Sponsor 3. Yea and a party equally bound 4. Then a Saviour and Grace had been by that Law which is false 5. Then Adam had been no Sinner for it was but He or Christ and not He and Christ that were bound to keep the Law by this Doctrine 6. Then no Death had been due to Adam 7. Then that Law was not broken at all for it bound but disjunctively 8. Then the Law condemneth no man 9. Then our Death and the Curse of the Earth were injuries for we kept the Law by Christ 10. Then the Law of Innocency is it by which we are justified which is false 11. Then there is no place for pardon 12. Nor for a new Law to give us pardon upon terms or new Conditions This is to subvert the Gospel Yet this is commonly said by the adversaries that Adam after his fall was justified by that same Law as saying Do this and Live because he kept it by Christ or Christ in his Name and stead so that it justifieâ—h Adam which Mr. Wotton de Recoâ—â— hath at large confuted If they say that the same Law or Covenant commanded Adam to obey perfectly and his surety also in his stead conjunctly and condemned both Adam for Sin and his Surety for the same then both must suffer as both must obey and each beareth his own part It is a fundamental fiction leading on many other errours to say that the Law of Innocency as it commanded Adam Obediâ—nce or as it threatned Death to him was fulfilled by Christ for him That Law commanded Adam only Personal perfect perpetual Obedience It mentioned or meant no â—â—carius obedâ—â—â—â—ae aut poenae Dum altus solvit aliud solvitur Anothers obeying or suffering was no fulfilling of the Law as it commanded Adam The Law commandeth each subject distinctly and personally Christ fulfilled all the Law as it obliged himself and thaâ— fâ—r Adams Redemptioâ— who had broken it But the same Law aâ— it obâ—â—â—â—d Adam was broken by Adam and not kept by him or any for him It is not that Law that gave man a Saviour but the Mercy of the Offended Lawgiver To say the Hoc fac vives in that Law giveth us right to Life and justifieth us as perfect obeyers and so no Sinners is to deny the Gospel Many say indeed that Christ â—atisfied the Law for us but 1. That proveth that the Obligation of it on us was not fulfilled For satiâ—faction is solutio recusabilis tantidem loco solutionis eâ—usdem 2. But it is an improper speech to say that the Law is satisfied And it meaneth no more but that the end of Government by that Law is obtained And it is properly satisfaction only to the Lawgiver and not to the Law For the Law in it's sence admits not of satisfaction though it hath nothing against it It is only the subjects Obedience that it commandeth and his death as satisfaction for sin that it demandeth It is the Lawgiver as he is above his own Law and hath power to pardon that is satisfied Though as tropically some say that Finis Legis est Lex so we will not contend with them that tropically say Christ satisfied the Law while they mean but that he satisfied the Lawgiver in obtaining the End of the Law But Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law as it obliged himself upon his Sponsion And that Law justified him but no man else It is only the New Covenant that justifieth us II. The second Errour to the same purpose is that though Christ and Adam were two Natural Persons yet they were One â—erson in a Civil Legal or Reputative sense in Christs obeying and suffering and so that what Christ did and suffered in his own Natural Person he did and suffered in Adams and every Elect mans Civil Legal or Reputative Person This is but the consequent of the former Errour He may be called our Râ—prâ—â—â—nter in a limited sense in â—antum ad hoc for there is no hope of holding our opposers to Scriptures phrase But such a strict full personating Representation as is here described denieth the substance of the Gospel There are indeed several Cases in which one in Law or Civil sense doth personate another When the Law alloweth one to do the thing by another that thing is morally done by himself e. g. by my Servant Proxie Attorney Agent in Cases â—o allowed by the Law It is I that pay the debt which my Servant or any Vicarius allowed by Law payeth for me in my name Christ did not thus pay or suffer in our names as our Legal Person but for us and in our stead as a s 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 t Sponsor in the person of a Mediator so that it cannot be said thâ—t we did it Legally by him else all the forenamed absurdities would follow and specially that Legallâ— we never sinnâ—d and never deserved punishâ—ent nor need either Pardon or the Sacrifice of Christ for Pardon It 's certain that Christ never sinned but obeyed perfectly from first to