his Death and cite Heb. ix 12. to that purpose which I am sure no Socinian can own The proper notion of an Advocate or Intercessor is one who offers up our Prayers and Petitions and procures an Answer which was represented by the High Priests offering Incense in the Holy of Holies which signified the Prayers of the Congregation and therefore we find that while the Priest offered Incense in the Holy Place the People used to pray without that their Prayers might ascend together with the Incense Luke i. 10. So that Christs Intercession is founded on the virtue of his Sacrifice but it is not the representation of his Meritorius Sacrifice as Mr. Ferguson imagines but the Recommendation of our Prayers and Persons to God by virtue of his meritorious Sacrifice and therefore the Intercession of Christ is described by his being able to save all those to the uttermost who come unto God by him Heb. vii 25. And since we have such an High Priest who intercedes for us and is sensible of our Infirmities we are exhorted to come boldly to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find Grace to help in time of need Heb. iv 16. The death of Christ upon the Cross was a Sacrifice for Sin was an Act of his Aaronical Priesthood to make Atonement for Sin by the Sacrifice of himself but when he ascended into Heaven and had presented his Blood in the holy Place he was no longer then a Priest after the Order of Aaron but after the Order of Melchisedeck as the Apostle proves at large in the Epistle to the Hebrews his work is not to offer himself any more in Sacrifice for he hath by one offering for ever perfected them who are sanctified but his Office is to bless the People in Gods Name as Melchisedeck blessed Abraham God hath sent his Son to bless us in turning of us from our iniquities He hath exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance unto Israel and remission of sins So that now in virtue of his Death and Sacrifice Christ doth not intercede like some meaner Advocates by Prayers and Intreaties having all power both in Heaven and Earth committed to him but doth by his Power and Authority which he received from God as the Purchase and Reward of his Death and Sufferings bestow all those Blessings on us which we want and pray for in his Name For this Reason I asserted That Christs Intercession is the Power of a Regal Priest to expiate and forgive sins not to make atonement for them which he did by his Death and Sacrifice as Mr. Ferguson would pervert my words but to apply this Expiation and Atonement to us in the actual forgiveness of our sins And this is so plain and evident a Truth that Mr. Ferguson himself cannot deny it though he quarrels with me for asserting it being willing it seems to find fault if he knew how His Words are these Indeed his Intercession as upon the one hand it is founded on his Oblation and Sacrifice being nothing but the representation of his meritorious Passion and a continuation of his sacerdotal Function which as I observed before is a mistaken notion of Christs Intercession as confounding his Sacrifice with his Intercession which is indeed founded on his Sacrifice and receives all its virtue and efficacy from it but yet is of a distinct nature and consideration so on the other hand it hath its effects towards us by virtue of the interposition of some Acts of his Kingly Office For these Offices being all vested in the same Person and having all the same general End and belonging all to the Work of Mediation it cannot otherwise be but that their Acts must have a mutual respect to each other but yet the Priestly Office to which Intercession appertains is formally distinct from his Kingly In which words he acknowledges that Christs Intercession as it respects us and consists in bestowing those Blessings on us which we want and which he hath purchased is an Act of Kingly Power and Authority which is as much as I asserted or ever intended to assert And as for what he adds that still his Priestly Office is formally distinguish'd from his Kingly I readily grant it so far as it respects his Sacrifice and Expiation which is an Act of his Aaronical Priesthood but as it respects his Intercession which is an Act of his Melchisedechian Priesthood his Kingly and Priestly Offices are so closely united that he is rather to be considered as a Regal Priest than as either Priest or King because it is the exercise of that Power and Authority which is founded on his Sacrifice And by this time I hope every ordinary Reader will see what a vain and malicious attempt it was for this Author to endeavour to represent me as a Socinian of which Candor and Ingenuity I shall give several other Instances hereafter and that he might have spared his pains in proving that the Kingly and Priestly Offices in Christ are distinct and that Christ is not a Metaphorical but a proper Priest But to return to our Looking-Glass-Maker he quarrels still that I say That Christs preaching the Gospel was the exercise of his Regal Power in publishing his Laws Our Author can understand that to enact Laws is an exercise of a Regal Power but not to publish them which would make every inferior Herald a King This is a very wise Objection which shews his Skill in Laws and Government It is not indeed necessary for a King to publish his Laws in his own Person this was a peculiar condescension of our Saviour to come in Person to us to publish his Laws but yet the publication of Laws must be made by the same Authority which Enacts them for publication is of the very essence of a Law and by wiser men than our Author put into the definition of it and therefore is the proper exercise of Regal Power I doubt my Readers will be quite tired with my taking notice of such impertinent Cavils and therefore I shall add but one or two more which are very remarkable and dismiss our Author for the present I commend the Wisdom and Honesty of our Church for teaching her Children a Religion without Art or Subtilty Our Author disproves this by shewing that no Child can understand the Church-Catechism without great art and subtilty he cannot understand what it is to be a Member of Christ without understanding the various significations of the Name Christ and whether he must be made a Member of the Church or of the Person of Christ and then he must know what this Church is which requires great subtilty c. Now by the same argument I can prove that a Child cannot understand the easiest thing in Nature without unridling all the Mysteries of Philosophy as for instance at this rate a Child cannot understand what Bread is unless he first understand what Matter is and then he
