Matter of Fact whereby several People have been raised from the Dead in the Name and by the professed Power of the Saviour I say when we find all these Things to be so as we do or at least easily may find them so to be we may from the Whole conclude That the Death of our Saviour is of more Value than the Death of all Mankind because it can do that which the Death of all the rest cannot do and that too by the Allowance of God himself Now from these Propositions so laid down we may therefore conclude That there is not Salvation in any other but only in our Saviour set forth in the Gospel 1. Because it was absolutely necessary in Justice that the
Life he laid it down in our stead so also that when he took it up again he took up with it the Lives of all those who by the Conditions of the New Covenant shall have an Interest in such his Death And therefore as our Christianity does acquaint us that they who live to Christ do live by the Spirit so St. Paul to our present purpose does tell us in the Eighth to the Romans ver 11. that if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead do dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you In a Word Christ is our Head and we are his Members and because he and we do make up one Body and because as Members of such his Body we are quickned by his Spirit therefore we may confirm our own Resurrection by his And therefore as he is called the First-born from the Dead in the First to the Colossians ver 18. so we are called the Children of the Resurrection in the Twentieth of St. Luke ver 36. So that a good Man from the Certainty of his Saviour's Resurrection from Death to Glory and Immortality may safely conclude his own may lie down in his Grave as securely as in his Bed and when the Morning of the Great Day shall down forth may be more secure of rising again and putting on his Body than he can be that he shall rise on the Morrow-morning and put on his Clothes For for the first he has the Security of Truth and Omnipotence but for the last he has only the Promises of his own Presumption or at the very best but of his Hope 4. As the Faithful shall in Consideration of our Saviour's Death and Resurrection obtain their own Resurrection from Death to Life so the Life which by such their Resurrection they shall obtain shall be Life Eternal This is express Scripture and a Christian may therefore be satisfied in and assured of its Truth For our Saviour himself tells us as much when giving an Account of the Last Judgment he closes such Account in the Last Verse of the Twenty fifth Chapter of St. Matthew with these Words And these shall go into everlasting Punishment and then follows that which is directly to our present Purpose But the Righteous into Life Eternal And Reason tells us that so it must needs be because where the Cause of all Death whatsoever is taken away there the Possibility of Death must be taken away too unless we should imagine that Death should be brought upon a Rational Creature subject to Law without any meritorious Cause of Death at all But as we have often laid it down and proved it already that cannot be supposed in the present Case because the Death we now speak of is supposed to come from God's Justice and the Justice of God cannot either truly or rationally be supposed to inflict Death there where there is no Desert of it Now we therefore know that the meritorious Cause of Death is Sin because we know that the Wages of Sin is Death If therefore as we have already seen the Sin of the Faithful be taken away by the Expiation and if upon their Resurrection they obtain an indefectible Holiness the Inference will be That the Cause of Death Sin will upon the first Account be cancelled and blotted out and that upon the last Account it cannot be renewed or restored and that therefore upon both Accounts in conjunction Death the Wages of Sin can never more return And then when a Life restored is secured from all possible return of Death we may be sure that such Life so restored must be Eternal And agreeable to what we now say St. Paul tells us in the Third to the Philippians the last Verse that our Saviour whom we look for from Heaven shall change our vile Body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious Body according to the mighty working whereby he is able even to subdue all Things unto himself Now we know that when our Saviour appeared to St. Paul that is to that very Apostle who tells us these Things he does expresly affirm to King Agrippa in the Twenty sixth of the Acts that the Light of the Appearance was above the Brightness of the Sun and yet the Context will tell us that the Appearance was made about Mid-day And perhaps our Saviour's Transfiguration on the Mount was a Proleptick Discovery of that Glory with which his Body was to be cloathed upon his Ascent into Heaven the Mount of God But be that as it will yet to our Purpose If the Bodies of the Saints shall be fashioned like unto his glorious Body then it will be no improbable Conclusion That they shall with that Glory put on an Immortal Frame and Constitution And this Conclusion will then advance from Probable to Certain when we know that the same Apostle does acquaint us not only that our Body which is sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory but over and above that this Corruptible must put on Incorruption