exposed him to by how much greater concernment there is to have such an offence pardon'd by one that can punish it with eternal misery than not revenged by those who though they may have will have not alwayes power to execute so much greater was the kindness of our Saviour to his enemies in his Prayer upon the Cross than of either of the other in their concernment for that ungratefull City that had so ill requited their services to it Thus when the Son of God was oppressed and afflicted he opened not his mouth but only in Prayer for them who were his bitter enemies and though nothing had been more easie than for him to have cleared himself from all their accusations who had so often baffled them before yet he would not now give them that suspicion of his innocency as to make any Apology for himself but committed himself to God that judges righteously and was brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers was dumb so he opened not his mouth And the reason thereof was he knew what further design for the good of mankind was carrying on by the bitterness of his passion and that all the cruel usage he underwent was that he might be a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the World Which leads to the last thing propounded to our consideration 4. Which is the causes why God was pleased to suffer his Son to endure such contradiction of sinners against himself I know it is an easie answer to say that God had determin'd it should be so and that we ought to enquire no further but sure such an answer can satisfie none who consider how much our salvation depends upon the knowledge of it and how clear and express the Scripture is in assigning the causes of the sufferings of Christ. Which though as far as the instruments were concerned in it we have given an account of already yet considering the particular management of this grand affair by the care of divine Providence a higher account must be given of it why so divine and excellent a person should be exposed to all the contempt and reproach imaginable and after being made a sacrifice to the tongues and rods of the people than to dye a painfull and ignominious death So that allowing but that common care of divine Providence which all sober Heathens acknowledged so transcendent sufferings as these were of so holy and innocent a person ought to be accounted for in a more than ordinary manner when they thought themselves concerned to vindicate the Justice of Gods Providence in the common calamities of those who are reputed to be better than the generality of Mankind But the reasons assigned in that common case will not hold here since this was a person immediately sent from God upon a particular message to the World and therefore might plead an exemption by vertue of his Ambassage from the common Arrests and troubles of humane nature But it was so far otherwise as though God had designed him on purpose to let us see how much misery humane nature can undergo Some think themselves to go as far as their reason will permit them when they tell us that he suffer'd all these things to confirm the truth of what he had said and particularly the Promise of Remission of sins and that he might be an example to others who should go to Heaven by suffering afterwards and that he might being touched with the feeling of our infirmities here have the greater pity upon us now he is in Heaven All these I grant to have been true and weighty reasons of the sufferings of Christ in subordination â—o greater ends but if there had been nothing beyond all this I can neither understand why he should suffer so deeply as he did nor why the Scripture should insist upon a far greater reason more than upon any of these I grant the death of Christ did confirm the truth of his Doctrine as far as it is unreasonable to believe that any one who knew his Doctrine to be false would make himself miserable to make others believe it but if this had been all intended why would not an easier and less ignominious death have served since he who would be willing to die to confirm a falshood would not be thought to confirm a truth by his death because it was painfull and shamefull Why if all his sufferings were designed as a testimony to others of the truth of what he spake were the greatest of his sufferings such as none could know the anguish of them but himself I mean his Agony in the Garden and that which made him cry out upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Why were not his Miracles enough to confirm the truth of his Doctrine since the Law of Moses was received without his death by the evidence his Miracles gave that he was sent from God since the Doctrine of remission of sins had been already deliver'd by the Prophets and received by the People of the Jews since those who would not believe for his Miracles sake neither would they believe though they should have seen him rise from the Grave and therefore not surely because they saw him put into it But of all things the manner of our Saviours sufferings seems least designed to bring the World to the belief of his Doctrine which was the main obstacle to the entertainment of it among the men of greatest reputation for wisdom and knowledge For it was Christ crucified which was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness Had the Apostles only preached that the Son of God had appeared from Heaven and discovered the only way to bring men thither that he assumed our Nature for a time to render himself capable of conversing with us and therein had wrought many strange and stupendious miracles but after he had sufficiently acquainted the World with the nature of his doctrine he was again assumed up into Heaven in all probability the doctrine might have been so easily received by the world as might have saved the lives of many thousand persons who dyed as Martyrs for it And if it had been necessary that some must have dyed to confirm it why must the Son of God himself do it when he had so many Disciples who willingly sacrificed their lives for him and whose death would on that account have been as great a confirmation of the truth of it as his own But if it be alledged further that God now entring into a Covenant with man for the pardon of sin the sheding of the blood of Christ was necessary as a federal rite to confirm it I answer if only as a federal rite why no cheaper blood would serve to confirm it but that of the Son of God We never read that any Covenant was confirmed by the death of one of the contracting parties and we cannot think that God was so prodigal of
the blood of his Son to have it shed only in allusion to some ancient customs But if there were such a necessity of alluding to them why might not the blood of any other person have done it when yet all that custom was no more but that a sacrifice should be offer'd and upon the parts of the sacrifice divided they did solemnly swear and ratifie their Covenant And if this be yielded them it then follows from this custom that Christ must be consider'd as a sacrifice in his death and so the ratification of the Covenant must be consequent to that oblation which he made of himself upon the Cross. Besides how incongruous must this needs be that the death of Christ the most innocent person in the World without any respect to the guilt of sin should suffer so much on purpose to assure us that God will pardon those who are guilty of it May we not much rather infer the contrary considering the holiness and justice of Gods nature if he dealt so severely with the green tree how much more will he with the dry If one so innocent suffer'd so much what then may the guilty expect If a Prince should suffer the best subject he hath to be severely punished could ever any imagine that it was with a design to assure them that he would pardon the most rebellious No but would it not rather make men afraid of being too innocent for fear of suffering too much for it And those who seem very carefull to preserve the honour of Gods Justice in not punishing one for anothers faults ought likewise to maintain it in the punishing of one who had no fault at all to answer for And to think to escape this by saying that to such a person such things are calamities but no punishments is to revive the ancient exploded Stoicism which thought to reform the diseases of Mankind by meer changeing the names of things though never so contrary to the common sense of humane nature which judges of the nature of punishments by the evils men undergo and the ends they are designed for And by the very same reason that God might exercise his dominion on so innocent a person as our Saviour was without any respect to sin as the moving cause to it he might lay eternal torments on a most innocent Creature for degrees and continuance do not alter the reason of things and then escape with the same evasion that this was no act of injustice in God because it was a meer exercise of Dominion And when once a sinner comes to be perswaded by this that God will pardon him it must be by the hopes that God will shew kindness to the guilty because he shews so little to the innocent and if this be agreeable to the Justice and Holiness of Gods nature it is hard to say what is repugnant to it If to this it be said that Christs consent made it no unjust exercise of dominion in God towards him it is easily answer'd that the same consent will make it less injustice in God to lay the punishment of our sins upon Christ upon his undertaking to satisfie for us for then the consent supposes a meritorious cause of punishment but in this case the consent implyeth none at all And we are now enquiring into the reasons of such sufferings and consequently of such a consent which cannot be imagined but upon very weighty motives such as might make it just in him to consent as well as in God to inflict Neither can it be thought that all the design of the sufferings of Christ was to give us an example and an incouragement to suffer our selves though it does so in a very great measure as appears by the Text it self For the hopes of an eternal reward for these short and light afflictions ought to be encouragement enough to go through the miseries of this life in expectation of a better to come And the Cloud of Witnesses both under the Law and the Gospel of those who have suffer'd for righteousness sake ought to make no one think it strange if he must endure that which so many have done before him and been crowned for it And lastly to question whether Christ could have pity enough upon us in our sufferings unless he had suffer'd so deeply himself will lead men to distrust the pity and compassion of Almighty God because he was never capable of suffering as we do But the Scripture is very plain and full to all those who rack not their minds to pervert it in assigning a higher reason than all these of the sufferings of Christ viz. That Christ suffered for sins the just for the unjust that his soul was made an offering for sin and that the Lord therefore as on a sacrifice of atonement 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 Mankinde 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 faithfull 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 holy obedience to his will Thus much for the
them in this life And here we assert that Gods end in punishing is the advancing his honor not by the meer miseries of his creatures but that men by beholding his severity against sin should break off the practice of it that they may escape the punishments of the furture state So that the ends of punishment here are quite of another kinde 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 examin'd 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 cleerness 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 terms 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 Authour 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 dyed 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 proper 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 exercise 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
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 deterre 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 hatred against 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 discover'd 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 by 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 S. 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 S. 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 call'd 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 S. Paul is That Christ was made an expiatory Sacrifice or that he exposed himself for those afflictions which sinners onely 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 onely 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. â—0 Otherwise she saith when David should dye I and my son Solomon shall be accounted offenders i. e. saith Crelâ—… 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 Trâ—a â—n 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 Jews 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 onely 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 onely 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 virtue of that Sacrifice the guilt of sin is expiated we shall not contend with him about the reasons why those Sacrifices were call'd 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 call'd 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 onely 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 Christs 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 onely 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 Judge 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 onely 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 been accountable onely 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 use words sometimes out of their proper and natural sense thence he tells us The sufferings of Christ are called chastisement though they have nothing of the nature of chastisements in them And from this liberty of interpreting they make words without any other reason than that they serve for their purpose be taken in several senses in