would relate things not according to the Customs and Usages of the Times wherein they were acted but according to the practice of the Times wherein he writ for otherwise it is nothing to the purpose at what time the Gospels were writ nor what was the belief and practice of that Age if we suppose the Gospels to be a true History not of those present times but of the Life of Christ and of that Age wherein he lived He argues much at the same rate in another place where he would prove that the Sermons Parables of our Saviour ought not to be of greater Authority in the Christian Church than the Writings of the Apostles which is contrary to the Judgment and practice of the Ancient Church and his Argument is extraordinary subtil Because our Saviour did no more write the four Gospels than he did the Epistles the same Spirit that inspired Matthew Mark Luke Iohn to write the Gospels inspired Paul Peter Iames Iohn Iude to write the Epistles As if the Authority of our Saviours Sermons did depend upon the Writer not on the Speaker There is a vast difference between the Truth of a Relation and the Authority of those Sermons and Parables contained in it the first depends upon the honesty of the Historian the second upon the Authority of the Speaker So that though Matthew or Mark c. wrote the History of the Gospel yet the Sermons and Parables of the Gospel derive their authority and veneration from Christ himself and therefore the comparison between the Gospels and Epistles does not lie between St. Mathew and Mark c. and St. Peter and St. Paul but between Christ and his Apostles and though the Evangelists were inspired men yet the only inspiration which was necessary for this Work was only to help their Memories to make a true and faithful Relation of what our Saviour did and taught and though the Apostles were inspired men too yet their very Inspirations were to be examined by the Doctrine of the Gospel which was to be the Rule of their Preaching and Writings But to return In pag. 4. I find our Author in a great amazement and I always suspected something was the matter with him that he wrote so much like a man out of his wits the occasion of it is that I say That all these Offices of Prophet Priest and King are not properly distinct Offices in Christ but the several parts and administrations of his Mediatory Kingdom Here he first observes That 't is a strange Presumption for a Young Divine to say that these Offices are not distinct Offices in Christ and never in the least suggest wherein the impropriety of so calling them doth lie But I did not say that they are not distinct Offices but not so properly distinct Offices and had he not been in a great amazement he might have seen the reasons why I said so because Christ did exercise a Regal Power and Authority in each of these Offices and the reason why I chose to state it in this manner was the better to show how all these Offices did conspire to the same end Christ is a Mediatory King whose Office is to reconcile God and Man and in order to attain this end he gives us his Laws to be the Rule of our Lives makes Atonement for our Sins and powerfully bestows all those Blessings on us which he hath purchased by his death All this is necessary to the Recovery of lost man and therefore we must not expect to receive any benefit by his Expiation and Sacrifice without Obedience to his Laws nor think that his Kingly Power will save those who submit not to his Rule and Government which those are very apt to do who do not consider how all these Offices belong to him as a Mediatory King but look upon them as such distinct things which have distinct effects without any relation to or dependance on each other For this very reason a late Reverend Author quarrels at Mr. Baxter's definition of Justifying Faith that it is to receive Christ in all his Offices as Prophet Priest and King He dares not deny that justifying Faith must receive a whole Christ but then he affirms that Christ is the formal Object of justifying Faith not considered as Prophet or King but as Priest Etsi Idem Christus sit Dominus Sacerdos totusque in justificatione recipiatur totus tamen omni sensu i. e. omnium promiscue munerum intuitu ad justificationem formaliter minime requiritur sed tantum qua Sacerdos legi satisfaciens i. e. Though the same Christ be both Lord and Priest and whole Christ is received in justification yet not under that formal consideration as a whole Christ in all his Offices but only as a Priest who makes satisfaction to the Law And the reason which he assigns for it is this That Justification consists in being delivered from the Curse of the Law that the only way whereby we are delivered from this Curse is the Satisfaction of Christ and Christ made this Satisfaction for us only as our Priest and Sacrifice And this were a good reason indeed for justifying Faith to eye Christ only as our Priest and Sacrifice if his Satisfaction alone could give us a title to Justification if expiation of sin were the only thing required to the pardon of it The Sacrifice of Christ hath made a general expiation for the sins of the world but this Satisfaction it self intitles no particular man to the benefit of it that more properly belongs to the Prophetical and Kingly Office to confer a Right and Title to the Benefits of Christs Priesthood and therefore we must first receive Christ as our Prophet and our King that is must believe his Revelations obey his Laws and submit to his Government before we have any reason to look on him as our Priest to expiate our sins His Priestly and Prophetical Offices are but subservient to his Regal Power as the Priests and Prophets under the Law were to their Kings and therefore can have no effect without our subjection to Christ as our Lord and King which unites us to him and makes us Members of his Body which he redeemed and purchased with his Blood But then he wonders why they may not be distinct Offices and yet parts of Christs Mediatory Kingdom but then I wonder too what he means by distinct Offices and parts When I say they are not properly to be considered as distinct Offices by distinct Offices I mean such Offices as have no dependance upon each other but can attain their ends single and apart and when I say they are several parts of the Mediatory Kingdom I mean as any one might easily guess that though there are several Acts distinct from each other and proper to each of these Offices yet they all center in one common end they are all but the different administrations of the Mediatory Kingdom and necessary to produce the same
whatever becomes of this Exposition of which more hereafter did ever any man before Mr. Ferguson imagine that the Fulness of Christ of which we receive Grace for Grace was a proper Expression without the least Trope or Figure Fulness properly belongs only to space as filled with matter and is a metaphorical Expression when applied to Spirits or spiritual things and therefore I thought that instead of turning a proper Expression into Tropes and Figures I had expounded a figurative Expression to the most proper sense when by the Fulness which is in Christ I understood the most perfect Knowledge of the Divine Will and by this Fulness communicated to us the most perfect Declarations of the Divine Will in the Gospel which is a Dispensation of Grace and Truth But let us consider what proper work Mr. Ferguson makes of it By that Fulness in Christ of which we all receive Grace for Grace he understands a participation of renewing sanctifying Grace according to the plain and proper import of the words So that Christ is in a proper sense full of renewing and sanctifying Grace that is according to Mr. Ferguson's notion of it of infused habits of Grace and we receive this renewing Grace out of Christ's Fulness as Water flows out of a Fountain And thus either Grace passes from one Subject to another which the Philosopher would have told him no Habit or Quality can do or the very Substance of Christ is communicated to Christians together with these infused Habits of Grace which is a more ridiculous conceit than the Popish Transubstantiation or the Lutheran Consubstantiation The inherent Grace of Christ according to this notion is of the same identical nature with the infused Habits of Grace in Christians and the Essential Holiness of Christ is separable from his Person and may be transmitted into another Subject and