supposing this be true the inference of his being only a Metaphorick Priest is not to be avoided and consequently all the Texts where he is any wayes stiled a Priest are to be understood only Metaphorically For if his Priestly and Kingly Offices be not distinct either his Regal Office must be reduced to and included in his Sacerdotal which our Author will not affirm and if he should he would only gain by it the making Christ a Metaphorick King instead of a Metaphorick Priest or else his Sacerdotal Office must belong to and be included in his Regal being only a readiness to exercise that Authority and Power for his Church which as a King appertains to Him And if so then those innumerable places of Scripture which report Christ to be a Priest to have given himself a Sacrifice to God for us to have expiated Sin to have made atonement and to have rendred God propitious are every one of them Metaphorical I have insisted the longer on this Opinion of Mr. Sherlock concerning Christs Priestly Office being only a different part and administration of his Mediatory Kingdome 1 st to make it appear that by Charging Socinianism upon some of our late pretended Rational Divines we do not transform them into any thing but what they are The truth of the imputation rather than the foulness seems to be that which makes them angry As the Historian tels us of Tiberius that he was both the readier to believe the more offended at something which was said of Him because it was the true report of his guilt so I wish it were not as much the Justness as the Odiousness of the Character of Socinian which renders some men stingy But 2 ly the main reason of my insisting upon these passages was to demonstrate that whereas they arraign the Non-Conformists for turning the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors the crime lodgeth especially with themselves and that the principles which they have Espoused are not otherwise defensible but by turning the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors So that here Clodius accusat maechos And providing Mr. Sherlock will abide by his Notion That the Offices of Prophet Priest and King are not properly distinct Offices in Christ I do here undertake to prove by easy trains of deduction that for one Text capable of a proper sense which the Phanaticks pervert by imposing a Metaphorick one upon it he lyes under a necessity if he will preach or write consequentially to his Tenets of wresting twenty in the same manner § 10. But this is not the only opinion imbib'd by our Author which I impeach as pregnant with this mischief His Notion of Justification being attended with the same inconvenience nor is it any ways maintainable but by perverting innumerable Texts from their plain and natural sense to a Metaphorick In the prosecution of this Charge I shall first give a true representation of his thoughts about Justification and then endeavour to demonstrate that besides what else lyes against him it is accompanied with this fatal unhappiness of turning a great part of the Bible into meer insignificant and empty Metaphors His sentiments then in reference to Justification are these That we are only Justified by our believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ. That the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his life have no other Influence upon our acceptance with God but that to them we owe the Covenant of Grace That is God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christs life and the sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a New Covenant with Mankind wherein he promiseth pardon of Sin and eternal life to those who believe and obey the Gospel so that the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal Cause of our Justification but the Righteousness of his life death is the meritorious Cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared Righteous rewarded as Righteous persons The Covenant of Grace which God for Christs sake hath made pardoning our past sins follies and rewarding a sincere though imperfect Obedience The Gospel by its great arguments motives and powerfull assistances forms our minds to the Love and practice of Holiness and so makes us inherently Righteous and the grace of the Gospel accepts and rewards that sincere Obedience which according to the Rigor and severity of the Law could deserve no reward This I take to be a true account of Mr. Sherlocks Judgement about Justification and I have quoted it in his own words that he may neither complain of his being imposed upon nor the Reader question the Truth and sincerity of this representation And as whosoever consults the pages I referr to will find that I treat my adversary with faithfulness so if they compare them with some other places where he hath declared himself with less Modesty they will have reason to say that I have exposed his Opinion in the favourablest manner I could Now I design not any accurate ventilation of this great Theme nor any severe research into Mr. Sherlocks faileurs in the manage of it nor a Critical survey of his neglect of Truth as well as Modesty in treating his Adversaries about it nor yet his partiality in arraigning only the Non-conformists when he could not but know that the most Eminent Persons that ever the Church of England bred as well as the Generality of Protestant Divines are equally involved having appeared in the Defence of that very Notion of Justification which he so invidiously represents and tragically declaime's against those for The full handling of Justification stands reserved for other hands who in due time will retrive