and that this Mortal must put on Immortality Much more might be offered on this Subject but from what has been glanced at we may now perceive that our Body in imitation of our Saviour's Body shall after its Resurrection be indued with a glorious Frame and an immortal Constitution that it shall be done by his Power as it shall in Consideration of his Merit that the Power that shall do it is able to subdue all Things to it self that is is Omnipotent And then where we have the Promise of Truth and the Power of Omnipotence to secure to us an Eternal Life there we can have no Reason to doubt the Eternity of such Life The Second Thing should now in Order follow which is to shew wherein the Happiness of such Eternal Life does consist But before we speak to that I shall lay down two or three Practical Considerations which as they look back to what has been spoken already so will be no improper Introduction to those Things which are to follow 1. And first We should be sensible of and grateful for that blessed Provision that our Lord and Saviour has made for our Everlasting Happiness and Security And this we should so much the rather be because by what has been said we may now understand that such Provision does fully answer to our highest natural Desires and Inclinations For our Anxiety for our own Welfare will tell us that among all the several Appetites by which we pursue after our own Happiness our Desire of Life does hold the first and chief Place with us And the Reason is plain because the Loss of Life must needs be followed by the Loss of all other Enjoyments whatsoever that can in any wise conduce to our Happiness And as we are told by our Common Sense that our grand and topping Appetite is that of Life so we are told by the same
better a Title to Obedience than our suffering such Punishment could have done had that Punishment not been forgiven And it looks absurd at first view that Guilt should consist in the neglect of Obedience and that Punishment should be the Desert and therefore in Justice the Effect of our Guilt and yet that Obedience should be the Effect of our Punishment That is that Guilt after one Remove should be the proper and in a manner natural because just Cause of Duty But we may be therefore sure that it is no such matter because we are told by God himself that there is a Punishment after this Life which shall be Eternal which yet would be impossible if the suffering of Punishment were equivalent to a perfect Obedience to the Directions of the Law Which because for the Reason alledged and for more that might be alledged it cannot be therefore neither can the Forgiveness of such Punishment be so For it is evident that the Forgiveness of our Punishment can do no more towards the making us obedient than the Punishment it self could do should we undergo it And therefore the Pardon of our Sins for the Sake of our Saviour's having suffered in our stead does not of it self suppose us to have fulfilled the Directions of the Law 3. The Forgiveness of our Sins does imply nothing more in it than our Freedom from that Vengeance which the Law has threatned and which we have deserved by our Transgression of the Directions of it and so does only free us from the vindictive Part of the Law But does not for that Reason entitle us to those Rewards which the Law promises to those who obey its Directions Now it is a very different Thing to be barely freed from the Vengeance of the Law and to be entitled to the Promises of the Law because the Case may really so be put as that a Man may obtain a Release in the First Case and yet never be entitled to or possess the Promise in the Last And in all Cases let them be what they will yet still we are certain that the First can only in Reason nay in Nature belong to those who have transgressed the Law and that the Last can only in strictness of Law belong to those who have obeyed the Law And therefore that the First can be only Matter of Favour whereas the Last may be Matter of Right Now if there be any Difference in the Two Cases then let that Difference be lodged where it will yet we are from thence assured that the Cases are not the same and therefore neither can the Forgiveness of our Sins upon the Account of our Saviour's suffering the Vengeance of the Law in our stead be any Argument that we have fulfilled the Directions of the Law And therefore tho' it be affirmed by several Learned Men that we are sufficiently entitled to Eternal Happiness by the bare Pardon of our Sins in Consideration of our Saviour's Sufferings and that for this Reason because when we are treated by God with Impunity we are at the same time treated as Innocents and that he who is treated as an Innocent by God himself who cannot be mistaken in the Case must therefore needs be so Yet these Men as they do not sufficiently distinguish between an Innocent and a Saint so neither do they between Impunity and a Reward For tho' our Saviour's Sufferings are meritorious of a Reward to himself and so the Scriptures tell us yet they are only expiatory to us and that too in the Nature of the Thing For the utmost Design the natural Tendency and the only Business of an Expiation is to obtain an Impunity for such who have deserved and therefore must in Justice without such an Expiation suffer Punishment But neither Scripture Reason or Justice