may there be capable of increase and diminution Mr. Ferguson must necessarily allow all this if he take these words in a proper sense for it is not sufficient to say that Christ is endowed with power to renew and sanctifie us to deliver this Expression from Tropes and Figures but the very same Grace which is in Christ must be infused into Believers which is an excellent way of expounding Scriptures to a proper sense by turning them into Nonsense But these are but some slight Skirmishes in pag. 387. he draws forth his whole strength and force to make good this Charge against me That I pervert the Scripture by turning Plain and Proper Expressions into a Metaphorical Sense Of this he gives two instances the first is concerning the Priestly Office of Christ which he says I confound with his Regal Office and consequently make Christ only a metaphorical Priest and then he tells us That there is not one Text in the Bible where Christ is called a Priest which can be understood in a proper sense but they must all of necessity be interpreted in a metaphorick as the Socinians expound them Now though I doubt it would puzzle Mr. Ferguson to give an intelligible account what he means by a proper and a a metaphorical Priest yet at least one might reasonably expect from him that in order to make good this Charge he should produce some express place where I make Christ a metaphorical Priest or some express Texts which I expound to such a metaphorical sense but he can do neither of these and therefore he first perverts my words as well as sense and then argues by consequence that I make Christ only a metaphorical Priest and then by as good consequence I must expound those Texts which concern the Priesthood of Christ in a metaphorick sense and thus by consequence our Author loses his labour For I have already made it sufficiently appear how childishly he has mistaken or maliciously perverted my words and sense whereon this Charge is grounded only I am very glad to find upon this occasion that he has so much alter'd his Judgment of Dr. Stillingfleet and his Discourse concerning the Reason of the Sufferings of Christ for time was when he charged that Learned Person with betraying the Cause for the same Reasons for which I am now charged with Socinianism But our Author never commends any one unless it be to insinuate some commendation of himself or to reflect some disparagement and odium upon his Adversary His next instance concerns that account which I give of the nature of Justification And here he first lays down my sense of it and then makes some few cavilling exceptions against it then admirably proves that I pervert plain and proper expressions of Scripture to a metaphorical sense As for the first I own my words but dislike that blundering method into which he has cast them and therefore I shall beg leave to represent my own Conceptions in such order and method as may more easily and naturally express my sense I assert That our Justification and Acceptance with God depends wholly upon the Gospel-Covenant which does not exact from us a perfect and sinless Obedience but promises Pardon of Sin and Eternal Life upon the Conditions of Faith and Repentance and new Obedience that this Gospel-Covenant is wholly owing to the Merits of Christ who by the Sacrifice of his Death hath expiated our Sins and both in his Life and Death hath given a Noble Demonstration of his entire Obedience and Submission to the Divine Will for God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christs Life and with the Sacrifice and Expiation of his Death entered into a New Covenant of Grace and Mercy with Mankind that the only way to partake of the blessings of this New Covenant is by believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ that is in other words by acknowledging the Divine Authority of our Saviour believing his Revelations obeying his Laws trusting to the Merits of his Sacrifice and the Power of his Intercession and depending on the supplies and influences of his Grace So that the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal cause of our Righteousness or Justification but the Righteousness of his Life and Death is the meritorious cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared righteous and rewarded as righteous Persons our Righteousness is wholly owing to the Righteousness of Christ which in this sense may be said to be imputed to us because without this Covenant of Grace which is founded on the Righteousness of Christ the best man living could lay no claim to Righteousness or future Glory The Righteousness of Christ is our Righteousness when we speak of the Foundation of the Covenant by which we are accepted but if we speak of the Terms of the Covenant i. e. What it is that will intitle us to all the Blessings of the Covenant then we must have a Righteousness of our own for the Righteousness of Christ will not serve the turn This is a plain and easie Account of my sense concerning the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in
Faith and Manners The Authority of Testimony is proper only to those Ages which immediately succeeded the Apostles for it may reasonably be presumed that those Persons who convers'd with the Apostles themselves or convers'd with those who convers'd with the Apostles who understood the Phrase and Dialect of that Age and those particular Controversies and Disputes which were then on foot may be able to give us a better account of the traditionary sense of Scripture and of the practice of the Apostles than those who lived in after-Ages and upon this account the Writings of those who lived in the first Centuries have always had a just Esteem and Authority in the Christian Church but still the more Ancient they are the greater is their Authority and the farther they are removed from the Fountain of Tradition so their Authority lessens The Authority of Discipline and Order is that Authority which every particular Church has over her own Members or which the Universal Church represented in General Councils has over particular Churches For while we live in Communion with any Church we oblige our selves to submit to its Government and at least so far to receive those Doctrines which she owns as not to disturb Publick Peace and Order by our Private Disputes But in all other cases he has the greatest Authority who has the best Reason and it is a childish thing to urge the bare Authority of any Man or Church when it hath neither Scripture nor Reason to support it So that I do not urge the consent of these Reformed Churches upon account of any inherent Authority but to make it appear how vainly Mr. Ferguson brags when he charges me with opposing the received Doctrines of Protestant Churches For indeed those Doctrines which I oppose are meer Novelties and were never publickly owned by any Reformed Church and never had any greater Authority than what an Assembly of Divines and an Ordinance of Parliament could give them He who understands what notion the first Reformers had of justifying Faith that it is fiducia misericordia propter Christum a firm and stedfast belief and hope that they should find mercy with God for Christs sake can never imagine that they once dreamt of such an Imputation of Christs Righteousness to them as should make them stand in no need of Mercy or of such a Iustification as is the Off-spring of Iustice and imports one transacting with us in a Iuridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity in opposition to Pardon and Remission