the spoyles wherewith our Author hath enriched his Wardrobe and strip him of the Lawrels wherewith he hath adorned his Temples I shall only bestow one stricture upon him and then apply to the proof of the inconvenience I have already charged his Opinion with and for which in this place I cited it In brief then I see not how the Covenant of Grace is any ways owing to the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his life providing that Mr. Sherlock will be constant to and write consonantly to some of his other principles For if the Natural Notions which men have of God assure them that he is very Good and that it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace as our Author elsewhere tells us I say supposing this to be true I see not how the Righteousness of Christs life and Death can be the meritorious cause of Gods forgiving our sins and Follies for as much as his Essential Goodness obliged him to it I take it for a principle of Reason that nothing can be merited which is due upon an Antecedent Title Merit in its essential Notion importing an acquisition of a Right which we had not before there can be no room for it in reference to that which we stood entitled to by the natural goodness of
God and those Notions which we have engraven in our Consciences of it Nor can I imagine how the Covenant of Grace can be so much as necessary to the promising Remission of Sins much less that the Death of Christ was needful to procure it to that End providing what our Author sayes in another place do obtain The passage I referr to is this The whole Mystery of the recovery of mankind consists only in the repairing the Divine I-age which was defaced by sin that is in making all men truly good and virtuous· Sin is our Apostasie from God and doth as naturally make us miserable as it makes us unlike the most happy Being But Holiness restores us to our Primitive state to the perfect Constitution of our Natures and makes us Good and therefore happy as God is Now if this be true although the Covenant of Grace might be necessary upon other accounts namely to mold and frame our souls to the Love of God and practice of obedience to ingenerate piety in us to make us inherently Righteous yet I do not see how it was needful to the promising remission of sin Neither can I satisfie my self how forgiveness of Sin is at all necessary if the whole mystery of our Recovery consists only in the repairing the Divine Image which was defaced by sin I have observed of the Arminians that however somtimes they acknowledg the New Covenant to be gratuitous and fâ—ee yet by some principle or other which they have imbib'd they do in effect make it an Act of necessity in God and not of favour Thus that I may give one instance upon Corvinus's admitting all mankind by the fall of Adam to be discharged from that Obedience which the Original Law required it necessarily follows either that Gods soveraignty and Rectorship over man had been supplanted Mankind had been under no law at all and consequently no wayes capable of offending or else God behoved to enact the new Covenant This being suggested which I leave Mr. Sherlock at his leasure to think of I now address to enforcing the Charge I have loaded his Opinion about Justification with namely that as it imports our absolution by and before God from the accusation of the Law it occurrs not in a proper sense in the whole Scripture but must every where be susceptive of a Metaphorick one if his Notion of it be admitted I do not here dispute whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Justify and to be Justified be not sometimes taken in a Moral Sense for justifacere that I may use Davenants phrase the making an inherent Change in our Persons as well as at other times in a forensick Sense for the making a Change in our state by absolving and acquitting us when accused Though I must say that I know not one place in the whole New Testament where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are of necessity to be interpreted as expressive of Sanctification and purgation from Vice though Rom. 8.30 1 Cor. 7.11 Tit. 3.7 be produced to that purpose unless it be Rev. 22.11 and it is certain that some ancient Copies instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there Let him be further justified still have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him do Righteousness still Nor will I here discourse how inconsistent it seem's with the Wisedom and Sapience of God to introduce a perfect Righteousness such as that of his Son was meerly to make way for his justifying us upon an imperfect Righteousness such as that of our Obedience is Nor shall I argue how that the Righteousness of Christs Life and Sacrifice of His Death must be imputed to us for Justification in a proportionableness to our Sins having been imputed to Him in order to his expiatory Suffering To attribute Christs Sufferings meerly to Gods Dominion without any respect to sin is the grossest of Socinianism and repugnant to the Scripture in a hundred places To say that our sins were imputed to Christ in the effects of them but not in the guilt is to contradict all Principles of Reason For Guilt and Obnoxiousness to punishment being Equipollent phrases he cannot be supposed to have been made liable to the last upon the account of our Sins without haveing been brought under the first Nor is it imaginable how without submitting to the guilt of our sins he could have been punished should it be granted that without respect to them he might have suffered Though without any habitude to sin his sufferings might have been