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 lye in the greatness of Christs sufferings or that our sins were the impulsive cause of them or that it is impossible that one â—…uld be punished for anothers faults or in all cases unjust the cases wherein Crellius allows it instanced From whence it it 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 Ezek. 18. 20. explained at large Whether the guilty being freed by 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 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 clamours 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 themselveâ— do not undergo the full punishment of theâ—… 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 confess 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 tâ—… general state of this question would noâ—… have it whether it be unjust to punish oâ—… for anothers sins for that he acknowledgeâ—… 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 〈◊〉 relation between guilt and punishment that iâ— cannot be call'd a punishment which is inflicted on an innocent person For Crellius after a long discourse 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
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 p. 314 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 Ezek. 18. 20. explained at large Whether the guilty being freed by the sufferings of an innocent person makes that punishment unjust or no Crellins 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 p. 378 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 Jews 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 from Lev. 17. 11. and the Concession of Crellius about the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Levitic 10. 17. explained The expiation of uncertain murther proves a substitution A substitution of Christ in our room proved from Christs being said to dye for us the importance of that phrase considered In what sense a Surrogation of Christ in our room is asserted by us Our Redemption by Christ proves a Substitution Of the true notion of Redemption that explained and proved against Socinus and Crellius No necessity of paying the price to him that detains captive where the captivity is not by force but by sentence of Law Christs death a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attributed to it cannot be taken for meer deliverance p. 419 CHAP. V. The notion of a sacrifice belongs to the death of Christ because of the Oblation made therein to God Crellius his sense of Christs Oblation proposed Against him it is proved that the Priestly Office of Christ had a primary respect to God and not to us Expiatory Sacrifices did divert the wrath of God Christ not a bare Metaphorical High-Priest Crellius destroys the Priesthood of Christ by confounding it with the exercise of his Regal power No proper Expiation of sin belongs to Christ in Heaven if Crellius his Doctrine be true Ephes. 5. 2. proves the death of Christ an Expiatory Sacrifice and an Oblation to God The Phrase of A sweet-smelling Savour belongs to Expiatory Sacrifices Crellius his gross notion of it His mistakes about the kinds of Sacrifices Burnt-offerings were Expiatory Sacrifices both before and under the Law A new distribution of Sacrifices proposed What influence the mactation of the Sacrifice had on Expiation The High-Priest only to slay the Sin-offering on the day oâ— Atonement from whence it is proved thaâ— Christs Priesthood did not begin from his entrance into Heaven The mactation in Expiatory Sacrifices no bare preparation to a sacrifice proved by the Jewish Laws and the Customs of other Nations Whether Christs Oblation of himself once to God were in Heaven or on Earth Of the proper notion of Oblations under the Levitical Law Several things observed from thence to our purpose All things necessary to a Legal Oblation concur in the death of Christ. His entrance into Heaven hath no correspondency with it if the blood of Christ were no Sacrifice for sin In Sin-offerings for the People the whole was consumed no eating of the Sacrifices allowed the Priests but in those for private Persons Christs exercise of Power in Heaven in no sense an Oblation to God Crellius his sense repugnant to the circumstances of the places in dispute Objections answered p. 450 CHAP. VI. That the effects of proper Expiatory Sacrifices â—elong to the death of Christ which either â—espect the sin or the person Of the true â—otion of expiation of sin as attributed to Sacrifices Of the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to them Socinus his proper sense of it examined Crellius his Objections answered The Jews notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sacrifices not bare conditions of pardon nor expiated meerly as a slight part of obedience Gods expiating sin destroys not expiation by Sacrifice The importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to Sacrifices Expiation attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ in the same sense that it was to other Sacrifices and from thence and the places of Scripture which mention it proved not to be meerly declarative If it had been so it
sins the meritorious cause of anothers punishment especially one wholly innocent and so that the guilty shall be freeâ—â— 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 consider'd 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 doe they are then punishments if not they are meer exercises of power and dominion whatever ends they are intended for and whatever recomâ—…ce 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 Crosse and although Christ by the ordinary force of the Law of Moses had a right to escape so painfull 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 sense he did act as a righteous Governour and indulgent Father who encouraged his Son to undergoe 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 fuâ—ther 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 〈◊〉 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 denyes any lawfull antecedent cause of the death of Christ besides the will of God and Christ yet Crellius in his Vindication saith by lawfull cause he meant meritorious 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 Mankinde 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 interventing 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 call'd 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 same 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 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 wayes repugnant to the Justice 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 Christs bearing 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 for 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 alwayes signifie bearing proper punishment but it is enough he sayes 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 undergoe 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 travells 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 deterr others from the practice of it hath the proper notion of punishment in it and all these things did concurr 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 fornications 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 Jewish 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 iâ— the general he denyes 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 anotheâ— 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 nâ— means have it understood only of men bâ—… 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 entring 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 flesh must comprehend beasts in this place why shall not all flesh seeing the glory of the Lord take in the beasts there too for Vatablus parallels this place with the â—ther But if saith thenâ—e â—e saith that those though they were destroyâ—d by the flood yet did not suffer punishment â—ut only a calamity by occasion of the sins of â—en 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 distiuction of calamities and punishments there is nothing so miserable that either men or beasts can undergo but when it serves their turn
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 expression had only a respect to sin as the punishment of it Which will yet further appear from another expression in the same Chapter ver 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 opposed 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 deterr 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 deterr us from the practice of sin 2. Supposing that his sufferings had no respect to our sins they could not have that force to deterr 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 deterr 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 deterr 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 Honour 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 concurr which may be most apt to prevail upon men to deterr them from their sins For if God did thus by the green tree what will he 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 replyed 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
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 faithfull Historian 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 Countrey 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 Judgements 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. Judah 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 Judah 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 dreadfull fore-runners 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 andsmoak 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 â—…e observe the parallel between the sinsâ—…d â—…d the punishments agreeable with what â—…e find recorded in Scripture we have reaâ—…n to say that those sins were not only the â—…tecedents but the causes of those punishâ—…ents which followed after them And â—…at because the reason of punishment was â—…ot built upon any particular relation beâ—ween God and the people of Israel but â—pon 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 Judah 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 〈◊〉 ages that one of the Roman Historian though of no very severe life himself yâ—… imputes the decay of the Roman State nâ—… to Chance or Fortune or some unhiddâ—… causes which the Atheism of our Agâ—… would presently do but to the geneâ—… loosness of mens lives and corruption 〈◊〉 their manners And it was the grave Observation of one of the bravest Captain ever the Roman State had that it was iâ—… possible for any State to be happy stantibâ—… moenibus ruentibus moribus though their walâ—… were firm if their manners were decayed Buâ— it is our misery that our walls and ouâ— manners are fallen
together or rather the latter undermined the former They are our sins which have drawn so much of our blood and infected our air and added the greatest fuel to our flames But it is not enough in general to declaim against our sins but we must search out particularly those predominant vices which by their boldness and frequency have provoked God thus to punish us and as we have hitherto observed a parallel between the Judgements of Israel in this Chapter and our own So I am afraid we shall finde too sad a parallel between their sins and ours too Three sorts of sins are here spoken of in a peculiar manner as the causes â—f their severe punishments Their luxury â—nd intemperance their covetousness and opâ—ression and their contempt of God and his Laws and I doubt we need not make a â—ery exact scrutiny to finde out these in a â—igh degree among our selves and I wish â—t were as easie to reform them as to finde them out 1. Luxury and intemperance that we meet with in the first verse both in the compellation Ye Kine of Bashan and in their behaviour which say to their Masters bring and let us drink Ye Kine of Bashan Loquitur ad Principes Israel Optimates quosque decem Tribuum saith St. Hierom he speaks to the Princes of Israel and the chief of all the ten Tribes Those which are fed in the richest pastures such as those of Bashan were Who are more fully described by the Prophet in this sixth chapter They are the men who are at ease in Sion v. 1. they put far away from them the evil day v. 3. they lye upon beds of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their Couches and eat the Lambs out of the flock and the Calves out of the midst of the stall v. 4. they chaunt to the sound of the Viol and invent to themselves instruments of Musick like David v. 5. they drink Wine in bowls and annoint themselves with the chief oyntments but they are not grieved sâ—… the affliction of Joseph The meaning of aâ—… which is they minded nothing but easeâ—… softness and pleasure but could not endure to hear of the calamities which werâ— so near them Nothing but mirth anâ— jollity and riot and feasting and the eviâ—… consequences of these were to be seen oâ— heard among them Their delicate soulâ—… were presently rufled and disturbed at the discourse of any thing but matters of Courtship address and entertainment Any thing that was grave and serious though never so necessary and of the greatest importance was put off as Felix put off St. Paul to a more convenient time especially if it threatned miseries to them and appeared with a countenance sadder than their own These were the Kine of Bashan who were full of ease and wantonness and never thought of the day of slaughter which the other were the certain fore-runners of Symmachus renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which others apply to the rich Citizens of Samaria I am afraid we may take it in either sense without a Soloecism Bring and let us drink which as St. Hierom goes on Ebrietatem significat in vino luxuria quae statum mentis evertunt it implies the height of their luxury and intemperance It is observed by some that our Prophet retains still the language of his education in the bluntness of his expressions the great men that lived wholly at their ease in wantonness and luxury he styles like the heardsman of Tekoa the Kine of Bashan That he thought was title good enough for such who seemed to have souls for no other end than the other had And hath not that delicata insania as St. Austin calls it that soft and effeminate kinde of madness taken possession of too many among us whose birth and education designed them for more manly imployments yea what an age of Luxury do we live in when instead of those noble characters of men from their vertue and wisdom and courage it is looked on among some as a mighty character of a person that he eaâ—s and drinks well a character that becomes none so much as the Kine of Bashan in the literal sense for surely they did so or else they had never been in so much esteem among the heardsmen of Tekoa A character which those Philosophers would have been ashamed of who looked upon no other end of humane life but pleasure but in