last And if we did this Legaâ—ly by him we sinned not in Law sense that is not truly at all When we shew that it is a palpable contradiction to say that we were perfectly obedient in and by Christ from birth to death and yet that Christ must suffer for our sins it 's strange to see how some men satisfie themselves with wriggling or huddling out a few insignificant words unfit to satisfie any other And if Christs Habitual Perfection be also so imputed to us in a Legal sense we were habitually perfect from birth to death Whence it is that some assert an equality of such Perfection in all Christians The consequents I will not trouble you with reciting nor stay to enquire whether also his Divine â—ighteousness be ours in such a Law sense and so Man be deified Either Christ was our Legal Person before we were born or from the time of our being or from the time of our believing only 1. Before we had a Being we were no sinners nor bound to obey and therefore needed not to obey or suffer by another 2. When we were born we were not in Christ and perhaps not Believers till old Age And so the Elect should Legally be just while they are Infidels and never sin even in their state of Enmity 3. If only since believing we were so personated by Christ then his Righteousness is not imputed to us for all the time of our unregeneracy and then we never sinned in Law sense after our believing If they say that in suffering he represented us as unregenerate and in his obedience as Believers only then he suffered not for our sins after believing nor obeyed to merit pardon of our sins before If they say that so far as we are sinners we Legally suffered in him and as Believers further to merit glorâ— we obeyed by him the contradiction of this is shewed before If we obeyed so far as to merit glory by the Law of Works then we
Habits would have been fitly called the matter of his Righteousness that is of the fundamentum Relationis Yet this is the difference Adams Right or Relation of Just would have resulted immediately from his own Acts and Habits câ—â—pared with the Law whereas ours resulteth from Christs Merits or Righteousness not immediately as ours in it self but mediately as paid for us to God and the Benefit of Right and Righteousness given us by the Covenant for the said Merit of our Mediator § 16. Next you say that this Imputation supposeth not the Person to have done and suffered himself what is imputed to him and note their mistake that suppose the Doctrine of Imputation to imply that Christ did commit our Sins and we perform his Righteousness Ans This granteth much towards Concord But I hope you understand that the Question is not whether we did Physically do and suffer what Christ did even in our Natural Persons but whether we did it Morally Legally Civilly Reputatively as a Man acteth by an Instrument Attorney Vicar or Personating Representer â—o that the Law reputeth it his Act. Why did you not note this and tell us whether you deny this also as well as our Physical performance If you deny not this our Legal or Moral doing and suffering in and by Christ you did not fairly in your Description of the Mind of your opposers as far as ever I could understand them But if you deny this our agreement seemeth very feasible But then you must go over the Explication of Imputation and Donation of Christs own Righteousness again and better tell us what you mean by them than these described words do § 1â— Next you tell us of Imputation 1. Ex justitia 2. Ex Voluntaria Sponsione 3. Ex injuria 4. Ex gratia 1. Things imputed ex justitia you say are 1. For Fâ—deral Relation as Adams sin 2. For Natural Relation and that only as to some temporal Effects Ans Here we must suppose by your former explication that by Imputation you mean not Estimative reckoning or accounting that to a man which he before hath but 1. Donation 2. Vsage congruously anâ— will so to use one But Adams sin was no giâ—â— to us and came not by donation Nor is Donation Imputation 2. What you say of Adams sin being ours by Covenant Relation as distinct from Natural Relation is unsound and the matter needeth fuller explication which as aforesaid I have attempted in my Disputation of Original Sin And as unsound is it that Natural Relation brings none but Temporal Evil. It cannot be proved nor is to be affirmed that without natural derivation we derive by meer Covenant the guilt of Adams sin no nor that Covenant derivation is before the natural nor yet that it goeth any further or that we contract any more guilt by Covenant than we do by nature but the Law of nature it self and Gods congruous Covenant is that which virtually judgeth us guilty when natural derivation hath made us guilty as