which is the result of Mercy and the act of one exercising favour which is Mr. Ferguson's Account of it in his own words But thirdly As this Notion of Imputation has no Foundation in Scripture as I abundantly proved in my former Discourse of which our Author takes no notice and it was very wisely done of him for I am sure he cannot answer it so it overthrows the principal Doctrines of the Gospel and contradicts its main design I shall briefly name some few First Justification by a perfect Righteousness is inconsistent with pardon and forgiveness Mr. Ferguson acknowledges That to justifie and to pardon are wholly distinct in their Natures and Ideas and always separated in the cases of such as are arraigned at humane Tribunals and that thus it is in the actings of God too Now I wonder he did not consider that by the same reason the same subject is not capable of both He who is universally justified in our Authors notion that is who is acquitted and absolved in a Juridical way i. e. as perfectly innocent and righteous needs no pardon nor is he capable of it because he has no sins to be pardon'd and he who is pardon'd cannot be justified in this sense because Pardon supposes him a Sinner and Justification supposes him innocent which hath some little appearance of a Contradiction So that the Gospel-way of Justification which is by Pardon and Forgiveness is quite discarded and we are justified by a legal Righteousness or by the Works of the Law that is by a perfect and unsinning Obedience though the Apostle tells us That by the Works of the Law no flesh shall be justified for though this perfect Righteousness whereby we are justified be not our own but the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us yet it is the Works of the Law still which is an express Contradiction to the Apostles Doctrine And I wonder what our Author thinks of all those Promises of Pardon which are contained in the Gospel and which are the greatest support and comfort of Sinners when it is impossible to find any place for them in his New-Gospel Secondly This notion of Justification overthrows the Necessity and Merit of Christs Death and Sacrifice the vertue of a Sacrifice consists in the expiation and forgiveness of sin but now if Justification excludes Pardon there is no need of a Sacrifice if nothing will satisfie the demands of the Law but a perfect and unsinning Obedience then there can be no Sacrifice for sin or at best it is to no purpose for it cannot satisfie the Law and therefore not expiate our sin and if Christ have satisfied the Law by his perfect Obedience there is no reason why he should suffer the penalty for no Law can oblige us both to obey it perfectly and to endure the Penalties for the breach of it though we do perfectly obey it So that if Christ died for our sins and if remission of sins must be preached in his name then we are not perfectly righteous by the imputation of his Righteousness but must obtain the pardon of our sins through Faith in his Blood Thirdly This notion of Justification destroys the Grace and Mercy of God in the Justification of a Sinner This Mr. Ferguson expresly owns That Pardon indeed if there could be any such thing is the result of Mercy but Iustification is the Off-spring of Iustice and imports Gods transacting with us in a Iuridical way without the infringement of Law or Equity And I know not any assertion which more expresly destroys the Grace of the Gospel Whereas St. Paul attributes our Justification as well as Pardon to the Grace of God We are justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Iesus Nor will it relieve him to say that our Justification is an Act of Grace because though we are justified in a proper Law-notion by a perfect Righteousness yet this Righteousness is not inherent but imputed which is an act of Grace for besides that this implies a contradiction to be justified in a proper Law-sense by an imputed that is an improper Righteousness and that God proceeds in a Iuridical way without the infringement of Law and yet admits of such a Righteousness as not the Law but only Grace can accept I say besides this we may for the very same Reason say that Pardon is an act of Justice because it is purchas'd by the Death of Christ.
Salvation by receiving Christ by resting and relying and rolling on Christ There is no use of Repentance or Charity or the Love of God in this affair for they cannot apply the Righteousness of Christ to us If we come to Christ for Righteousness we must come without any Righteousness of our own And yet it is hard to understand how this fiducial Reliance on Christ can apply his Righteousness to us a confident Persuasion that Christ is ours may make a fanciful application of his Righteousness to us but a mere Reliance on Christ makes no application but only signifies a Hope that it shall be applied And if they will be true to their Principles that we are justified by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us which is God's act whereby he applies the Righteousness of Christ I cannot understand how we can be justified by applying his Righteousness to our selves by Faith which if it have any sense must signifie our imputing the Righteousness of Christ to our selves for the Righteousness of Christ can be applied to us only by Imputation which makes our Justification our own Act and not Gods For it is as absurd to the full to say that Faith is an Instrument in doing that which is intirely Gods act or that our Imputation of Christs Righteousness to our selves is an Instrument of Gods imputing his Righteousness to us And then it is worth considering which of these two Imputations must go first if we apply that is impute the Righteousness of Christ to our selves before God has imputed it this is a false Confidence and Presumption if God imputes it first then we are actually justified and there needs no Imputation or Application of Faith to make this Righteousness ours all that can be said in this case is what the Antinomians affirm that we are first justified before we believe and that Faith is only a Sign or Evidence not an Instrument of our Justification But to let pass the Absurdities of this Doctrin every one may perceive how different this notion is from the sense of the Church of England which does not attribute our Justification to Faith as our own Act much less to any particular Act of Faith but by Justification by Faith only intends no more than that God will pardon our sins if we repent of them and reform our Lives and trust in the Mercies of God through the Merits and Mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the sense of our Church the sole object of our trust is the Mercy of God through the Merits of Christ and therefore the proper Act of Faith is to embrace the Promise of Pardon upon the conditions of Repentance and a new Life we must first repent of our sins and reform our Lives and then rely on the Mercy of God for our Pardon and Reward But according to this new Divinity the sole object of our trust and reliance is the perfect and personal Righteousness of Christ which shuts out the Mercy of God and the meritorious Death and Sacrifice of Christ and the Promises of Pardon and the necessity of an inherent and personal Righteousness as abundantly appears from what I have discourst above But fourthly whereas our Church makes Christ only the meritorious cause of our Justification but still requires on our part Faith and Repentance and the Love of God as antecedent conditions of our Justification