order to that they thought nothing more necessary than temperance and sobriety but whatever esteem they had then they have lost all their reputation among our modern Epicures who know of no such things aâ—… pleasures of the mind and would not muâ—… value whether they had any faculties of thâ—… mind or no unless it were for the contrivance of new Oaths and debaucheries But if this were only among some few persons we hope the whole Nation would not suffer for their madness for scarce any Age hath been so happy but it hath haâ—… some Monsters in Morality as well as Nature But I am afraid these vices are grown too Epidemical not only in the City but the Countreys too what mean else those frequent complaints and I hope more general than the causes of them that the houses of great men in too many places are so near being publick schools of debauchery rather than of piety and vertue where men shall not want instructers to teach them to forget both God and themselves wherein sobriety is so far from being accounted a matter of honour that the rules of the Persian civility are quite forgotten and men are forced to unman themselves I know nothing would tend more to the honour of our Nation or the advantage of it then if once these publick excesses were severely restrained I do not mean so much by making new Laws for those generally do but exercise peoples Wits by finding out new evasions but by executing old ones 2. Covetousness and oppression You see what these great men in Samaria did when they had any respite from their excesses and intemperance then woe be to the poor who come in their way Which oppress the poor and crush the needy v. 1. either by the hands of violence or by those arts and devices which either their honesty or poverty have kept them from the knowledge of And if there be not so much of open violence in our dayes the thanks are due to the care of our Magistrates and the severity of our Laws but it is hard to say whether ever any Age produced more studious and skilfull to pervert the design of Laws without breaking the letter of them than this of ours hath done Fraud and injustice is now managed with a great deal of artifice and cunning and he thinks himself no body in the understanding of the world that cannot over-reach his Brother and not be discovered or however in the multiplicity and obscurity of our Laws cannot finde out something in pretence at least to justifie his actions by But if
appeal be made to the Courts of Judicature what arts are then used either for concealing or hiring witnesses so that if their Purses be not equal the adverse party may overswear him by so much as his Purse is weightier than the others I heartily wish it may never be said of us what the Orator once said of the Greeks Quibus jusjurandum jocus testimonium ludus they made it a matter of jest and drollery to forswear themselves and give false testimonies But supposing men keep within the bounds of justice and common honesty yet how unsatiable are the desires of men they are for adding house to house and land to land never contented with what either their Ancestors have left them or the bountiful hand of Heaven hath bestowed upon them Till at last it may be in the Prophets expression for their covetousness the stone cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber answer it i. e. provoke God to give a severe check to the exorbitant and boundless desires of men as he hath done by this dayes calamity Thus while the City thought with Babylon to sit as a Lady for ever while she dwelt carelesly and said I am and there is none else besides me evil is come upon her and she knows not from whence it comes and mischief is fallen upon her and she hath not been able to put it off and desolation is come upon her suddenly which she did not foresee 3. Contempt of God and his Laws That we read of v. 4. where the Prophet speaks by an Irony to them Come to Bethel and transgress c. he knew well enough they were resolved to do it let God or the Prophet say what they pleased For these Kine of Bashan were all for the Calves of Dan and Bethel and some think that is the reason of the title that is given them These great men of Samaria thought it beneath them to own Religion any further than it was subservient to their civil interests They were all of Jeroboams Religion who looked on it as a meer politick thing and fit to advance his own designs by I am afraid there are too many at this day who are secretly of his minde and think it a piece of wisdom to be so Blessed God that men should be so wise to deceive themselves and go down with so much discretion to Hell These are the Grave and retired Atheists who though they secretly love not Religion yet their caution hinders them from talking much against it But there is a sort of men much more common than the other the faculties of whose minds are so thin and aiery that they will not bear the consideration of any thing much less of Religion these throw out their bitter scoffs and prophane jests against it A thing never permitted that I know of in any civilized Nation in the world whatsoever their Religion was the reputation of Religion was always preserved sacred God himself saith Josephus would not suffer the Jews to speak evil of other Gods though they were to destroy all those who tempted them to the worship of them And shall we suffer the most excellent and reasonable Religion in the world viz. the Christian to be profaned by the unhallowed mouths of any who will venture to be damned to be accounted witty If their enquiries were deeper their reason stronger or their arguments more perswasive than of those who have made it their utmost care and business to search into these things they ought to be allowed a fair hearing but for men who pretend to none of these things yet still to make Religion the object of their scoffs and raillery doth not become the gravity of a Nation professing wisdom to permit it much less the sobriety of a people professing Christianity In the mean time such persons may know that wise men may be argued out of a Religion they own but none but Fools and mad men will be droll'd out of it Let them first try whether they can laugh men out of their Estates before they attempt to do it out of their hopes of an Eternal happiness And I am sure it will be no comfort to them in another world that they were accounted Wits for deriding those miseries which they then feel and smart under the severity of it will be no mitigation of their flames that they go laughing into them nor will they endure them the better because they would not believe them But while this is so prevailing a humour among the vain men of this Age and Nation what can we expect but that God should by remarkable and severe judgements seek to make men more serious in Religion or else make their hearts to ake and their joynts to tremble as he did Belshazzars when he could find nothing else to carouse in but the Vessels of the Temple And when men said in the Prophet Zephany chap. 1. 12. that God neither did good nor evil presently it follows therefore their goods shall become a booty and their houses a desolation the day of the Lord is near a day of wrath a day of trouble and distress a day of wasteness and desolation as it is with us at this time Thus we see how sad the parallel hath been not only in the judgements of Israel but in the sins likewise which have made those judgements so severe 4. The severity of the Judgement appears not only from the Causes but from the Author of it I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah God challenges the execution of his Justice to himself not only in the great day but in his judgement here in the world Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it When God is pleased to punish men for their sins the execution of his justice is as agreeable to his nature now as it will be at the end of the world We all know that he may do it if he please and he hath told us that he doth and will do it and we know withall that without such remarkable severities the world will hardly be kept in any awe of him We do not finde that Love doth so much in the World as Fear doth there being so very few persons of tractable and ingenuous spirits It is true of too many what Lactantius observes of the Romans Nunquam Dei meminerunt nisi dum in malis sunt they seldom think of God but when they are afraid of him And there is not only this reason as to particular persons why God should punish them but there is a greater as to Communities and Bodies of men for although God suffers wicked men to escape punishment here as he often doth yet he is sure not to do it in the life to come but Communities of men can never be punished but in this World and therefore the Justice of God doth often discover it self in these common calamities to keep the
World in subjection to him and to let men see that neither the multitude of their Associates nor the depth of their designs nor the subtilty of their Councils can secure them from the omnipotent arm of Divine Justice when he hath determined to visit their transgressions with rods and their iniquities with stripes But when he doth all this yet his loving kindness doth he not utterly take from them for in the midst of all his Judgements he is pleased to remember mercy of which we have a remarkable instance in the Text for when God was overthrowing Cities yet he pluckt the Inhabitants as firebrands out of the burning and so I come from the severity of God 2. To the mixture of his mercy in it And ye were as a fire-brand pluckt out of the burning That notes two things the nearness they were in to the danger and the unexpectedness of their deliverance out of it 1. The nearness they were in to the danger quasi torris cujus jam magna pars absumpta est as some Paraphrase it like a brand the greatest part of which is already consumed by Fire which shews the difficulty of their escaping So Joshua is said to be a brand pluckt out of the fire Zech. 3. 2. And to thiâ— St. Hierom upon this place applyes thaâ— difficult passage 1 Cor. 3. 15. they shall bâ— saved but so as by Fire noting the greatnesâ— of the danger they were in and how hardly they should escape And are not all the Inhabitants of this City and all of us in the suburbs of the other whose houses escaped so near the flames as Firebrands pluckt out of the burning When the fire came on in its rage and fury as though it would in a short time have devoured all before it that not only this whole City but so great a part of the Suburbs of the other should escape untouched is all circumstances considered a wonderfull expression of the kindness of God to us in the midst of so much severity If he had suffered the Fire to go on to have consumed the remainder of our Churches and Houses and laid this City even with the other in one continued heap of ruines we must have said Just art thou O Lord and righteous in all thy judgements We ought rather to have admired his patience in sparing us so long than complain of this rigour of his Justice in punishing us at last but instead of that he hath given us occasion this day with the three Children in the fiery furnace to praise him in the midst of the flames For even the Inhabitants of London themselves who have suffered most in this calamity have cause to acknowledge the mercy of God towards them that they are escaped themselves though it be as the Jews report of Joshua the High Priest when thrown into the fire by the Chaldaeans with their cloaths burnt about them Though their habitations be consumed and their losses otherwise may be too great yet that in the midst of so much danger by the flames and the press of people so very few should suffer the loss of their lives ought to be owned by them and us as a miraculous Providence of God towards them And therefore not unto us not unto us but to his holy Name be the praise of so great a preservation in the midst of so heavy a Judgement 2. The unexpectedness of such a deliverance they are not saved by their own skill and counsel nor by their strength and industry but by him who by his mighty hand did pluck them as firebrands out of the burning Though we own the justice of God in the calamities of this day let us not forget his mercy in what he hath unexpectedly rescued from the fury of the flames that the Royal Palaces of our Gracious Soveraign the residence of the Nobility the Houses of Parliament the Courts of Judicature the place where we are now assembled and several others of the same nature with other places and habitations to receive those who were burnt out of their own stand at this day untouched with the fire and long may they continue so ought chiefly to be ascribed to the power and goodness of that God who not only commands the raging of the Sea and the madness of the People but whom the winds and the flames obey Although enough in a due subordination to Divine Providence can never be attributed to the mighty care and industry of our most Gracious Soveraign and his Royal Highness who by their presence and incouragement inspired a new life and vigour into the sinking spirits of the Citizens whereby God was pleased so far to succeed their endeavours that a stop was put to the fury of the fire in such places where it was as likely to have prevailed as in any parts of the City consumed by it O let us not then frustrate the design of so much severity mixed with so great mercy let it never be said that neither Judgements nor Kindness will work upon us that neither our deliverance from the Pestilence which walks in darkness nor from the flames which shine as the noon-day will waken us from that Lethargy and security â—…e are in by our sins but let God take â—hat course he pleases with us we are the â—ame incorrigible people still that ever we â—ere For we have cause enough for our â—ourning and lamentation this day if Godâ—ad â—ad not sent new calamities upon us that we were no better for those we had undergone before We have surfetted with mercies and grown sick of the kindness of Heaven to us and when God hath made us smart for our fulness and wantonness then we grew sullen and murmured and disputed against Providence and were willing to do any thing but repent of our sins and reform our lives It is not many years since God blessed us with great and undeserved blessings which we then thought our selves very thankfull for but if we had been really so we should never have provoked him who bestowed those favours upon us in so great a degree as we have done since Was this our requital to him for restoring our Soveraign to rebell the more against Heaven Was this our thankfulness for removing the disorders of Church and State to bring them into our lives Had we no other way of trying the continuance of Gods goodness to us but by exercising his paâ—… ence by our greater provocations 〈◊〉 though we had resolved to let the worâ— see there could be à more unthankful anâ— disobedient people than the Jews had beeâ— Thus we sinned with as much security anâ— confidence as though we had blinded thâ—… eyes or bribed the justice or commandeâ— the power of Heaven When God of 〈◊〉 sudden like one highly provoked dreâ— forth the sword of his destroying Angel and by it cut off so many thousands in thâ— midst of us Then we fell upon our knees and begg'd the mercy of Heaven that our Lives might be spared