Dr. Twisse oft as aforesaid Do you mean that guilt resulteth from Gods part of the Covenant or from Adams or from his Posterities Not from ours for we exisâ—ed not and made no such Covenant Not from Adams part antecedent to Natural Derivation For 1. No man can prove that ever Adam made such a Covenant 2. Or that God gave him any such power much less Command to bring sin and death on his Posterity by his Consent or Will or Contract further than by the Law of Nature they must derive it from him if he sinned 3. Not by Gods Covenant act For 1. No such Covenant of God can be shewn that made men sinners further than Natural Derivation did 2. Else God should be the Author of sin even of all mens Original sin if his Arbitrary Covenant made them sinners where nature did not Nay more it is not meer Natural Relation much less such Covenant Relation that doth it for Relation doth not so operate of itself but it is that Generation which causeth Fundamentally at once both the Relation of Sons and the adherent guilt And in my foresaid second Disputation I have proved that Natural derivation even from nearer Parents deserveth more than Temporal hurt § 18. II. Your second ex voluntaria Sponsione you exemplify in Onesimus and Judah to Jacob Gen. 43.9 Ans 1. There is no talk of Imputation in either of the Texts as to the receiver Much less of an Imputation which is Donation Indeed Paul undertaketh to pay Onesimus's debt to Philemon and so bids him set the debt on his account that is take him for the pay-master If this be Imputing the debt to Paul we are agreed that so not our reatus culpae but poenae our 〈◊〉 of punishment was imputed to Christ that is he undertook to bear it for us Paul gave not the money to Onesimus but for him by promise He was not an antecedent surety but a consequent He did not promise to pay it in Onesimus Legal person Nor is the payment properly imputed to Onesimus as any way done by him but only the Effected benefit given him And Judah only undertaketh to bring Benjamin again or else to bear the blame for ever No doubt but Christ undertook our ransom and also to effect our actual deliverance If you will call this Giving or Imputing his own Righteousness to us so as that in se it is made the same accident of every believer besides giving them the benefits of that which he gave to God for them I will not imitate you III. That of Bathsheba 1 Kin. 1.21 taketh Imputation as the Scripture doth For accounting and reckoning them to be sinners and using them accordingly and not as you do for making them such by making anothers Fact or guilt to become theirs All these instances are for what I assert None of them mention any such thing as imputing one mans Acts or Habits to another so as to make them or repute them to be really his IV. Your fourth sort of Imputation ex merâ gratiá you say is the imputing of that which before that act we had no right to And you do well to say there is no other instance of it in Scripture But you do not well to say without proof that this is it that 's meant Rom. 4. God maketh us Righteous by donation before he imputâ—th it to us Imputation there is Reckoning Accounting and Judging a man to be what he is Abraham had Faith before God imputed Faith to him for Righteousness And that Faith was such a Righteousness as God imputed it to be To say it was an imperfect one is no wonder Aâ—â—aham had none personally or properly in se but what was imperfect The sum of all our Controversie is what Righteousness believers have You before noted that Righteousness as it is a conformity to the â—â—eceptive part of the Law is one thing and as it relateth to the retributive part and is our Jus impunitatis vitae
Righteousness was thus accepted of God as soon as performed but it was not then as so performed imputed to any singular Person to his personal actual Justification For it was accepted before we were born or believed But it was not so imputed to our actual Justification before we were born or believed Righteousness is imputed to us if we believe Rom. 4.24 And Faith is imputed to us for Righteousness And he that believeth not is condemned already and under the curse when yet Christs Righteousness was accepted long before If they say that there is a new Acceptation of it for every Sinner just when he believeth and that it is this that they mean I answer that as long as men take liberty to make new phrases about supernatural mysteries which are not in Scripture and to use these to the forming of new Creeds or Articles of Faith they will be so long in acquainting the World with their meaning that we shall never come to an end of Controversies nor to the true understanding of one another for few such men understand