these men found all our hopes of Justification immediately on the Person of Christ. Every good Christian hopes to be justified and saved by Christ but not to be immediately saved by Christ i. e. by a bare Union to his Person but by believing his Gospel and obeying his Laws which are necessarily required on our part to give us an Interest in his Merits and Righteousness but to assert that nothing is necessary to our Justification but to apply Christ and his Righteousness to our selves by a fiducial Reliance and Recumbency is to place our hopes immediately in the Person of Christ which is the foundation of Antinomianism For this reason among others I charged them in my former Discourse with setting up the Person of Christ in opposition to his Gospel and making a new Religion of the Person of Christ distinct from and contrary to the Religion of his Gospel For the Gospel requires a great many previous conditions to entitle us to the Merits and Righteousness of Christ as that we must repent of our sins and reform our Lives and become new Creatures and then God will pardon and reward us for the sake of Christ but if an immediate Application of the Righteousness of Christ to our selves by a fanciful and Enthusiastick Faith will make all Christ ours this makes all the conditions of the Gospel void and useless and sets up the Person of Christ and his Personal Righteousness instead of his Laws and Religion The Gospel attributes the Pardon of our sins and the Acceptance of our imperfect Services to the virtue and efficacy of Christs Sacrifice and Righteousness and thus we are made righteous by Christ as by a meritorious Cause But in this way the Righteousness of Christ must serve instead of a personal and inherent Righteousness which makes us so innocent that we need no Pardon and so perfectly righteous that we merit a Reward This I take to be the grand Miscarriage in these mens Divinity which indeed is the foundation of Antinomianism though the mistake be very taking and popular which makes an opposition to it very odious that whereas Christ is our Life and our Righteousness our Wisdom and Power and the Author of all spiritual Blessings but does not dispense these Blessings immediately to us but in such ways and methods and upon such terms and conditions as are prescribed and declared in the Gospel these men send us immediately to the Person of Christ for Life and Righteousness for Beauty and Comliness for Grace and Wisdom and for the supply of all our spiritual wants which shuts out his Gospel and Religion or makes it wholly useless and let but Dr. Owen stand to what he asserts in his Vindication We do not imagin but believe from the Scripture and with the whole Church of God that we receive Grace and Salvation from the Person of Christ in those distinct ways wherein they are capable of being received if by that he means such ways as are prescribed in the Gospel and I declare I have no controversie with him about this matter Thus for instance Christ is our Righteousness as he is the meritorious cause of the Pardon of our sins and the Acceptance of our sincere but imperfect services but the way to be made righteous by Christ is not immediately to go to Christ for Righteousness with all our sins and impurities about us to be cloathed with his perfect and personal Righteousness but to repent of our sins and to believe and obey the Gospel and then we shall be pardoned and rewarded for Christs sake Thus Christ is our
in the room and stead of those men and does and suffers what ever was required of them acting for them as a common person that God imputes all their Sins to Christ and imputes his Righteousness to them and reckons it as much theirs as if it had been personally performed by them Gods appointing of Christ to this work and his accepting of it puts him into the room and stead of the Elect and whatever is done by him as their Surety and Mediator is reckoned as done by them If this could be proved it were somewhat to the purpose but if no such thing appear as Christ's acting in the name and stead of any particular men this utterly subverts their notion of Suretiship For a Surety or Proxy or Surrogate or what ever you will call him who acts in the name and stead of others so that what he does is reckoned as done by those for whom he acts must do what he does in the name and as representing the persons of some certain particular men For to act in the name and stead of another in this sense and yet not to represent any certain person is a contradiction I do not deny but that Christ may properly be said to die in our stead loco nostro vice nostrâ in as much as his Death was a proper Expiatory Sacrifice for Sin or as Grotius explains that Phrase Vice nostra Christum esse mortuum hoc est nisi Christus esset mortuus nos fuisse morituros quia Christus mortuus est nos non morituros morte aeterna That Christ is said to die in our stead because unless Christ had died me must have died and since Christ hath died we shall not die an Eternal death De satisf Cap. 9. But then Christ did not so die in our stead much less fulfil Righteousness in our stead as to personate us as our Substitute Attorney or Proxy and the difference between these two is vastly wide for in the first Case Christ only so dies in our stead that in virtue of his Expiation and Sacrifice he procures confirms and ratifies a Universal Covenant of Grace with mankind upon certain terms and conditions to be performed by us hence his bloud is called the bloud of the Covenant and he the Surety of the Covenant But for Christ to act in our stead so as to represent and personate us gives us an immediate actual right to the purchase of Christ's Death and to the merit of his Righteousness for what is thus done in our stead is in Law and Justice reckoned as done by us and therefore can admit of no intervening condition to intitle us to it In the first sense Christ may die for all mankind and be a propitiation for the sins of the whole World and the Sacrifice and Expiation of his Death be very well reconciled with a conditional Covenant But in the second sense he can be said to die for none but those particular men whose persons he represented as their Surety and Proxy and who have an immediate right to what ever he has done and suffered for no other reason but because he acted in their name and stead Which resolves the whole Covenant of Grace between God and man into the Covenant of Redemption as they call it between God and Christ. Mr. Ferguson has a great mind to say something against this notion of Christ's being the Surety and Mediator of the Covenant and not such a Surety and Mediator for particular persons as acts in their name and stead and does for them what ever was required of them by any Law He first excepts against my Notion of a Surety of a Covenant that it signifies no more than to confirm and ratifie this Covenant and to undertake for the performance of it that all the Promises of the Covenant shall be made good upon such terms and conditions as are annexed to them And first he would fain insinuate the charge of Socinianism against it though he confesses that both Grotius and Dr. Hammond go this way but yet my Paraphrase hath more affinity to Schlichtingius's Gloss than to either of theirs which is said with the usual ingenuity of our Authour without any pretence or shew of reason For there is nothing in my Paraphrase like Schlichtingius's which I had never seen As he has set it down in the Margin Schlichtingius's Comment is this