that either it is impossible for man to know when his choice is free or if it may be known the constant experience of all evil men in the world will testifie that it is so now Is it possible for the most intemperate person to believe when the most pleasing temptations to lust or gluttony are presented to him that no consideration whatever could restrain his appetite or keep him from the satisfaction of his bruitish inclinations Will not the sudden though groundless apprehension of poyson in the Cup make the Drunkards heart to ake and hand to tremble and to let fall the supposed fatal mixture in the midst of all his jollity and excess How often have persons who have designed the greatest mischief to the lives and fortunes of others when all opportunities have fallen out beyond their expectation for accomplishing their ends through some sudden thoughts which have surprized them almost in the very act been diverted from their intended purposes Did ever any yet imagine that the charms of beauty and allurements of lust were so irresistible that if men knew before hand they should surely dye in the embraces of an adulterous bed they could not yet withstand the temptations to it If then some considerations which are quite of another nature from all the objects which are presented to him may quite hinder the force and efficacy of them upon the mind of man as we see in Josephs resisting the importunate Caresses of his Mistris what reason can there be to imagine that man is a meer machine moved only as outward objects determine him And if the considerations of present fear and danger may divert men from the practice of evil actions shall not the far more weighty considerations of eternity have at least an equal if not a far greater power and efficacy upon mens minds to keep them from everlasting misery Is an immortal soul and the eternal happiness of it so mean a thing in our esteem and value that we will not deny our selves those sensual pleasures for the sake of that which we would renounce for some present danger Are the flames of another world such painted fires that they deserve only to be laughed at and not seriously considered by us Fond man art thou only free to ruine and destroy thy self a strange fatality indeed when nothing but what is mean and trivial shall determine thy choice when matters of the highest moment are therefore less regarded because they are such Hast thou no other plea for thy self but that thy sins were fatal thou hast no reason then to believe but that thy misery shall be so too But if thou ownest a God and Providence assure thy self that justice and righteousness are not meer Titles of his Honour but the real properties of his nature And he who hath appointed the rewards and punishments of the great day will then call the sinner to account not only for all his other sins but for offering to lay the imputation of them upon himself For if the greatest abhorrency of mens evil wayes the rigour of his Laws the severity of his judgements the exactness of his justice the greatest care used to reclaim men from their sins and the highest assurance that he is not the cause of their ruine may be any vindication of the holiness of God now and his justice in the life to come we have the greatest reason to lay the blame of all our evil actions upon our selves as to attribute the glory of all our good unto himself alone 2. The frailty of humane Nature those who finde themselves to be free enough to do their souls mischief and yet continue still in the doing of it find nothing more ready to plead for themselves than the unhappiness of mans composition and the degenerate state of the world If God had designed they are ready to say that man should lead a life free from sin why did he confine the soul of man to a body so apt to taint and pollute it But who art thou O man that thus findest fault with thy Maker Was not his kindness the greater in not only giving thee a soul capable of enjoying himself but such an habitation for it here which by the curiosity of its contrivance the number and usefulness of its parts might be a perpetual and domestick testimony of the wisdom of its Maker Was not such a conjunction of soul and body necessary for the exercise of that dominion which God designed man for over the creatures endued only with sense and motion And if we suppose this life to be a state of tryall in order to a better as in all reason we ought to do what can be imagined more proper to such a state than to have the soul constantly employed in the government of those sensual inclinations which arise from the body In the doing of which the proper exercise of that vertue consists which is made thâ— condition of future happiness Had it noâ— been for such a composition the difference could never have been seen between gooâ— and bad men i. e. between those who maintain the Empire of reason assisted by the motives of Religion over all the inferiour faculties and such who dethrone their souls and make them slaves to every lust that will command them And if men willingly subject themselves to that which they were born to rule they have none to blame but themselves for it Neither is it any excuse at all that this through the degeneracy of mankinde is grown the common custom of the world unless that be in it self so great a Tyrant that there is no resisting the power of it If God had commanded us to comply with all the customs of the world and at the same time to be sober righteous and good we must have lived in another age than we live in to have excused these two commands from a palpable contradiction But instead of this he hath forewarned us of the danger of being led aside by the soft and easie compliances of the world and if we are â—ensible of our own infirmities as we have â—ll reason to be he hath offered us the â—ssistance of his Grace and of that Spirit of â—is which is greater than the Spirit that is â—n the World He hath promised us those weapons whereby we may withstand the â—orrent of wickedness in the world with far greater success than the old Gauls were wont to do the inundations of their Countrey whose custom was to be drowned with their arms in their hands But it will be the greater folly in us to be so because we have not only sufficient means of resistance but we understand the danger before hand If we once forsake the strict rules of Religion and goodness and are ready to yield our selves to whatever hath got retainers enough to set up for a custom we may know where we begin but we cannot where we shall make an end For every fresh assault makes the breach wider
and doubts concerning another state and hath declared his own readiness to be reconciled to us upon our repentance to pardon what hath been done amiss and to give that divine assistance whereby our wills may be governed and our passions subdued and upon a submission of our selves to his wise Providence and a sincere obedience to his Laws he hath promised eternal salvation in the life to come 3. God hath given us the greatest assurance that these offers came from himself which the Apostle gives an account of here saying that this salvation began at first to be spoken by our Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness by signs and wonders c. Wherein we have all the satisfaction which the mindes of reasonable men could desire as to these things It might be justly expected that the messenger of so great news to the World should be no mean and ordinary person neither was he for the honour was as great in the person who brought it as the importance was in the thing it self No less than the Eternal Son of God came down from the Bosom of his Father to rectifie the mistakes of Mankinde and not only to shew them the way to be happy but by the most powerfull arguments to perswade them to be so Nay we find all the three persons of the Trinity here engaged in the great work of mans salvation it was first spoken by our Lord God also bearing them witness and that with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost So that not only the first revelation was from God but the testimony to confirm that it was so was from him too there being never so clear an attestation of any divine truths as was of the Doctrine of the Gospel From whence it follows that the foundation whereon our Faith stands is nothing short of a divine testimony which God gave to the truth of that revelation of his will so vain are the cavils of those who say we have nothing but meer probabilities for our Faith and do interpret that manner of proof which matters of fact are capable of in a sense derogatory to the firmness of our Christian Faith As though we made the Spirit of God a Paraclete or Advocate in the worst sense which might as well plead a bad as a good cause No we acknowledge that God himself did bear witness to that doctrine deliver'd by our Lord and that in a most signal and effectual manner for the conviction of the world by those demonstrations of a divine power which accompanyed the first Preachers of salvation by the Gospel of Christ. So that here the Apostle briefly and clearly resolves our Faith if you ask Why we believe that great salvation which the Gospel offers the answer is Because it was declared by our Lord who neither could nor would deceive us If it be asked How we know that this was delivered by our Lord he answers because this was the constant Doctrine of all his Disciples of those who constantly heard him and conversed with him But if you ask again how can we know that their testimony was infallible since they were but men he then resolves all into that that God bare witness to them by signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost And those persons whom these arguments will not convince none other will Who are we that should not think that sufficient which God himself thought so who are we that dare question the certainty of that which hath had the Broad Seal of Heaven to attest it Can any thing make it surer than God himself hath done and can there be any other way more effectual for that end than those demonstrations of a divine power and presence which the Apostles were acted by Those that cavil at this way of proof would have done so at any other if God had made choice of it and those who will cavil at any thing are resolved to be convinced by nothing and such are not fit to be discoursed with 4. Here are the most prevailing motives to perswade them to accept of these offers of salvation There are two passions which are the great hinges of Government viz. mens Hopes and Fears and therefore all Laws have had their sanctions suitable to these two in Rewards and Punishments now there was never any reward which gave greater encouragement to hope never any punishment which made fear more reasonable than those are which the Gospel proposes Will ever that man be good whom the hopes of Heaven will not make so or will ever that man leave his sins whom the fears of Hell will not make to do it What other arguments can we imagine should ever have that power and influence on mankinde which these may be reasonably supposed to have Would you have God alter the methods of his Providence and give his rewards and punishments in this life but if so what exercise would there be of the patience forbearance and goodness of God towards wicked men must he do it as soon as ever men sin then he would never try whether they would repent and grow better or must he stay till they have come to such a height of sin then no persons would have cause to fear him but such who are arrived at that pitch of wickedness but how then should he punish them must it be by continuing their lives and making them miserable but let them live and they will sin yet further must it be by utterly destroying them that to persons who might have time to sin the mean while supposing annihilation were all to be fear'd would never have power enough to deterr men from the height of their wickedness So that nothing but the misery of a life to come can be of force enough to make men fear God and regard themselves and this is that which the Gospel threatens to those that neglect their salvation which it sometimes calls everlasting fire sometimes the Worm that never dies sometimes the wrath to come sometimes everlasting destruction all enough to fill the minds of men with horror at the apprehension and what then will the undergoing it doe Thence our Saviour reasonably bids men not fear them that can only kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell Thus the Gospel suggests the most proper object of fear to keep men from sin and as it doth that so it presents likewise the most desireable object of hope to encourage men to be good which is no less than a happiness that is easier to hope to enjoy than to comprehend a happiness infinitely above the most ambitious hopes and glories of this world wherein greatness is added to glory weight to greatness and eternity to them all therefore call'd a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Wherein the Joyes shall be full and constant