Dolorous yet they could never have been Penal 'T is a thing utterly unintelligible how Christ could be made sin for us and have our punishment transferred to him without a previous imputation of Sin and the derivation of its Guilt upon him Now by proportion if our Sins were imputed to Christ otherwise than meerly in the Effects of them so must likewise the Righteousness of his Life and the Sacrifice of his Death be otherwise imputed to us than meerly in the benefits of them Nor will I press how that secluding not only the Righteousness of Christ's Life but the satisfaction of his Death as the matter and the imputation of it as the Formal Cause of Justification it seem's repugnant to the immutability and Essential Holiness of God to justify us upon an imperfect Obedience the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing Wrath in case of every failure Neither shall I here urge how there can have been no surrogation of Christ in our room nor can we properly be said to be Redeemed by him as our substitute if all redounding to us by his Death be only the procurement of the Gospel-Covenant in which God upon such Conditions as he there requires undertakes to pardon our Iniquities and Sins A surrogation in our room and stead to Acts and Sufferings which are not in a Law-sense accounted ours I am so far from Understanding that without admitting injustice in the Rector who allowe's the substitution it seem's to me a thwacking Contradiction especially if we consider that Christ was our substitute to make satisfaction to the Demands of the Law and not of the Gospel and that by his Obedience and Death He hath only freed us from what we were obnoxious to upon failure of perfect Obedience but not at all from what we are liable to in case of Unbelief and want of sincere Obedience That the Righteousness of Christ is some way or other ours yea that it is in a certain sense the very cause of our Justification the Socinians themselves do not deny Nec enim ut per Christi justitia justificemur opus est ut illius justitia nostra fiat justitia sed sufficit ut Christi justitiam Causa sit nostra justificationis hactenus possumus tibi Concedere Christi Justitiam esse nostram Justitiam quatenus nostrum in bonum justificationemque redundat says Schlich tingius
being in him can signify no more than being Members of his Visible Church which is made up of Hypocrites as well as sincere Christians But neither doth this nor any other text in the Bible militate in behalf of such an impious Notion however it or they may be pressed wrested and distorted to such a service Should we allow Mr. Sherlocks reading of the words referred to Joh. 15.2 which our present English Translation hath preceded him in yet there is nothing in them towards the Patronage of the Cause they are brought for The meaning of the place is not that there are any really in Christ who bear not fruit but only that there are some void of all fruits of Righteousness who make profession of their being so Who are therefore in an equivocal sense styled branches because they are numbred amongst the Members of the Church For it is usual to speak of persons and things as if they were that which they appear to be But withall the place is capable of another Lection which if admitted our Authors Hypothesis is far from being befriended by it For the words may be as well read Every Branch that beareth not Fruit in me he taketh away as every Branch in me that beareth not Fruit. And then the true import of it is that unless we be in Christ we can bring forth no Fruit to God and that what shew of being branches we make by virtue of an External Member-ship in the Church Yet that shall be no Obex to Christs disclaiming and renouncing our Works Nothing hath the true denomination of Holiness but what proceeds from the Spirit of Christ in us and Principles of Grace by infusion communicated to us which are the Foundation matter and Bond of our Union with Him And under whatever gloss or varnish we or our works appear to the World yet without such a Relation to Christ we are none of His nor are our Duties as to the Principles and Circumstances of them acceptable to God The Obligation upon Men to Obedience in what state soever we suppose them The consistency of Gods Right of Commanding with our contracted inability to the yeilding of due Obedience the Capacity that all men remain in notwithstanding any Congenite Impotency for the performing many External Duties good in themselves and in the matter of them with the subservience of these performances to Conversion as they are means appointed of God in order thereunto all these I in some measure understand and can reconcile with the Oeconomy of the Gospel But that our Lives can be Holy till our Hearts be so through the renuing of the Holy Ghost or that our Works can be adequately Good antecedently to our Reception of supernatural Grace I do no wise understand and I should account my self obliged to Mr. Sherlock would he unfold these things to me without obtruding Pelagianism upon the World And this conducts me to a Second thing wherein our Authors Notion of Union with Christ disserveth and undermines Gospel-Holiness beyond what the highest Malice steel'd with a proportionate Confidence can by any Laws of Reason fasten upon his Adversaries of such a tendency For as if it were not enough to have said that men are in a sense United to Christ before they either are or can be Holy even that very Obedience in which he states the compleatness of our Union with Christ and by which he declares it to be perfected is not owing to an Infused Principle derived from Jesus