will tell us that a Purchase of Impunity from the Vengeance due to the Transgressors of the Law can be a Purchase of that Reward that is only due to Obedience to the Law In one Word Reward and Punishment derive not only from different but from contrary Principles And Impunity has and that too in the Nature of the Thing a Respect or Relation only to Punishment but none at all to Reward And for that Reason the meritorious Cause of Impunity can have no Concern with Reward neither Since then the Death of our Saviour is the meritorious Cause of Pardon to those who have transgressed the Law it is absurd in Nature and Reason to make it also the meritorious Cause of that Reward which as it supposes no need of Pardon so does by the Law only belong to those who have obeyed the Law So that an Expiation does at the most but make a Man Innocent but does nothing to make him a Saint For it only cancels his Neglect of Duty but does not do that Duty for him which he has neglected By all which it appears 1. That Reward does in Propriety and Justice only belong to Obedience to the Law 2. That Punishment does in Propriety and Justice only belong to the Transgression of the Law 3. That Expiation has no Relation to the Reward of Obedience but that it only concerns that Punishment which without such Expiation is in Justice due to Disobedience Now because God has taught us not only that our Sins shall be forgiven in and through our Saviour but that also in and through the same Saviour we shall obtain a glorious Reward And because as has appeared in general Reward does in Reason and Justice as properly belong to Duty and Obedience as Forgiveness does to Expiation Therefore our next Enquiry must be upon what Obedience such Reward is grounded For we are very sure that because the Distribution of such Reward is lodged in God's Hand therefore the Reward will be bestowed justly and because we are sure of that therefore we are farther assured that it will be conferr'd upon Duty and Obedience And indeed having in what went before seen what Provision God has made for the fulfilling the Vindictive Part of the Law in order to the Possibility and Justice of Man's Salvation and being satisfied that that Provision which he has made for that purpose will not also fulfil the Directive Part of the Law it must be our next Business to enquire what Provision he has made for the fulfilling of such Directive Part. For 1. In the first place We may therefore be certain that it shall be fulfilled one way or other because the Law being God's is in it self Holy Just and Good And we know and that too by the Light of Nature that it cannot be an indifferent Thing to the Ever-wise and most Holy Law-giver whether a Law which is so be obeyed or not For that would be in effect to cast off all Regard to Duty Holiness and Righteousness Nay which is yet more because every just Law must for that Reason even because it is just design the Obedience of them for whom it is made I say because it
their own a Kingdom of Darkness and Wickedness in plain English a Kingdom made up of such Creatures who by their Sin and Wickedness did rebel against and revolt from their Holy and Rightful Lord and King All this being Matter of Fact is expresly discovered to us by the Revelations of God And the History of Man's Fall recorded in his Word with the Account that we there meet with of the Devils Kingdom of his Servants and Subjects of his Slaves and Captives of his Wars against the Holy Angels the faithful Subjects of the True and Everliving King do afford us a very lively Description of the Thing And because no Christian who is but tolerably acquainted with the Revelations of God in his Holy Word can possibly be a Stranger to it therefore we have thought it less necessary to quote the several Texts which by being put regularly together will give us an exact and Historical Account of it And indeed we have so much the less need to do so because we shall be farther and more fully satisfied in it by those Things which are to follow Well then Things standing in this State God was pleased to send his Son his Beloved Son made of a Woman made under the Law made Man to be a Saviour a Redeemer a Light to Mankind that is he sent him in Man's Nature to guide and direct to save and redeem Man from that Condition into which he was brought by his Sin and Rebellion What that Saviour did in order to the obtaining of such Salvation we have seen already and what is to be done in order to the everlasting Continuance of such Salvation is to be enquired now As therefore it was one Part of God's Counsel in sending his Son to Mankind to expiate their Sins so it was another and indeed the main and grand Design of such his Message to rescue them from their Slavery to Sin and from their Subjection to Satan and so to bring them back to his own Kingdom and to resettle them under the Jurisdiction of his own most holy Dominion For it is a very great Mistake which I am apt to believe has proceeded chiefly from our oversondness of our selves to think that God's chief Design in sending our Saviour was to free us from the Vengeance due to our Sins thereby vainly imagining that God has a greater Concern for our Impunity than he has for our Holiness and that he had rather we should be safe than that we should be good Whereas our Reason will tell us that God must