he had usurped such an Office to himself If no liberty were allowed under pain of death for any to say that they were sent from God how was it possible for the Messias ever to appear and not be condemned for the expectation of him was that he should be a great person immediately sent from God for the delivery of his people And should he be sent from God and not say that he was so for how then could men know that he was So that their way of proceeding with him discovers it self to be manifestly unjust and contrary to their own avowed expectations Neither were they more successefull in the accusation of him before Pilate why did not the witnesses appear to make good the charge of sedition and treason against him where were the proofs of any thing tending that way Nay that which abundantly testified the innocency of our Saviour as to all the matters he was accused of was that the Roman Governour after a full examination of the cause declares him innocent and that not only once but several times and was fully satisfied in the Vindication he made of himself so that nothing but the fear of what the Jewes threatned viz. accusing him to Caesar a thing he had cause enough otherwise to be afraid of which made him at last yield to their importunity But there was one circumstance more which did highly discover the innocency of Christ and the injustice of his sufferings which was Judas's confession and end the man who had betray'd his Lord and had receiv'd the wages of his iniquity but was so unquiet with it that in the time when his other Disciples durst not own him he with a great impetus returns to them with his Money throws it among them with that sad farewell to them all I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood What could have been said more for his Vindication at this time than this was by such a person as Judas one who had known our Saviour long and had been the fittest instrument if any guilt could have been fasten'd upon him to have managed the accusation against him but the anxiety of his minde was too great for what he had done already to live to do them any longer service for either his grief suffocated him or his guilt made him hang himself for the words will signifie either Neither can it be said by any modern Jews that all the testimony we have of these things is from his own Disciples but that certainly they had some greater matter to accuse him of which we now have lost For how is it possible to conceive that a matter so important as that was should be lost by those of their own Nation who were so highly concerned to vindicate themselves in all places as soon as the Gospel was spread abroad in the World For the guilt of this blood was every where by the Chriâ—â—ans charged upon them and their proâ—… sufferings afterwards were imputed wholly by them to the shedding of that blood of Christ which by a most solemn imprecation they had said should be upon them and their Children Besides how comes Celsus who personates a Jew opposing Christianity to mention no other accusations against him but those recorded in the Gospel and Origen challenges him or any other person to charge him with any action which might deserve punishment And which is very observable Porphyrie one of the most inveterate enemies of Christianity and that took as much pains to write against it as any and had more learning to do it with yet in his Book of the Philosophy of Oracles as S. Augustin tells us quotes an Oracle wherein were these words concerning Christ And what became of him after his death it saith that his Soul was immortal Viri pietate praestantissimi est illa anima and that it was the soul of a most excellent person for piety and being then asked Why he was condemned the answer only is that the body of the best is exposed to weakning torments but the Soul rests in heavenly habitations So that on no account can this contradiction appear to be otherwise than an act of great injustice and cruelty and therefore must needs be the contradiction of sinners 2. This contradiction of theirs to Christ was an act of high Ingratitude It was a sharp but very just rebuke which the Jews received from our Saviour when they were once ready to stone him Many good works have I shewed you from my Father for which of those works do you stone me The very same might have been applyed to his Judges and accusers when they were about to crucifie him For what was his whole Life after he appeared publickly but a constant design of doing good His presence had far more vertue for the curing all bodily distempers than the Pool of Bethesda among the Jews or the Temples of AEsculapius among the Gentiles What wonders were made of very small things done by other persons as the cure of a blinde Man by Vespasian when such multitudes of far more certain and considerable cures can hardly keep up the reputation of any thing extraordinary in him But though his kindness was great to the bodies of men where they were fit objects of pity and compassion yet it was far greater to their souls that being more agreeable to the design of his coming into the World for the other tended to raise such an esteem of him as might maâ—… him the more successefull in the cure of their Souls And to shew that this was his great business wherever he comes he discourses about these things takes every opportunity that might be improved for that end refuses no company he might do good upon and converses not with them with the pride and arrogance of either the Pharisees or Philosophers but with the greatest meekness humility and patience How admirable are his more solemn discourses especially that upon the Mount and that wherein he takes leave of his Disciples How dry and insipid are the most sublime discourses of the Philosophers compared with these how clearly doth he state our Duties and what mighty encouragements does he give to practise them how forcibly does he perswade men to self-denyal and contempt of the world how excellent and holy are all his Precepts how serviceable to the best interest of men in this life and that to come how suitable and desireable to the souls of good men are the rewards he promises what exact rule of Righteousness hath he prescribed to men in doing as they would be done by with what vehemency doth he rebuke all hypocrisie and Pharisaism with what tenderness and kindness does he treat those that have any reall inclinations to true goodness with what earnestness does he invite and with what love doth he embrace all repenting sinners with what care doth he instruct with what mildness doth he reprove with what patience doth he bear with his own disciples Lastly
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 Countrey 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 Atheisme 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 excellent a Religion If any malice and revenge any humour and peevishness any pride or hypocrisie any sensuality and voluptuousness any injustice or too much love of gain have made others despise that Religion which so many pretend to and so few practise If we have been in any measure guilty of this as we love our Religion and the honour of our Saviour let us endeavour by the holiness and meekness of our spirits the temperance and justice of our actions the patience and contentedness of our minds to recover the honour of that Religion which only can make us happy and our Posterity after us 2. What Encouragement we have from the sufferings of Christ to bear our own the better because we see by his example that God deals no more hardly with us than he did with his own Son if he layes heavy things upon us Why should we think to escape when his own Son underwent so much if we meet with reproaches and ill usage with hard measure and a mean condition with injuries and violence with mockings and affronts nay with a shamefull and a painfull death what cause have we to complain for did not the Son of God undergo all these things before us If any of your Habitations have been consumed that you have been put to your shifts where to lodge your selves or your Families consider that though the Foxes have holes and the Birds of the Air have nests yet the Son of Man had not whereon to lay his head If your condition be mean and low think of him who being in the form of God took upon him the form of a servant and though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that through his poverty ye might be made rich If you are unjustly defamed and reproached consider what contumelies and disgraces the Son of God underwent for you If you are in pain and trouble think of his Agony and bloody sweat the nailing of his hands and feet to the Cross to be a sacrifice for the expiation of your sins Never think much of undergoing any thing whereby you may be conformable to the Image of the Son of God knowing this that if ye suffer with him ye shall also be
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 deterr 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 deterr 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 consider'd without any respect tâ—… sin gives rather encouragement to sinners than any argument to deterre them from it For the natural consequence of it is that God doth act arbitrarily without any regard to the good or eviâ— 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 call'd 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 rebells 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 suffer'd then there could be no argument drawn from his sufferings to ours but according to the exact proportion of sins and punishments
the same verse For Socinus in one verse of S. Johns Gospel makes the World be taken in three several senses He was in the world there it is taken saith he for the men of the world in general The world was made by him there it must be understood onely of the reformation of things by the Gospel and the world knew him not there it must be taken in neither of the former senses but for the wicked of the world What may not one make of the Scripture by such a way of interpreting it But by this we have the less reason to wonder that Socinus should put such an Interpretation upon Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree In which he doth acknowledge by the curse in the first clause to be meant the punishment of sin but not in the second And the reason he gives for it is amavit enim Paulus in execrationis verbo argutus esse S. Paul affected playing with the word curse understanding it first in a proper and then a Metaphorical sense But it is plain that the design of S. Paul and Socinus are very different in these words Socinus thinks he speaks onely Metaphorically when he saith that Christ was made a curse for us i. e. by a bare allusion of the name without a correspondency in the thing it self and so that the death of Christ might be called a curse but was not so but S. Paul speaks of this not by way of extenuation but to set forth the greatness and weight of the punishment he underwent for us He therefore tells us what it was which Christ did redeem us from The curse of the Law and how he did it by being not onely made a curse but a curse for us i. e. not by being hateful to God or undergoing the very same curse which we should have done which are the two things objected by Crellius against our sense but that the death of Christ was to be considered not as a bare separation of soul and body but as properly poenal being such a kind of death which none but Malefactors by the Law were to suffer by the undergoing of which punishment in our stead he redeemed us from that curse which we were liable to by the violation of the Law of God And there can be no reason to appropriate this onely to the Jews unless the death of Christ did extend onely to the deliverance of them from the punishment of their sins or because the curse of the Law did make that death poenal therefore the intention of the punishment could reach no further than the Law did but the Apostle in the very next words speaks of the farther extension of the great blessing promised to Abraham That it should come upon the Gentiles also and withall those whom the Apostle speaks to were not Jews but such as thought they ought to joyn the Law Gospel together that St. Paul doth not mean as Crellius would have it that Christ by his death did confirm the New Covenant and so take away the obligation of the Law for to what end was the curse mentioned for that What did the accursedness of his death add to the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and when was ever the curse taken for the continuance of the Law of Moses but that Christ by the efficacy of his death as a punishment for sin hat redeemed all that believe and obey him from the curse deserved by their sins whether inforced by the Law of Moses or the Law written in their hearts which tells the consciences of sinners that such who violate the Laws of God are worthy of death and therefore under the curse of the Law We come now to the force of the particles which being joyned with our sins as referring to the death of Christ do imply that his death is to be considered as a punishment of sin Not that we insist on the force of those particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as though of themselves they did imply this for we know they are of various significations according to the nature of the matter they are joyned with but that these being joyned with sins and sufferings together do signifie that those sufferings are the punishment of those sins Thus it is said of Christ that he dyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he suffered once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he gave himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he offered a Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which Crellius replyes That if the force of these particles not being joyned with sufferings may be taken for the final and not for the impulsive cause they may retain the same sense when joyned with sufferings if those sufferings may be designed in order to an end but if it should be granted that those phrases being joyned with sufferings do alwayes imply a meritorious cause yet it doth not follow it should not be here so understood because the matter will not bear it To this a short answer will at present serve for It is not possible a meritorious cause can be expressed more emphatically than by these words being joyned to sufferings so that we have as clear a testimony from these expressions as words can give and by the same arts by which these may be avoided any other might so that it had not been possible for our Doctrine to have been expressed such a manner but such kind of answers might have been given as our Adversaries now give If it had been said in the plainest terms that Christs death was a punishment for our sins they would as easily have avoided the force of them as they do of these they would have told us the Apostles delighted in an Antanaclasis and had expressed things different from the natural use of the words by them and though punishment were sometimes used properly yet here it must be used only metaphorically because the matter would bear no other sense And therefore I commend the ingenuity of Socinus after all the pains he had taken to enervate the force of those places which are brought against his Doctrine he tells us plainly That if our Doctrine were not only once but frequently mentioned in Scripture yet he would not therefore believe the thing to be so as we suppose For saith he seeing the thing it self cannot be I take the least inconvenient interpretation of the words and draw forth such a sense from them as is most consistent with it self and the tenour of the Scripture But for all his talking of the tenour of the Scripture by the same reason he interprets one place upon these terms he will do many and so the tenour of the Scripture shall be never against him and