Sponsor foederis appellatur Iesus quod nomine Dei nobis sposponderit i. e. fidem fecerit Deum foederis promissiones servaturum esse non verò quasi pro nobis sposponderit Deo nostrorumve delictorum solutionem in se receperit That Iesus is therefore called the Surety of the Covenant because he hath promised us in Gods name that God shall keep and perform the Promises of the Covenant not that he undertook for us to God by taking upon himself the discharge of our debts or sins That is by making Atonement and satisfaction for sin Which is so far from being my sense that it is directly contrary to it For when I say that Christ's being the Surety of the Covenant signifies his confirming and ratifying the Covenant and undertaking for the performance of it under those Phrases of consirming and ratifying I include whatever Christ did in order to the full and complete ratification of the Covenant and had a principal regard to that Expiation and Atonement which he made for sin which was the procuring cause of the Covenant of Grace and the Seal and ratification of it For thus Covenants were confirmed by Sacrifices in the Eastern Countries Thus Moses confirmed the Covenant between God and the people of Israel by sprinkling the book and all the people with the bloud of the Sacrifice saying this is the bloud of the Testament which God hath ordained to you Heb 9. 19 20 21. Upon which account the bloud of Christ is called the bloud of sprinkling too because by his bloud God did seal and confirm the Covenant of Grace as the sprinkling the bloud of beasts did confirm the Mosaical Covenant as I expresly observed in my former Discourse from whence Mr. Ferguson might have learned what I meant by confirming and ratifying the Covenant Now this alone answers all Mr. Ferguson's Objections against my Notion of a Surety of a Covenant He tells us that the Surety of a better Testament and Mediator of a better Covenant are equipollent terms though he produces no other reason for it but that Christ is called a Surety in one place and Mediator in another whereas the notions seem to be somewhat different and that his being stiled a Surety hath respect not to his Prophetical but Sacerdotal Office and what follows from hence Why therefore Christ's being our Surety does not signifie his confirming and ratifying the Covenant which had been an unanswerable objection had I attributed the confirmation of the Covenant to Christ only as Prophet and not as Priest but now proves nothing but our Authors
great forwardness to answer Books before he understands them or great skill in affixing perverse senses on them But Mr. Ferguson has one extraordinary Argument to prove That there is nothing of ratifying the Covenant and undertaking for the performance of it intended in the term of Suretiship because this shakes God's infinite veracity which is the foundation of all Divine Faith We may sometimes question whether such a declaration come from God but admitting once that it is his there is no room left to suspect its being true and therefore Christ could not confirm the Covenant For Christ needed a testimony from God to confirm his mission but God needed none from him to establish his being true and unchangeable But he quite mistakes the state of the question for Christs confirmation of the Covenant is not his giving testimony to the truth and faithfulness of God but such a confirmation of the Covenant as is made by a purchase and by a Seal which is an evidence to us that the Covenant is confirmed past all revocation which no Covenant is till the Seal is put to it or to use the Apostles Argument from the nature of a Testament which is not in force till the death of the Testator which reason the Apostle assigns why the first Testament was dedicated with bloud and why this New Testament should be dedicated and confirmed and ratified with the bloud of Christ Heb. 9. 15 16 c. which gives a plain Answer to his other Argument That the Apostle reckoning up all the evidences of the Immutability of God's Counsel hath omitted this and thereby precluded it from the number of them Whereas in this very place the Apostle tells us that this New Testament receives its force and final confirmation from the death of Christ who is the Testator And whereas he adds Other security in order to our consolation we need not nor hath God thought fit to give any but his Promise and Oath and for this alleadges Gods Oath to Abraham Heb. 6. 16 17. though we should acknowledge that God confirmed his Covenant and Promise to Abraham only by an Oath yet it is as plain that he has confirmed his Covenant with us by the Death of his Son and indeed God ratified his Covenant with Abraham too by Sacrifice and that at Abraham's request Gen. 15. 8 9 10 c. And this Mr. Ferguson at last acknowledges that the enacting of the Covenant of Grace which I suppose includes a final ratification of it respects Christ's undertaking to be made sin and to undergo the Curse as the moral cause and condition without which there had been no overtures of mercy made to the Sons of men And that upon this account is Christ called the Surety of the Covenant This is a very dilute account of the Death of Christ to make it only the condition sine quâ non without which God would not have made overtures of mercy but he mends this in what follows that It was in consequence of Christ's susception to be our Sponsor and with respect to the obedience of his life and Sacrifice of his Death as the procuring and deserving cause that God entred into a Covenant with mankind c. Which is no more than I always affirmed excepting by Sponsor he means that Christ did act in the name and stead of any particular men Having thus got rid of Mr. Ferguson's Objections against my Notion of Christ's being the Surety of the Covenant for what he discourses of Christ's being a Mediator having nothing new in it deserves no particular consideration I come now to shew what necessity there is of rejecting that Notion of Christs being a Surety and Mediator for particular persons to do for them in their name and slead whatever was required of them by vertue of any Law and that in short is this that it is one of the first and fundamental Principles of Antinomianism from which are deduced all those pernicious Doctrines which alter the whole frame and design of Christianity and do naturally tend to debauchery and licentiousness I shall give but some short hints of this because the thing is sufficiently evident and notorious Thus from hence they argue that the very sins and iniquities of the Elect and not only the guilt and punishment of them is laid on Christ because he stands so in our stead as to become just what we were Hast thou been an Idolater Hast thou been a Blasphemer Hast thou been a Murderer an Adulterer a Thief a Liar a Drunkard c. If thou hast a part in the Lord Christ all these transgressions of thine become actually the transgressions of Christ and so cease to be thine and thou ceasest to be the transgressor from that time they were laid upon Christ to the last hour of thy life Christ himself is not so completely righteous but we are righteous as he was nor we so completely sinful but he became being made sin as completely sinful as we So that here is a direct change Christ takes our persons and condition and stands in our stead we take Christs person and condition and stand in his stead what the Lord beheld Christ to be that he beholds the Members of Christ to be what the Lord beholds the Members of Christ to be in themselves