needs love Holiness as he loves himself because he himself is if I may so speak Essential Holiness And then the same Reason will tell us that he must needs love himself better than he loves our Safety and that more especially when we our selves by slighting and neglecting of Holiness had betrayed such our Safety As therefore Man did by his Compliance with the Devil that is by his Sin expose himself to the Prosecutions of God's Vengeance and as he did by the same Means so far forth revolt from his Dominion and withdraw himself from his Jurisdiction as to become the Subject of Satan and Slave of Sin by which Means God was ousted of his Natural and Original Right to Man's Obedience and his Subjects so far forth drawn of from their Allegiance to him as to slight his Authority by slighting his Laws and to fight against him by opposing his Holiness so when the Hostilities were come to this pass that Man did fight against God by his Sins and that God did fight against Man by his Justice tho' God in order to a Reconcilation sent his Son into the World and by him a Proclamation of Pardon to all who should return to their Duty yet our Reason nay our Common Sense will tell us that the Restoration of God's just Right and Dominion by Man's Return to Holiness and Duty is in it self a Point of greater moment than Man's Pardon And therefore by the Tenor of that very Covenant in which the Articles of Reconciliation are contained it is stipulated that Man shall first be obliged to repent and return before God shall be obliged to forgive And we know that our Saviour himself in that Prayer which he taught his Disciples and in them all Christians does put that Petition Thy Kingdom come before that by which we pray that God would forgive our Trespasses Why all the Nations of the Earth are before him but as the Drop of the Bucket or the small Dust of the Balance And then can we think that his Honour and Natural Right is not to be consulted before Man's Safety It cannot be and because it cannot therefore we do conclude that tho' God did design the Pardon of Man's Sin by a Saviour yet for all that the grand and principal Design of sending him who was to be that Saviour was the bringing Man from a State of Sin to a State of Holiness the purchasing to himself a peculiar People zealous of good Works or as it is in the Fifth to the Ephesians ver 27. a glorious Church not having Spot or Wrinkle or any such Thing and thereby restoring to God so much of that Part of his Dominion which by the Temptation of the Devil and by Man's Revolt had been broke off from his Kingdom and which was willing upon the Gospel-Conditions the Proclamation of Pardon to be restored again to it Now from what has been spoken I would infer That it is a great Mistake to make the Sending of our Saviour in its first principal and grand Design to be the Pardon of Sin For as Obedience to the Law is the first and principal Design of the Law and as Punishment is but a secondary Design of the Law and is only grounded upon the Defeat of its grand and principal Design So Pardon of Sin in the very Nature of the Thing it self depending only upon the Desert of Punishment can therefore rise no higher than its Fountain and therefore can at the most be but a secondary Cause of our Saviour's Coming And therefore should we suppose God to pardon Sin tho' in and through our Saviour without any Regard had to the fulfilling of the Directive that is of the grand and principal Part of the Law we should by that means suppose him to break the Directive Part of the Law in order to his contradicting the Vindictive Part that is we should suppose him to break both Parts of the Law in order to such a Pardon For Veracity is one Branch of Holiness and when God tells Man in his Law that upon his Transgression he should surely die as we may perceive by the manner of the Delivery that the Denunciation is serious and solemn not only because it is backed with an Asseveration but because also it is incorporated into the Law so to tell us that God may by a Pardon that has no Regard to the Directive Part of the Law revoke such his solemn Threat
that very Question which they alone have made a Question viz. Whether Jesus Christ died for the Sins of Men I say they would alter it into another Question neither fit to be disputed nor possible to be determined by short-sighted Men viz. What God can do and what God cannot do Whereas it is sufficient for us to take Things as we find them and if we find that Things in the present Case are so ordered by God and that he tells us that they are so as that sinful Man shall not obtain Redemption but only by the Merits and Death of Jesus Christ their Saviour I say if God tells us and that too by repeated Declarations that Things in the present Case are so ordered we ought to acquiesce in such his Declarations and not employ our Vanity or Curiosity for it can in no sober Sense be call'd our Reason in enquiring Whether much less in determining that they might or might not have been better ordered But of this more hereafter At present therefore and in the first place we shall take the Matter of Fact to be just as the Scriptures have in most plain and express Words told us it is That Jesus Christ died for our Sins that he died to save Sinners c. And then by comparing this Matter of Fact with other the Methods of