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 latter 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 â—y 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 faults 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 neer 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 caled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 hâ—… 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 〈◊〉 others but their own sins deserved the punishment or that the Parents were punished iâ—… 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 fâ—… cruel angry or imprudent men for wherâ— ever there is a place saith he for angeâ—… there is likewise for punishment So that he confesseth there may be a trâ—… punishment and that which answers all thâ—… 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 consider'd 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 affliction and an exercise of dominion So that according to him where-ever there is a proper punishment it must be just when-ever God doth punish men and the only difference between God and man supposable in this case is that we have assurance God will never use his dominion unjustly but that men do so when they make one to suffer for anothers fault notwithstanding a consent and conjunction between the man that committed the fault and the person that suffers for him But this is begging the thing in question for we are debating whether it be an unlawfull exercise of power or no for we have this presumption that it is not unlawfull
because it may answer all the ends of punishments and what way can we better judge wâ—…ether a punishment be just or no than by that But we are to consider that we do not here take the person we speak of abstractly as an innocent person for then there is no question but anger and punishment of one as such is unjust but of an innocent person as supposed under an obligation by his own consent to suffer for another And in this case we assert since according to Crellius the natural and proper ends of punishments may be obtained and the consent of the person takes away the wrong done to him in the matter of his sufferings so far as he hath power over himself that such a punishment is not unjust For if it be it must suppose some injury to be done but in this case let them assign where the injury lyes it cannot be to the publick if the ends of punishments may be obtained by such a suffering of one for another by a valid consent of the suffering party it cannot be to the person in whose room the other suffers for what injury is that to escape punishment by anothers suffering it cannot be to the suffering person supposing that to be true which the Heathens still supposed viz. that every man had a power over his own life If it be said still that the unjustice lyes in this that such a one suffers undeservedly and therefore unjustly I answer if be meant by undeservedly without sufficient cause or reason of punishment then we deny that such a one doth suffer undeservedly Immerito in the Greek Glosses is rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Merito by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Cicero jure merito are most commonly joyned together So that where there is a right to punish and sufficient reason for it such a one doth not suffer immerito i. e. undeservedly If it be said that such a one is not dignus poena that implyes no more than the other for dignus or as the Ancients writ it dicnus comes from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 jus as Vossius tells us ut dignus sit cui tribui aliquid aquum est so that where there is an equity in the thing there is a dignity in the person or he may be said to be worthy to undergo it But doth not this lay open the greatest innocency to as great a desert of sufferings as the highest guilt By no means For we make a lyableness to punishment the natural consequent of guilt and he that hath committed a fault cannot but deserve to be punished so that no sufferings of others can take away the natural consequence of a bad action which is a desert of punishment So that as we say a wicked action cannot but deserve to be punished i. e. there is an agreeableness in reason and nature that he who hath done ill should suffer ill so we say likewise there is no necessity in nature and reason that he that hath thus deserved it must unavoidably suffer it And on the other side we say no man by his innocency can deserve to be punished i. e. no mans innocency makes him by vertue of that obnoxious to punishment but yet we add that notwithstanding his innocency the circumstances may be such that he may be justly punished and in that sense deservedly So that the Question is strangely mistaken when it is thus put Whether an innocent person consider'd as such may be justly punished for no one asserts that or is bound to do it but the true question is whether a person notwithstanding his innocency may not by some act of his own will oblige himself to undergo that punishment which otherwise he did not deserve which punishment in that case is just and agreeable to reason And this is that which we assert and plead for So that innocency here is not considered any other ways than whether that alone makes it an unlawfull punishment which otherwise would be lawfull i. e. whether the Magistrate in such cases where substitution is admittable by the Laws of Nations as in the cases we are now upon be bound to regard any more than that the obligation to punishment now lyes upon the person who by his own act hath substituted himself in the others room and if he proceeds upon this his action is justifyable and agreeable to reason If it be said that the substitution is unjust unless the substituted person hath before hand deserved to be punished it is easily answered that this makes not the matter at all clearer for either the person is punished for the former fault and then there is no substitution or if he be punished by way of substitution then there is no regard at all had to his former fault and so it is all one as if he were perfectly innocent And by this Crellius his answer to the instances both in Scripture and elsewhere concerning Childrens being punished for their Parents faults will appear to be insufficient Viz. That God doth never punish them for their Parents faults beyond the desert of their own sins and therefore no argument can be drawn from thence that God may punish an innocent person for the sins of others because he hath punished some for what they were innocent For the force of the argument doth not lye in the supposition of their innocency as to the ground of punishment in general for we do not deny but that they may deserve to be punished for their own faults but the argument lyes in this whether their own guilt were then considered as the reason of punishment when God did punish them for their fathers faults And whether they by their own sins did deserve to be punished not only with the punishment due to their own miscarriages but with the punishment due to their fathers too If not then some persons are justly punished who have not deserved that punishment they undergo if they did deserve it then one person may deserve to be punished for anothers sins If it be said as it is by Crellius That his own sins make him capable of punishment and God by occasion of others sins doth execute that punishment which he might not have done for his own I answer we are not enquiring into the bare capacity of punishing but into the reason of it 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 referre 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 onely 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 onely 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 Judah for the sins of Manasses in the time of Josias 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 Judah 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 Josias for their own sins when their sins were much less in the time of Josias than in any time mentioned before after their lapse into Idolatry Nay it is expresly said That Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countreys that pertained to the children of Israel and made all that were present in Israel 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 onely here but afterwards it is said that the reason of Gods destroying Judah 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 Josiah's time deserve to be punished for the sins of Manasseh Grandfather to Josiah 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 and punishments the sins of the people in that age did not exceed the sins of other 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 Jews 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 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 finde the Prophets telling them before hand that they should suffer for their Fathers sins Jerem. 15. 3 4. where he threatens them with destruction and banishment because of the sins of Manasseh in Jerusalem 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 Jerem. 31. 28. God saith by
the Prophet that he had watched over them to pluck up 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 onely 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 kindeness 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 onely 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 onely 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 onely contrary to their own Doctrine but to what is plainly seen afterwards in the punishment of the Jew◠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 ifat least they thought his ways very severe though just God by remitting of this severity would shew that he was not onely just but kinde and so they would finde his ways equal that is always agreeable to themselves and ending in kindeness 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 Jews 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 people to those who went before them And Crellius himself grants That Socinus never intended to prove that one mans suffering for anothers sins was unjust in it self from this place no not though we take it in the strictest sense for one suffering in the stead of another Having thus far cleared how far it is agreeable to Gods Justice to punish any persons either by reason of his dominion or the conjunction of persons for the sins of others and consequently whether any punishment may be undergone justly beyond the proper desert of their own sins I now return to the consent of Mankinde in it on supposition either of a neer conjunction
Authors not only signifie an antecedency of order but a peculiar efficacy in order to Expiation Thence expiatory Sacrifices among the Greeks were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frequently in Homer applied to Sacrifices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Plutarch and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the same sense an Expiatory Sacrifice in Herodotus is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to the same purpose it is used in Hermogenes Plato and Plutarch as among the Latins placare purgare purificare conciliare lustrare in the same sense and piare when used in Sacrifices he proves to signifie Luere per successionem rei alterius in locum poenae debitae Thence piaculum used for an Expiatory Sacrifice and expiare is to appease by such a Sacrifice so Cereris numen expiare is used in Cicero filium expiare in Livy So that all these Sacrifices among them were supposed still to pertain to the atoning the Deity and obtaining a remission of sins committed by them And from hence because where there was a greater equality and neerness there might be the greater efficacy of the Sacrifice for expiation came the custom of sacrificing men which Grotius at large shews to have almost universally obtained before the coming of Christ. We are now to consider what Crellius answers to this the substance of which lies in these two things 1. He denies not but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do in their proper use in the Greek Tongue signifie the purging of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God and punishment but that those and such other words are attributed to Sacrifices because those were supposed to be the effects of them among the Heathens but the attributing such effects to them did arise from their superstition whereby greater things were attributed to Sacrifices than God would have given to them either before or under the Law 2. He denies not but that those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being used by the Author to the Hebrews more than once with respect to the Sacrifices and Priesthood of Christ were taken in the same sense in which they are used in the Greek Tongue viz. For the purging of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God and the punishment consequent upon it But all that he contends for is That there is a difference in the manner of effecting it which he acknowledges the words themselves do not imply and the reasons he gives for it are That the other were proper but Christs an improper Sacrifice and that the other Sacrifices were offered by men to God but the Sacrifice of Christ was given by God to men and therefore he must be supposed to be reconciled before From whence he would at least have other senses of these words joyned together with the former viz. Either for purging away the filth of sin or for a delaration of a deliverance from guilt and punishment in imitation of the Idiome of the Hebrew in which many words are used in the New Testament From hence it follows that Crellius doth yield the main cause if it appear that Christ did offer up an Expiatory Sacrifice to God in his death for then he grants that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being applied