that he beholds Christ himself to be This is very true arguing from this Principle that Christ did to all intents and purposes stand in the stead and represent the persons of particular men and thus far Dr. Owen and Mr. Ferguson agree very well with Dr. Crisp. But secondly Dr. Crisp argues farther That every Transgression first and last great and small one with another are carried away at once and laid upon Christ Which is a necessary consequence of the other for if all our sins were laid on Christ and he took them away with one Sacrifice for sin then they must be taken away all together Whatever sinfulness you have committed do commit or shall commit there was one Sacrifice once offered by Christ through which he hath perfected them that are sanctified And thirdly from hence it follows that we are actually acquitted from the time of our sins being laid upon Christ For sin cannot be laid upon Christ and continue upon the sinner too and therefore from the time of sins being laid upon Christ the sinner is acquitted and justified But for the fuller explication of this Dr. Crisp distinguishes between God's laying Iniquity upon Christ by way of obligation by way of execution and by way of his own application of it to his people by way of obligation God did lay iniquity on Christ when he did tie and bind and oblige himself to it And that is from all Eternity then he did it in his own determinate Counsel when in his own Counsel he did determine it should be done But this was a secret tie and obligation upon God but God did lay the Iniquity of his people upon Christ openly
thing required on our part and in this sense though I deny not particular Election yet I disown our immediate Union to the Person of Christ. Christ is the Surety and Mediator of the Covenant who having with his own bloud made a general Atonement and Propitiation for the sins of the whole world purchased and sealed the Covenant of Grace wherein he promises pardon of sin and Eternal Life to all those who repent and believe the Gospel Such a faith in Christ as makes us members of his Body which is his Church alone entitles us to all the benefits of his Death and Passion and therefore he is said to redeem his Church with his own bloud for though his Sacrifice was general and universal yet none have an actual interest in it but his Church and the particular Members of it This unites us to Christ and applies his Universal grace and mercy particularly to our selves But to imagine that Christ was appointed by God to be a Surety only for particular Persons and to act in their name and stead necessarily precipitates men into the very dregs of Antinomianism which in this loose phantastical and degenerate Age is the only popular and taking frenzy It is time now to proceed to the vindication of my third and fourth Propositions in my Chapter of Union from the misrepresentations of Mr. Ferguson for this is all the skill he has shewn here to pervert my sense and to affix such Doctrines to me as I never dreamt of The third Proposition is this That the Union between Christ and Christians is not a Natural but Political Union that is such an Union as there is between a Prince and his Subjects The fourth is this That Fellowship and Communion with God according to the Scripture notion signifies what we call a Political Union that is that to be in Fellowship with God and Christ signifies to be of that Society which puts us into a peculiar relation to God that God is our Father and we his Children that Christ is our Head and Husband our Lord and Master we his Disciples and Followers his Spouse and his Body These two Propositions our Author tells us are according to the best understanding of enunciations he has coincident and equipollent which is a plain demonstration how little his understanding is in these matters when the third Proposition concerns the nature of our Union and the fourth the explication of a Scripture term which had been perverted to a very different if not contrary sense But to let pass this and a great many other things of this nature as any man must do who would not undertake such a trifling task as to prove that our Author neither understands Logick nor Philosophy nor any other part of good learning of which there are abundant evidences in this very Treatise where he makes a great shew and flourish with that little undigested knowledge he has his great Artifice in what follows is to conceal and misrepresent my notion of Political Union and then to scuffle learnedly and valiantly with his own shadow and dreams Sometimes he represents this Political Union to be only such an External Relation as is between a Prince and his Subjects and ever denies that I own any influences of Grace from Christ as an influential head as he is pleased to call him And therefore all his reasonings proceeding upon such an ignorant or wilful mistake all I have to do is to clear my own notion and to give an account of the reason why I stated it in this manner As for the first By a Political Union I understand such a Union between Christ and Christians as there is between a Prince and his Subjects which consists in our belief of his Revelations obedience to his Laws and subjection to his Authority and that this is the true notion of it I gave sufficient evidence in my former Discourse to which I must refer my Reader But then I observed that this Political Union between Christ and his Church may be either only external and visible and so hypocritical Professors may be said to be united to Christ by the Ligaments of an external Profession or true and real which imports the truth and sincerity of our obedience to our Lord and Master that we really are what we profess to be And herein consists a material difference between that External Union which is between a temporal Prince and his Subjects and the Union between Christ who is a spiritual Head and King and the true Church or true and sincere Christians who are spiritual Subjects For as the Authority of Earthly Princes can reach only the External man because they cannot know our thoughts any other ways than as they are expressed in our outward actions so the Union consists in an external Government and an external Subjection But Christ being a spiritual Prince governs hearts and thoughts too and therefore our subjection to Christ and consequently our Union to him must not be only external and visible but internal and spiritual which consists in the subjection of our hearts and minds of our thoughts and passions to his Government And this real and spiritual Union I explained in four particulars First as I have already observed it consists in the subjection of our minds and spirits to Christ as our spiritual King And secondly this is represented in Scripture by a participation of the same nature which is the necessary effect of the subjection of our minds to him Upon which account I observed that our Union to Christ is described by having the Spirit of Christ Rom. 89. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Which as it respects the cause whereby we are transformed into a Divine Nature so it signifies the Holy Spirits dwelling in us as it signifies the effect or that Divine Nature New Creature which Mr. Ferguson himself acknowledges to be the very bond of our cohesion to Christ so it is that same temper and disposition of mind which Christ had which as I expresly observed is called having the Spirit of Christ by an ordinary figure of the cause for the effect for all those vertues and graces wherein our conformity to Christ consists are called the fruits of the Spirit And in the Page before that it is called being born of the Spirit because all Christian Graces and Vertues are in Scripture attributed to the Spirit of God as the Author of them And now I dare trust any man of common ingenuity to judge whether I make our Union to Christ a meer external thing or leave out the consideration of the Spirit of God in our Union to Christ when I assert that that new nature all those Christian graces wherein our conformity and internal Union to Christ consists are owing to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit And whereas Mr. Ferguson is so critical that it will not satisfie him that the Spirit is present in the hearts of Believers in