the Divine Proceedings in the like Cases see if it will not afford us a very plausible Argument of the Truth laid down That there is not Salvation in any other Now if we carry our Observation through any other the Transactions of the Divine Love and Mercy that do design to entitle Men to the same Salvation we shall find that God does never make use of extraordinary Means where the ordinary are sufficient And therefore when the Lord himself appeared to Saul in his Journey to Damascus we find that the Design and Effect of that Vision was to refer him to Ananias for Instructions in his Duty And so when the Angel appeared to Cornelius the Business of his Message was only to direct him to Peter that so Peter might by the ordinary Means of Grace direct him into the Way of Salvation And when Men have Moses and the Prophets it will therefore concern them in Duty and Interest to hear them because in such Case God will not convince them by raising one from the Dead In short as it is not the Method of the Divine Proceedings so neither is it of Wisdom it self to let the Measure of the Means exceed in their Proportion to the designed End And in any Case whatsoever where less Cost or Labour is sufficient there common Prudence will by no means allow and much less approve our Drudgery or Profuseness Now to bring what we have said to our present purpose Since our Saviour for the Establishment of the Gospel-Covenant did actually take upon him Our Flesh and in that Flesh suffer it will afford us no slight Argument that That Covenant could not have been established upon more easie Conditions because our common Reason does assure us that all Excess of Performance in the Case would have been Superfluity And our Religion and Modesty does forbid us to fasten any such Imputation upon the Divine Counsels and Actions And here we may well put Abraham's Question Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right And when by the purpose of his Mercy he determined to rescue faln Man from Sin and Misery shall he reject the Son of his Bosom and expose him to all sorts of Misery in this World and to Violence and Barbarity in his Departure out of it when the Ransom might have been made at a cheaper Rate Certainly the Love of God is not so narrow and stinted but that he both could and would have extended it to his lost Creatures and yet at the same time not have removed it from his only and beloved Son if Justice and Wisdom had allowed him so to do But then because he himself tells us that he did otherwise and because we know that what he tells us must be true as well as that what he does is just and holy therefore the Conclusion that fairly offers it self is That nothing less than the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God could in Wisdom and Justice have brought about the designed Redemption To which we shall in short add That it is one of the certain Characters of the True God that he brings his Purposes to pass by the best wisest and most proper Means And now having thus opened our Way to our main Design by these few Reflexions on the Matter of Fact as it is laid down most expresly in the Scriptures We shall in what follows go on to consider the Merits of the Cause and that we shall do by examining Whether or no Mankind had not brought themselves into so forlorn a Condition by their Sin that there does not appear in Justice any probable or indeed any possible Way for their Salvation but only by the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God And that there did not will I presume appear when we have considered and confirmed the following Propositions whereof the First is That Misery and Death or in one word that Vengeance is as the Just so also the Necessary Wages of Sin And here before we begin to prevent as much as possible all Objections that may be started against what we shall deliver we must desire the Reader to take notice that we do at present only make it our Business to measure the Equity of the Punishment of Sin by the exact and rigorous Laws of Justice That is we do as we must if we will do right conceive Things in that State in which they had stood had the Son of God never been designed for the Saviour of the World For because our Business at present is to enquire what would have become of sinful Man if the Son of God had not interposed for his Rescue therefore we stand obliged at present to take other Measures in accounting for the Proceedings of the Divine Justice than what our Experience acquaints us with in this World For while we live here we come within the Compass and so enjoy the Benefit of that Relaxation of the Law which was the Purchase of our Saviour's Merits and therefore we cannot truly pass a Judgment upon the exact Proceedings of the Divine Justice from the Contemplations of those Proceedings of Justice which we see in this World and which upon that account come within the compass of that Relaxation To know therefore whether the Incarnation Life and Death of our Saviour were necessary for Man's Redemption we must enquire what had become of sinful Man if the Son of God had not become his Saviour And if upon that Enquiry it shall appear that Vengeance without any Remedy had been his Portion then it will also appear at least a probable Conclusion for we shall adventure no farther because we are utter Strangers to the