to the Sacrifice of Christ are to be taken for the purging away of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God and the punishment of sin And it is to no purpose to say that it is not a proper Sacrifice for if the effects of a proper Sacrifice do belong to it that proves that it is so for these words being acknowledged to be applied to the Sacrifice of Christ by the Author to the Hebrews what could more evince that Christs was a proper Sacrifice then that those things are attributed to it which by the consent of all Nations are said to belong to proper Sacrifices and that in the very same sense in which they are used by those who understood them in the most proper sense And what reason could Crellius have to say that it was only the superstition of the Heathens which made them attribute such effects to sacrifices when himself acknowledges that the very same sense doth belong to the Sacrifice of Christ under that notion and as to the Jews we have already proved that the sense of expiation among them was by vertue of the Law to be taken in as proper a sense as among the Heathens for the purging of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God And why should Crellius deny that effect of the Sacrifice of Christ as to the atonement of God because Gods love was seen in giving him who was to offer the sacrifice since that effect is attributed to those sacrifices under the Law which God himself appointed to be offer'd and shewed his great kindness to the people in the Institution of such a way whereby their sins might be expiated and they deliver'd from the punishment of them But of the consistency of these two I shall speak more afterwards in the effect of the Sacrifices as relating to Persons We now come to consider in what sense the expiation of sins is in Scripture attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ and therein I shall prove these two things 1. That the expiation is attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ in the same sense that is attributed to other Sacrifices and as the words in themselves do signifie 2. That what is so attributed doth belong to the Sacrifice of Christ in his death antecedent to his entrance into Heaven 1. That the expiation is to be taken in a proper sense when it is attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ. Crellius tells us the controversie is not about the thing viz. whether expiation in the sense we take it in for purging away guilt and aversion of the wrath of God doth belong to the Sacrifice of Christ for he acknowledges it doth but all the question is about the manner of it which in the next Section he thus explains There are three senses in which Christ may be said to expiate sins either by begetting Faith in us whereby we are drawn off from the practice of sin in which sense he saith it is a remoter antecedent to it or as it relates to the expiation by actual deliverance from punishment so he saith it is an immediate antecedent to it or as he declares that they are expiated but this he saith doth not so properly relate to Christ as a Sacrifice but as a Priest But never a one of these senses comes near to that which Crellius grants to be the proper importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applyed to a Sacrifice viz. the purging away guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God and punishment not any way but by the means of the Sacrifice offer'd For in the Legal
it should have been more properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not I say to insist upon that the Apostle manifests that he had a respect to the death of Christ in the obtaining this eternal redemption by his following discourse for v. 14. he compares the blood of Christ in point of efficacy for expiation of sin with the blood of the Legal Sacrifices whereas if the expiation meant by him had been found by Christs Oblation of himself in Heaven he would have compared Christs entrance into Heaven in order to it with the entrance of the High-Priest into the Holy of Holies and his argument had run thus For if the High-Priest under the Law did expiate sins by entring into the Holy of Holies How much more shall the Son of God entring into Heaven expiate the sins of Mankind but we see the Apostle had no sooner mention'd the redemption obtained for us but he presently speaks of the efficacy of the blood of Christ in order to it and as plainly asserts the same v. 15. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Why doth the Apostle here speak of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the expiation of sins by the means of death if he had so lately asserted before that the redemption or expiation was found not by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and withall the Apostle here doth not speak of such a kind of expiation as wholly respects the future but of sins that were under the first Testament not barely such as could not be expiated by vertue of it but such as were committed during the time of it although the Levitical Law allowed no expiation for them And to confirm this sense the Apostle doth not go on to prove the necessity of Christs entrance into Heaven but of his dying v. 16 17 18. But granting that he doth allude to the High-Priests entring into the Holy of holies yet that was but the representation of a Sacrifice already offer'd and he could not be said to find expiation by his entrance but that was already found by the blood of the Sacrifice and his entrance was only to accomplish the end for which the blood was offer'd up in sacrifice And the benefit which came to men is attributed to the Sacrifice and not to the sprinkling of the blood before the Mercy-seat and whatever effect was consequent upon his entrance into the Sanctuary was by vertue of the blood which he carried in with him and was before shed at the Altar Neither can it with any reason be said that if the redemption were obtained by the blood of Christ there could be no need of his entrance into Heaven since we do not make the Priesthood of Christ to expire at his death but that he is in Heaven a mercifull High-Priest in negotiating the affairs of his People with God and there ever lives to make intercession for them Crellius answers That granting the Aorist being put before the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should imply such an action which was antecedent to Christs sitting at the right hand of God yet it is not there said that the expiation of sins was made before Christs entrance into Heaven for those saith he are to be considered as two different things for a Prince first enters into his Palace before he sits upon his throne And therefore saith he Christ may be said to have made expiation of sins before he sate down at the right hand of his Father not that it was done by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and offering himself to God there by which means he obtained his sitting on the right hand of the Majesty on high and thereby the full power of remission of sins and giving eternal life To which I answer 1. That the Scripture never makes such a distinction between Christs entrance into Heaven and sitting at the right hand of God which latter implying no more but the glorious state of Christ in Heaven his entrance into Heaven doth imply it For therefore God exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour and the reason of the power and authority given him in Heaven is no where attributed to his entrance into it as the means of it but our Saviour before that tells us that all power and authority was committed to him and his very entrance into Heaven was a part of his glory and given him in consideration of his sufferings as the Apostle plainly asserts and he became obedient to death even the death of the Cross wherefore God hath highly exalted him c. There can be then no imaginable reason to make the entrance of Christ into Heaven and presenting himself to God there a condition or means of obtaining that power and authority which is implyed in his sitting at the right hand of God 2. Supposing we should look on these as distinct there is as little reason to attribute the expiation of sin to his entrance considered as distinct from the other For the expiation of sins in Heaven being by Crellius himself confessed to be by the exercise of Christs power and this being only the means to that power how could Christ expiate sins by that power which he had not But of this I have spoken before and shewed that in no sense allowed by themselves the expiation of sins can be attributed to the entrance of Christ into Heaven as distinct from his sitting at the right hand of God Thus much may suffice to prove that those effects of an Expiatory Sacrifice which do respect the sins committed do properly agree to the death of Christ. I now come to that which respects the person considered as obnoxious to the wrath of God by reason of his sins and so the effect of an Expiatory Sacrifice is Atonement and Reconciliation By the wrath of God I mean the reason which God hath from the holiness and justice of his nature to punish sin in those who commit it by the means of Atonement and Reconciliation I mean that in consideration of which God is willing to release the sinner from the obligation to punishment he lies under by the Law of God and to receive him into favour upon the terms which are declared by the Doctrine of Christ. And that the death of Christ was such a means of Atonement and Reconciliation for us I shall prove by those places of Scripture which speak of it But Crellius would seem to acknowledge That if Grotius seem to contend for no more than that Christ did avert that wrath of God which men had deserved by their sins they would willingly yield him all that he pleads for but then he adds That this deliverance from the wrath to come is not by the death but by the power
Imprimatur Tho. Grigg R. in Christo P. ac D no D no Humfr. Episc. Lond. Sacellanus Jan. 22. 1668. SIX SERMONS WITH A DISCOURSE ANNEXED Concerning the TRUE REASON OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST WHEREIN Crellius his Answer to Grotius Is Considered By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Rector of S. Andrews Holborn and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majestie LONDON Printed by R. White for Henry Mortlock and are to be sold at his Shop at the Sign of the White Hart in Westminster Hall 1669. TO THE READER THE design of this Preface is only to give thee an Account of the occasion of publishing both parts of the following Book The first contains in it several Sermons Two whereof were made publick before which the Stationer intending to re-print I was not unwilling upon his desire that some others should be joyned with them The substance of those I have added either respects the Vindication of the Doctrine of Christianity in general or that part of it which relates to the Sufferings of Christ for us The former I look upon as our great concernment in this Age viz. to vindicate our Religion not only from the Assaults of Atheists but of another sort of men who acknowledge a God and Providence but have very mean thoughts of the Christian Religion Against whom three Sermons are especially designed wherein I have endeavoured to prove that the three grand Attributes of God his Wisdom Power and Goodness are as clearly discover'd in the contrivance and management of the Christian Religion as in the Works of Creation and Providence The latter concerning the Sufferings of Christ is handled in a Sermon preached in this City upon a Solemn Occasion most suitable to the subject The matter whereof as it relates to the Reason of Christs Suffering for us having met with some opposition from a busie promoter of the contrary Doctrine and that debate being with some heat of late broken forth among us not without unworthy reflections on the present Rulers of our Church as giving too much Countenance and encouragement to it I thought my self obliged so just an occasion being given to vindicate the Honour of our Church and the Truth of the Christian Doctrine in this important Controversie In the management of which I have passed by the slighter Attempts of some meaner though later Adversaries but I have carefully considered the utmost strength which hath been given to that Cause by the great Champion for it I mean Crellius in his famous Answer to Grotius Had I intended this at first as a full Defence of Grotius against him it must have appeared in another Language and would have taken up more time than I can at present allow But as it is I hope it may be usefull at this time to those of our own Nation who dispute fiercely in this Controversie without understanding it clearly on either side It may be some will be dissatisfied that I give our Adversaries no harder names but I never found any men convinced by ill Language and those we have to deal with are too subtle not to distinguish between loud clamours and demonstrations I leave that method of confuting them to those who have greater Abilities in that way It is enough for me to prove they are mistaken others may call them what they please for being so But I think it very incongruous for us while we magnifie the patience and meekness of Christ in his Sufferings to discover our passion in disputing about them I am not ignorant that there are two persons in the Roman Church who have written something wherein they would think me to be more concerned than as yet I can think my self Unless I had more leasure than meerly to kill Flies viz. to run after them to make sport with them When a just Answer shall be given me which I have been long threatned withall I may then probably to give weight throw in the small grains scattered in many leaves which may deserve any consideration But for those who think that these need a present Answer they discover the weakness of their judgements too much for me ever to hope to do good upon them And if I have any store of Ammunition left as it is hard to want it in such a Cause I am very loth to spend it upon Wooll-sacks Reader except the common civility of not charging the errors of the Press upon the Author I have no other favour to request of thee but that which thou wilt be sure to do without asking viz. to believe me no farther than thou seest reason for what I say THE CONTENTS PART I. Six SERMONS upon Amos 4. 11. 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 page 1 Proverbs 14. 9. Fools make a mock at sin 49 Luke 7. 35. But wisdom is justified of all her children 89 Romans 1. 16. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes to the Jew first and also to the Gentile p. 131 Heb. 2. 3. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation 167 Heb. 12. 3. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest yâ—… be weary and faint in your minds 207 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 〈◊〉 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 discover'd from the different reason and ends of them The right of punishment 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 dâ—â— 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 the future state page 259 CHAP. II. The particular state of the Controversie concerning the Sufferings of Christ. Thâ— 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