patientem It becomes no man to be tame and gentle when he is charged with Heresie and therefore I did not think fit wholly to pass over this charge in silence nor yet shall I insist long on it since there is no other foundation for it but unchristian spight and malice I suppose it will signifie no great matter to vindicate my self nor those who suffer with me under the same Imputation by a publick abrenunciation of Socinianism for if this would do it our Subscription to the Articles of our Church our constant use of the Liturgy especially the Litany and Gloria Patri the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds the old and allowed Tests of Orthodox Christians which no Socinian will allow and is the true cause why they renounce our Communion would be a sufficient justification both of my self and them But they who have made such a familiar practice of it to dispense with the most Sacred Oaths and Promises are apt to suspect all men to be as faithless as they have proved themselves But however because the clamours of these men have abused some innocent persons and betrayed them to very unjust apprehensions of my self and many others I do heartily declare that I am no Socinian and that I do not know any Divine of the Church of England who can reasonably be suspected of that Heresie though it is notoriously evident that those Sectaries who are so ready to charge us with Socinianism have derived the greatest strength of their cause from Socinian Writers especially in the case of Anabaptism Liberty of Conscience and unlimited Toleration and rejecting the Authority of Civil Magistrates in the External Conduct of Religious Affairs as they have borrowed their other Principles of Rebellion and deposing Princes from the worst of Papists The reason why Socinus has so ill a Character in the Christian Church is his denial of the Eternal Godhead and satisfaction of our Saviour but both these I own and make them the foundation of my Religion I expresly call him the Eternal Son of God that Eternal Son of God by whom the worlds were made I acknowledge that Christ died as a Sacrifice and Expiation for sin that by his Death he made Atonement for sin That he purchased and procured and scaled the Covenant of Grace in his own bloud That Christ by his Death expiated our sins and confirmed an Everlasting Covenant and being ascended up into Heaven he there appears in the presence of God for us and perpetually intercedes in the vertue of his bloud once offered which is of infinite more value than the repeated Sacrifices of the Law At this rate I discoursed not once or twice but as often as occasion served and if this be Socinianism I acknowledge my self to be a Socinian and if it be not let others judge what my Adversaries are But let us consider what pretences they have for charging me with Socinianism And first Dr. Owen affirms that I maintain the Socinian Notion of Iustification And now I am very well contented to be a Socinian for I have very good company in it even the Church of England her self as I have made appear above For my notion of Justification is no other than what the Church of England does own and assert But what is this Socinian Notion of Justification That we are justified by believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ. This indeed the Socinians do assert and so do I and yet there is a vast difference between us because they reject the satisfaction of Christ as the meritorious cause of our Justification which I own Upon the same account Ravenspergerus such another zealous Bigot as my Adversaries charged Grotius with Socinianism even when he writ against Socinus at a better rate than these men are acquainted with because he attributed our Justification and pardon of sin to Faith in Christ and repentance from dead works as Socinus does and the answer which Vossius gives to him may serve my Adversaries Socinus â—t ipse censor agnoscit nullo alio medio interveniente hanc fidel attribuit securitatem id est liberationem a poena Grotius vero aliud statuit medium intervenire nempe perpessiones Christi habentes rationem poenae propter quas Deus nos à poenis velit liberare Grotio igitur prius est medium satisfactionis quam fidei at Socino solum medium est fides non satisfactio i. e. Socinus attributes our security from the wrath of God or our deliverance from punishment only to Faith without any other medium i. e. Without the intervention of the Death and Sacrifice of Christ But Grotius asserts another medium of our Pardon and Iustification viz. the sufferings of Christ under the notion of punishments for which God was pleased to deliver us from punishment And therefore Grotius first attributes our Iustification to the satisfaction of Christ as the meritorious cause of it and then to Faith as the Condition But Socinus acknowledges Faith but rejects Satisfaction And therefore Dr. Owen himself when he formerly charged Mr. Baxter with Socinianism upon the very same score and drew a parallel between that account which Mr. Baxter gave of justification and what is given by Slitchtingius and some other Socinians was so modest then as to confess that he was a Socinian in this point as far as any one could be who acknowledges satisfaction which is as much as to say that he was no Socinian Thus to proceed they almost every where charge me with transcribing my interpretations of Scripture out of the Socinian Expositors and therefore I must be a Socinian Now suppose this were true that I did make use of those Expositions which the Socinians give of many places of Scripture what hurt is there in it if there be no Socinianism in them For I have heard men who understand very well what belongs to expounding Scripture acknowledge the Socinians to be excellent Expositors where their own peculiar Notions are not concerned though no men play more tricks with Scripture where they are I do very often make use of Mr. Calvin's Expositions and why do not they hence conclude me to be a Calvinist And indeed in most of those places where they charge me with transcribing out of the Socinians they might as justly have charged me with transcribing out of Calvin and had they known all with greater reason too For Calvin I did consult upon all occasions but the Socinians I never did I have already taken notice of and vindicated most of those Expositions which my Adversaries charge with Socinianism as I have occasionally met with them but Mr. Ferguson has put together some Texts which he thinks I have so expounded as to destroy their evidence for the Godhead of Christ. I would not says our Author be thought to impeach Mr. Sherlock of opposing the God-head of Christ but this I affirm that if his glosses of Col. 1. 19. Col. 2. 3 8. Joh. 14. 20. Joh. 1. 14. which are