by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost but is only the result effect of our Natural Abilities awakened and excited by the Gospel Hence that I may not again repeat what we have heard from him before Sect. 2. he tells us That a Holy Life must at least in order of Nature goe before our Union with Christ because by this we are United to Him and that we are not real and living Members of Christ till we first sincerely Obey Him Now I say that this Obedience wherein our Author places the very perfection of our Union with Christ is not only formally distinct from true Gospel-Holiness but indeed lies in a contrariety to it The Gospel acknowledgeth no Acts of true Holiness performed by any where there is not antecedently at least in order of Nature a principle of true Holiness in the persons performing them No Acts operations or Duties of ours are in the esteem of the Gospel Holy but what proceed from and are done in the virtue power and efficacy of Grace previously derived from and Communicated to us by Jesus Christ. There is pre-required to all acts of Gospel-Obedience a new real spiritual Principle by which our Nature is renewed our Souls rendred habitually and subjectively Holy Grace is not the effect and product of any previous good Actions of ours what ever subserviency through the appointment and dispose of God they may lie in as to his bestowing of it but all Acts Operations truly Good are the fruits and efflorescencies of Grace To talk of sincere Obedience precluding our antecedaneous adeption of a new Principle and the Communication of a Divine Vital Seed to us is to impose Pelagianism upon us and that in a more fulsom way and in cruder Terms than many of the followers of Pelagius used to declare themselves Excluding our being furnished with an active supernatural infused subjective Principle the utmost influence the Gospel hath upon Obedience is only by the equity and reasonableness of its Laws the nobleness and certainty of its Promises to solicite our Minds and to awaken the Strength we have but as to the conferring any real Strength or the begetting a vital Form in our Hearts thereby repairing and restoring the Image of God which we have lost it is altogether incompetent and ineffectual So that upon the whole that very Obedience wherin Mr. Sherlock states the Nature and Perfection of our Union with Christ to consist is not only contra-distinct from but subversive of the Holiness which the Gospel requires being an Obedience educed meerly out of our natural Abilities and no ways owing to any Antecedent Renovation of our Natures by the Holy Ghost which is that alone that the Gospel honours with the name of Holiness Nor is this either all the Invasion which our Author by the Idea he gives of Union with Christ hath made upon Gospel-Holiness but admitting once his account of it to be true that which God alone doth entitle by the Name of Holiness is wholly shut out of the Religion of Christians So that a Third Reason why I except against his Notion of our Union with Christ as pernicious to Holiness beyond what the Opinion of any others is whom he so Tragically declame's against is this that it render's all True Holiness even in persons actually and compleatly united to Christ impossible for the future For as our Union with Christ is perfected without any Communication of New Principles by a real Physical and
Author of the substitution thought fit to appoint This I have the longer insisted upon because our Author either doth not or will not understand those whom he writes against For by what he says against Dr. Jacomb upon this Theme I am apt to think that he conceives himself too Witty to understand what he reads or that he consults the Non-conformists Book only that he may turn them into Burlesque ridicule He First Fathers such a Notion of Christs being our Surety upon Him as neither he nor any man that was in his Witts ever held and then sets himself to exercise his Faculty in opposing it To affirm of us that we make Christ our Sponsor to discharge the Offices of Piety and Virtue Justice and Temperance in our stead as Mr. Sherlock doth is to impute his own mistakes to us that he may the better upbraid us Although we plead the Meritorious Righteousness of Christ against the accusation of the Law yet we contend for a personal Righteousness of our own to answer the demands of the Gospel Our fulfilling the Terms of the New Covenant is the condition entitling us to the Righteousness of Christ by which alone we escape the curse of the Old Though Christ hath merited all that Grace in the strength and virtue of which we repent believe and obey yet it is we our selves that do so and not Christ. And therefore I have nothing further to say to our Author in this Matter but must suffer him to fight with his own shadow Let him but once justifie his charge of our making the Personal Righteousness of Christ our Personal Righteousness or that we maintain Christ to have fulfilled all Righteousness in our stead and I do here assure him that I am not only ready to allow his severest reproofs but to commend and second them But till then I leave him to encounter the Wind-mills of his own Imagination and to hew the posts which his Fancy hath erected in the room of Phanatick Adversaries The Notion of Mediator and the serviceableness thereof to conduct us to the belief of a Legal Union with Christ is that which we must address next to the explication of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Mediator is a Term in a manner peculiar to the sacred Writers 'T is true he whom Thucydides