reconcileable to the common principles of Reason as well as the Free-Grace of God in the pardon of sin if being truely understood it is so far from enervating that it advances highly all the purposes of Christian Religion then it can be no less than a betraying one of the grand Truths of the Christian Doctrine not to believe ours to be the true sense of the places in controversie And this is that which I now take upon me to maintain For our clearer proceeding herein nothing will be more necessary than to understand the true state of the Controversie which hath been rendred more obscure by the mistakes of some who have 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 levell'd 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 call'd 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 some thing 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 onely 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 onely 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 sum 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 withall 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 to be wholly free for God to remit them without any satisfaction They make the right of punishment meerly to depend on Gods absolute Dominion and that all satisfaction must be considered under the notion of compensation for the injuries done to him to whom it is to be made But if we can clearly shew a considerable difference between the notion of debts and punishments if the right of punishment doth not depend upon meer Dominion and that satisfaction by way of punishment is not primarily intended for compensation but for other ends we shall make not onely the state of the Controversie much clearer but offer something considerable towards the resolution of it The way I shall take for the proof of the difference between debts and punishments shall be using the other for the Arguments for it For besides that those things are just in matter of debts which are not so in the case of punishments as that it is lawful for a man to forgive all the debts which are owing him by all persons though they never so contumaciously refuse payment but our Adversaries will not say so in the case of sins for although they assert That the justice of God doth never require punishment in case of Repentance but withall they assert That in case of Impenitency it is not onely agreeable but due to the nature and decrees and therefore to the rectitude and equity of God not to give pardon But if this be true then there is an apparent difference between the notion of debts and punishments for the Impenitency doth but add to the greatness of the debt And will they say it is onely in Gods power to remit small debts but he must punish the greatest what becomes then of Gods absolute liberty to part with his own right will not this shew more of his kindness to pardon the greater rather than lesser offenders But if there be something in the nature of the thing which makes it not onely just but necessary for impenitent sinners to be punished as Crellius after Socinus frequently acknowledges then it is plain that sins are not to be considered meerly as debts for that obstinacy and impenitency is onely punished as a greater degree of sin and therefore as a greater debt And withall those things are lawful in the remission of debts which are unjust in the matter of punishments as it is lawful for a Creditor when two persons are considered in equal circumstances to remit one and not the other nay to remit the greater debt without any satisfaction and to exact the lesser to the greatest extremity but it is unjust in matter of punishments where the reason and circumstances are the same for a person who hath committed a crime of very dangerous consequence to escape unpunished and another who hath been guilty of far less to be severely executed Besides these considerations I say I shall now prove the difference of debts and punishments from those two things whereby things are best differenced from each other viz. The different Reason and the different End of them The different Reason of debts and punishments The reason of debts is dominion and property and the obligation of of them depends upon voluntary contracts between parties but the reason of punishments is Justice and Government and depends not upon meer contracts but the relation the person stands in to that Authority he is accountable for his actions to For if the obligation to punishment did depend upon meer contract than none could justly be punished but such who have consented to it by an antecedent contract If it be said That a contract is implied by their being in society with others that is as much as I desire to make the difference appear for in case of debts the obligation depends upon the voluntary contract of the person but in case of punishments the very relation to Government and living under Laws doth imply it And the right of punishment depends upon the obligation of Laws where the reason of them holds without any express contract or superiority of one over another as in the case of violation of the Law of Nations that gives right to another Nation to punish the infringers of it Otherwise Wars could never be lawful between two Nations and none could be warrantable but those of a Prince against his rebellious subjects who have broken the Laws themselves consented expresly to Besides in case of debts every man is bound to pay whether he be call'd upon or no but in case of punishments no man is bound to betray or accuse himself For the obligation to payment in case of debt ariseth from the injury sustained by that particular person if another detains what is his own from him but the obligation to punishment arises from the injury the Publick sustains by the impunity of crimes of which the Magistrates are to take care who by the dispensing of punishments do shew that to be true which Grotius asserts that if there be any Creditor to be assigned in punishment it is the publick good Which appears by this that all punishments are proportioned according to the influence the offences have upon the publick interest for the reason of punishment is not because a Law is broken but because the breach of a Law tends to dissolve the community by infringing the Authority of the Laws and the honour of those who are to take care of them For if we consider it the measure of punishments is in a well ordered State taken from the influence which crimes have upon the peace and interest of the community No man questions ' but that Malice Pride and Avarice are things really as bad as many faults that are severely punished by humane Laws but the reason these are not punished is because they do not so much injury to the publick interest as Theft and Robbery do Besides in those things wherein the Laws of a Nation are concerned the utmost rigor is not used in the preventing of crimes or the execution of them when committed if such an execution may endanger the publick more than the impunity of the offenders may do And there are some things which are thought fit to be forbidden where the utmost means are not used to prevent them as Merchants are forbidden to steal customs but they are not put under an Oath not to do it
iâ—… applied by S. Matth. 8. 17. to bodily diseases which our Saviour did not bear but took away as it is said in the foregoing verse he healed all that were sick on which those words come in That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias c. To which I answer 1. It is granted by our Adversaries that S. Matthew in those words doth not give the full sense of the Prophet but onely applies that by way of accommodation to bodily diseases which was chiefly intended for the sins of men And in a way of accommodation it is not unusual to strain words beyond their genuine and natural signification or what was intended primarily by the person who spake them Would it be reasonable for any to say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to give because that place Psal. 68. 18. where the word by all is acknowledged to signifie to receive is rendred to give Eph. 4. 8. so that admitting another sense of the word here as applied to the cure of bodily diseases it doth not from thence follow that this should be â—he meaning of the word in the primary â—ense intended by the Prophet 2. The word as used by S. Matthew is very capable of the primary and natural sense for S. Matthew retains words of the same signification with that which we contend for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither of which doth signifie taking away by causing a thing not to be So that all that is implied hereby is the pains and trouble which our Saviour took in the healing of the sick For to that end as Grotius well observes upon that place the circumstances are mentioned That it was at even and multitudes were brought to him in S. Matthew that after Sun-set all that were diseased were brought and all the City was gathered together at the door in S. Mark That he departed not till it was day in S. Luke that we might the better understand how our Saviour did bear our griefs because the pains he took in healing them were so great And here I cannot but observe that Grotius in his notes on that place continued still in the same minde he was in when he writ against Socinus for he saith Those words may either refer to the diseases of the body and so they note the pains he took in the cure of them or to our sins and so they were fulfilled when Christ by suffering upon tâ—… cross did obtain remission of sins for 〈◊〉 as S. Peter saith 1 Pet. 2. 24. But upon what reason the Annotations on that plaâ—… come to be so different from his sense eâ—… pressed here long after Crellius his answeâ—… I do not understand But we are sure 〈◊〉 declared his mind as to the main of thâ—… Controversie to be the same that it wâ—… when he writ his Book which Crellius answered as appears by two Letters of hâ—… to Vossius not long since published anâ— he utterly disowns the charge of Socinianisa as a calumny in his discussion the last book he ever writ But we are no further obliged to vindicate Grotius than he did the truth which we are sure he did in the vindication of the 53 of Isaiah from Socinus his interpretations notwithstanding what Crellius hath objected against him We therefore proceed to other Verses in the same Chapter insisted on by Grotius to prove That Christ did bear the punishment of our sins v. 6 7. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all It is required and he was afflicted as Grotius renders those words Socinus makes a twofold sense of the former clause the first is That God by or with Christ did meet with our iniquities the latter That God did make our iniquities to meet with Christ. The â—ords saith Grotius will not bear the forâ—er interpretation for the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beâ—…g in Hiphil must import a double action â—nd so it must not be That God by him did â—…eet with our sins but that God did make our â—…s to meet upon him To which Crelliusâ—…eplies â—…eplies That words in Hiphil are somtimes â—…sed intransitively but can he produce any â—…nstance in Scripture where this word â—…oyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is so taken for in the last verse of the Chapter the construction is different And what an uncertain way of interpreting Scripture will this be if every Anomalous signification and rare use of a word shall be made use of to take away such a sense as is most agreeable to the design of the place For that sense we contend for is not onely enforced upon the most natural importance of these words but upon the agreeableness of them with so many other expressions of this Chapter that Christ did bear our iniquities and was wounded for our transgressions and that his soul was made an offering for sin to which it is very suitable that as the iniquities of the people were as it were laid upon the head of the Sacrifice so it should be said of Christ who was to offer up himself for the sins of the world And the Jews themselves by this phrase do understand the punishmeâ—… either for the sins of the people whâ—… Josias underwent or which the people theâ—… selves suffered by those who interpret 〈◊〉 prophecy of them To which purposâ—… Aben Ezra observes that iniquity is here 〈◊〉 for the punishment of it as 1 Sam. 28. 10. Lam. 4. 6. But Socinus mistrusting the iâ—… congruity of this Interpretation flies 〈◊〉 another viz. That God did make our iâ—… quities to meet with Christ and this we 〈◊〉 willing to admit of if by that they meâ—… That Christ underwent the punishment 〈◊〉 them as that phrase must naturally iâ—… port for what otherwise can our iniquiâ—… meeting with him signifie For the word 〈◊〉 taken properly as Socinus acknowledgâ—… it ought to be when he rejects Pagniâ—… Interpretation of making Christ to intâ—… cede for our iniquities signifies eithâ—… to meet with one by chance or out 〈◊〉 kindeness or else for an encounter wiâ—… an intention to destroy that which it meâ—… with So Judg. 8. 21. Rise thou 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LXX irrue in nos fall upon 〈◊〉 i. e. run upon us with thy sword and kiâ—… us Judg. 15. 12. Swear unto me that 〈◊〉 will not fall upon me your selves where thâ—… same word is used and they explain thâ—… meaning of it in the next words v. 1â—… we will not kill thee Amos 5. 19. as if a man â—…dia flee from a Lyon and a Bear met him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. with a design to kill him Now I suppose they will not say that our sins met with Christ by chance since it is said that God laid on him c. nor out of kindness it must be therefore out of enmity and with a design to destroy him and so our sins cannot be understood as