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
Christ and to this I will stand Let us hear then what Mr. Ferguson has to object against it And first he can by no means understand how the Righteousness of Christs Life and Death can be the meritorious cause of Gods forgiving our sins and follies he should have said of that Covenant wherein God promises to forgive our sins upon certain Conditions for asmuch as according to what I express elsewhere his Essential Goodness obliged him to it The words which he cites to this purpose are these That the natural notions which men have of God assure them that he is very good and that it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace Now I would know of Mr. Ferguson which of these three he will reject whether he will deny that the natural notion of a Deity includes infinite Goodness or that the notion of infinite Goodness includes Pardoning Grace when there is a just and honourable occasion for it or that the Merits of Christs Life and Death have purchas'd the Grace and Mercy of the Gospel If he believe all these he is as much concerned to answer this Objection as I am if he deny them he must either turn Atheist or Socinian But pray who told him that the Goodness of God did immediately oblige him to pardon Sinners or that the Goodness of God confers an antecedent title on Sinners to Grace and Pardon May not a good God consult the Reputation of his Holiness and of his Authority and Government and dispence his Pardons in such prudent Methods as his own Infinite Wisdom shall direct And may he not then require the intervention of a Sacrifice and of a very meritorious one too to purchase and seal his Pardon to Sincers The Essential Goodness of God only proves That he may pardon Sin without a Sacrifice but it does not prove that either he will or must The next Exception is very surprizing That because I elsewhere assert That the whole Mystery of the Recovery of Mankind consists only in repairing the Divine Image which was defaced by Sin that is in making all men truly good and vertuous c. He cannot imagine how the Covenant of Grace can be so much as necessary to the promising of Remession of Sins much less that the Death of Christ was needful to procure it to that end But pray why so Is not the Promise of Pardon purchas'd and sealed with the Blood of Christ absolutely necessary to encourage men to be good Does not the Gospel represent this to be the last and ultimate end of what Christ hath done and suffered to rescue Mankind from the Power of the Devil and Dominion of their Lusts and to renew them after the Image of God If Mr. Ferguson be ignorant in these matters I can direct him to a very good Book which will better instruct him But suppose he know no other end of Christs Death but to satisfie a natural vindictive inexorable Iustice yet if this must be done before any thing else can be done is it not absolutely necessary to the last and ultimate end which is to transform men into the Image of God and to bring them to the fruition of him For the satisfaction of Justice in what sense soever he pleases to understand it can only be a means in order to the Recovery of lost Man not the Recovery it self In the next place he tells us That it seems inconsistent with the Wisdom and Sapience of God to introduce a perfect Righteousness such as that of his Son was meerly to make way for his justifying us upon an imperfect Righteousness such as that of our Obedience is What force there may be in that phrase of introducing a perfect Righteousness I cannot tell but I can discover no inconsistency with the Wisdom of God to accept reward those who are sincerely but not perfectly righteous for the sake of one who is If God bestowed so many Blessings on the Posterity of Abraham for the sake of their Father who was not perfectly righteous I wonder our Author should think it any derogation to the Divine Wisdom to accept and reward our imperfect Obedience for the sake of the perfect Righteousness Obedience of Christ. Nay though we should suppose that God had sent Christ into the world upon no other design but to set a most perfect Example of Holiness Obedience to the Divine Will and to give a plain Demonstration how highly he is pleased with Obedience to his Laws should not only greatly reward him in his own Person but should promise for his sake to pardon and reward all those who imitate though imperfectly his Example which in our Authors Phrase is to introduce a perfect Righteousness meerly that he may justifie us upon an imperfect one this would be no greater blemish to the Wisdom of God than it is to chuse fit and proper ways of expressing his love to Holiness and encouraging the Obedience of his Creatures But our Author proceeds very Rhetorically Nor shall I â—â—gue how that the Righteousness of Christs Life and Sacrifice of his Death must be imputed to us for Iustification in proportion to our Sins having been imputed to him in order to his Expiatory Sufferings He may argue thus if he pleases and I shall perfectly agree with him in it Let us then consider how he manages this Argument Christs Sufferings must not be attributed meerly to Gods Dominion without any respect to Sin This I grant therefore our sins were imputed to him not only in the effects of them but in the guilt This I so far grant that the Sufferings of Christ had respect to the guilt of our Sins otherwise he could not have been a Sacrifice for Sin but whereas he adds That it is a thing utterly unintelligible I hope Mr. Ferguson thinks it never the less true for that how Christ could be made sin for us and have our punishment transferred to him without a previous imputation of sin and the derivation of its guilt upon him I am so far of another mind that I think it unintelligible how it should be so for besides that guilt cannot be transferred upon an innocent Person though punishment may I cannot understand how Christ should suffer for our sins if the guilt of our sins were transferred upon himself if he died for our sins it is plain that the guilt is accounted ours still though the punishment be transferred on him And this is essential to the nature of a Sacrifice that it dies not for it self but for another and therefore not for its own but for anothers guilt continuing anothers Christ was no Sinner in any sense but a Sacrifice for Sin which differ just as much as bearing the guilt and bearing the punishment of sin Were our sins transferred on Christ in Mr. Ferguson's way so that our sins become his and that he may be called a Sinner nay the greatest of Sinners the necessary consequence of this
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