styles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scholiast calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies one that interposeth between two parties at variance to accommodate and compose their difference The Socinians those declared Enemies of the satisfaction of Christ though they retain the Term as applyed to Him yet they do so enervate the meaning of it as in effect to overthrow what in words they seem to acknowledg For by stating the whole of Mediatorship in his being God's Legate and the Interpreter of the Divine Will to Man they not only supplant his Mediatorial Office through disclayming the principal Reasons and Ends of it but mistake the true and primitive import of the word There may be an internuncius between parties who stand in alliance of friendship but Mediator includes in its idea a supposition of difference among those between whom he interposeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Mediator is not of one saith the Apostle Gal. 3.20 That is as Grotius expounds it There is no need of a Mediator between those that are at agreement Mediation not only implies two distinct parties between whom there is to be an interposure but also that there is a variance to be accommodated Suidas gives us the true import of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he renders it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Peace-maker I do not deny but that Christ's discharge of his Prophetical Office is a part of the exercise of his Mediatorship But as the whole of his Mediatorial undertaking doth not consist in his being Gods Ambassador to declare His Will and the purposes of his Grace concerning us so a variance between God and us lies at the bottom and gave occasion to his comeing forth as a Legate from the Lord to us The whole Tenor of the New Covenant whereof Christ is the Messenger and Apostle importeth a difference between God and us through the violation of a former As the prescription of Repentance to us together with the whole of that Religious Worship which God requires of us argues him reconcileable so it speaks him antecedently offended It is an affront to Reason as well as Scripture to imagine a Mediator without respect to a fore-going difference Some have conceived though as well against as without the countenance either of Reason or Scripture that the Son of God should have been Incarnate though man had persevered in his Integrity but none save the Socinians ever dream'd that any one could come in the quality of a Mediator where there was not a previous difference between those in whose behalf he so appeared That he should be styled a Mediator meerly with regard to his declaring God's Grace and Favour to man together with the duty which God required of us is repugnant to every Text in the Bible where the Term occurrs and that it contradicts the common sense of Mankind in their application and usage of the Word Socinus himself is forced to acknowledge Now as an interposure between two differing parties to compromise a difference is included in the Idea of a Mediator so there are several things intrinsecally belonging to the Mediatory Office and Work of Christ which do not appertain to Mediation simply considered For whereas other Mediations are chiefly managed by way of entreaty and intercession the Office and Work of Christs Mediation consists not only fundamentally but principally in his oblation of himself as a Propitiatory Sacrifice I do not preclude the Intercession of Christ from bearing share in his Mediatory Work I only say that as the whole of his interposure is not to be confined to it so it had in every part and degree of it a respect to and did bear upon his giving himself for a Ransom Not only his Intercession now in Heaven which excludes the gestures of a formal supplicant these being both inconsistent with the state of Glory to which he is exalted and the accomplishment which he hath made of all that was required of Him as the ground and Motive of the Communication of Mercy to us and lyes meerly in the representation of his Meritorious passion and Sacrifice which whither it be at any time accompanied with an articulate voice I do not determine but his intercession here on Earth which as well because the Oblation and Sacrifice that he was afterwards to represent was not then dispatched as in Analogy to the state of Humiliation he was then in behoved to be vocal and in way of formal supplication I say not only the one but the other also respects his Mediatorious passion as their Foundation and as
the cause ground motive with relation to which the things interceded for are procured Christs interposure as Mediator between God and Man took its rise from and bore upon a compact between the Father and Him that he should be Incarnate and give his Life a Ransom for many This the Holy Ghost doth most emphatically instruct us in 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 8.6.9.15 12.24 which are all the places where he is in express Terms so styled Now had not the susception of our sins preceded as the Antecedent impulsive cause of Christs sufferings he could neither be said to be made Sin for us nor to bear them nor to have them laid upon him nor to dye for our Offences nor to be our Ransom Nor could the inflicting of sufferings upon him have been either good in it self or an act of Rectoral Justice in God or have had any tendency to his glory or to the honour of his Law or to deterr Sinners from offending yea preclude once the consideration of sin as the meritorious cause of the Agonies which Christ underwent and the Love Wisedom Justice and Rectorship of God are obnoxious to reflexions and stand lyable to be impeached And if it be once obtain'd that our sins are the Meritorious impulsive cause of Christs Death his susception of our Guilt will necessarily follow For Guilt being nothing but an Obligation to punishment it being impossible to conceive such a habitude betwixt a person and sin that it should be the meritorious impulsive cause of his punishment and yet he not be under an obligation to punishment it plainly follows that guilt must be supposed antecedent to a demerit of punishment Guilt and punishment being Relates he that is obnoxious to the latter must be previously under the imputation of the former as Bishop Andrews expresseth it Christ was first made sin in respect of the Guilt and then a Curse in respect of the punishment Serm. of Justification on Jer. 23.6 Where Sin is so charged as to expose a person to a demerit of punishment there is an obligation to it where there is such an obligation to it there is in some sense or other Guilt Those very arguments whereby we overthrow the Popish Dogm of Believers being discharged from the Guilt of Sin but not the punishment do equally disprove Christs undergoing the punishment of Sin without susception of the Guilt In brief 1. Through a convention betwixt the Father and Son our sins are so charged upon and transfered to Christ as to be exacted of him and he hath submitted to the Demerit of them so as to undergoe the penalty in the substance and kind of it though not in the Adjuncts and Consequential accidents which would have accompanied it upon such weak finite depraved subjects as we are that we should have undergone 2. Through Christs interposing as Surety and Mediator by suffering in our stead God hath so vindicated his own Honour asserted the Authority of his Commands and satisfied the ends of Law and Government that he accepts of what Christ hath done and suffered as full satisfaction to his Law and in consideration thereof without any reflexion upon his Attributes or subversion of his Rectorship he makes a tender of pardon to us 3. God having admitted the interposure of Christ on our behalf having inflicted sufferings upon him as a punishment for our sins and having accepted those sufferings as a Sacrifice of Atonement for the expiation of our Guilt and having also agreed with his Son and declared in the Covenant of Grace the Terms on which we are made partakers of the benefits thereof we upon a performance of these conditions come to have all that Christ did and suffered as our Mediator imputed to us in a Law-sence That is the Law owns that Christ intervening in our room hath answered all its demands so that God in consistency with its exactions may be both just in himself and yet be our Justifier And this being all that we intend by a Legal Union with Christ namely that by the Covenant of Redemption Christ so becomes our Surrogate as to have our sins in a Law-sence imputed to Him and that we through fulfilling the Terms of the Covenant of Grace have all that which He as substituted in our place and stead did and suffered imputed in a Law-sense to us He must not only disclaim Christs being Mediator in any proper sense but renounce the whole Gospel that denys it Having not only declared but justified that there is a Legal Union between Christ and Believers and having also stated and defined what it is and wherein it consists all that remains incumbent upon me relating to this Head is to shew that the whole of a Christians Union with the Lord Jesus is not comprehended in this nor hereby expressed And 1st There are many Scripture Texts manifestative of an Oneness that the Saints have with Christ which a Legal Union doth not come up to the heighth and grandeur of As there is not any one thing in the Gospel which the Holy Ghost hath judged meet to express in greater variety of phrase than the mystery of our cohesion with Jesus Christ so this Legal Union can no ways sustain the weight of most of them 'T is not consistent with the Wisdom and Goodness of God to entertain us with pompous words or to treat us with Hyperbolical expressions when he is declaring to us the Mysteries of Faith to which he not only requires our assent but hath made much of our comfort and duty dependent upon them Who can think that a Legal Union is all that the Holy Ghost intends by our being one Spirit with the Lord and being ingraffed into Him as Branches are into a stock or root cemented to Him as the building is to the Foundation incorporated with him as our Aliment and Food is with our fleshly substance ligu'd and connected to him as the Bodily Members are to their Natural and Vital Head I know all these expressions are Metaphorical yet I also know that they must be declarative of something that is not only real but whose greatness it is not easy to conceive As the variety of Metaphors which the Spirit makes use of to decipher it by declare its importance so the quality of them serves to intimate that it is not meerly a Legal Union If there be no other Oneness between Christ and sincere Christians but that which we have been discoursing of there could not be a Symbole worse chosen to express it by there being no Analogy between what the phrases originally signifie and that which they are designed and brought to illustrate 2dly Those things being distinct and different whose ideas are so the formal Conception of our Legal Union with Christ being hugely different from the Notion which we have of our Spiritual Union with Him it plainly follows that our Mystical coherence to Him imports some thing besides a Legal Oneness Now that the Idea which we have