themselves but when they confound the matter and the readers with their new ambiguous phrases they cry out against those that would search out their meaning as if they did but Cavil with their Words and distinction and understanding were the way of Confusion and not theirs We grant that the Justification of every Believer is a new Effect of Christs Righteousness And if they will call this a new Acceptation by God of Christs Righteousness or use any other new made unmeet or gibberish Words if they will but expound them as they go we shall the better bear them Qu. 40. Whether it follow that Christs sufferings or Passive Obedience did not merit Eternal Life at all for us because it was only Active Obedience which the Law of Innocency so rewarded Do this and live not Suffer and live Ans 1. Their foundation-errour animateth the affirmative They falsly think that it is that Law of Innocency which justifieth us which doth curse and condemn us and not justifie us at all but it is the Gospel or Law of Faith and Grace that justifieth us 2. The Merit of Christs Righteousness is to be reckoned principally as justifying us according to the tenor of the Law or Covenant made only to him as Mediator That Covenant laid on Christ such duty as was made the Condition of the Promise and made him a special Promise upon that Condition or Duty He performed the latter for the former The matter of his undertaken Condition or Duty was threefold 1. To fulfil the Law of Innocency 2. And the Law of Moses 3. And divers Mediatorial acts proper to himself as to satisfie Justice by his sufferings conquer Satan and Death work his Miracles c. To perform this whole Condition of his Covenant was to merit of God-Man Justification and Salvation The part of this was but part of his Merit materially considered justifying himself against any charge from that Law which he fulfilled But his Mediatorial Acts and so his Sufferings were another part by which he was justified and merited Righteousness and Life for us And therefore the Objection falsly supposeth that it is only Adams Law that justified Christ and according to which he merited for us whereas it was the Mediatorial Covenant or Law which made his Suffering part of the Condition of the Promise made to him for himself and us His own Glory was merited by death on the Cross Phil. 2.7 8 9. Therefore also ours By his blood he entered into the Hoâ—iâ—st having obtained eternal Redemption fâ—r us His bâ—â—od not only purgeth our Conscienceâ— from dead works to serve the living God but for this cause he is the Mediatâ—r of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressionâ— under the first Testament they which are called might receive the Promise of Eternal Inheritance Heb. 12.14 15. Heb. 10.10 14. By one offering he hath perfected for ever thâ—m that are sanctified He hath 〈◊〉 us in the body oâ— his flesh through death to present us holy and unblameable and unreprovable in hiâ— siâ—ht Col. 1.22 To â—at Christs flesh and drink in blood is to beliâ—ve his Sacrifice which yet is that which hath the Promise of Life Indeed the reason of this Objection would deny also Christs Active Obedience to merit our Salvation For by the Law of Innocency Christ merited for none but himself For that Law promiseth Life to none but them that personally obey and never mentioned obâ—yâ—ng by another nor knows any Vicarâ—um aut â—bâ—aiertiae aut poenae It is only God Covenant with the Mediâ—tâ—r as such that gave him right to make us righteous to pardon and to save us Anâ— thâ—t Covenant giveth it as is said on the whoâ—e â—ondâ—tiâ—n It is true that Life iâ— oft especialâ—y ascribed to Christs Resurrection anâ— Life and deliverance from guilt to his Death But that is not because hiâ— Death is no part of thâ— Meâ—itâ—rious Cause of our Life or Holiness anâ— Glory nor his Life a Meritorious Cause of our Pardon by fulfilling all Righteousness but because Guilt was it that was to be expiated by his Death as a Sacrifice and so it did but purchase by pleasiâ—g God the gift of our life But his Resurrection and heavenly Intercession did more than purchase even further communicate and perfect our Life Christs Death was in order of Nature first satisfactory for sin and then meritorious of Life and his perfect Active Obedience was first and directly meritorious both of Pardon and Glory I pass by the Controversie which Mr. Gataker most insisteth on Whether to deliver from Death and to give Life be not all one And whether according to the Law of Innocency he that had no sin or guilt of Commission or Omission had not right to the Life there given Qu. 41. Whether Christs being the End of the Law â—or Righteousness doth signifie that he so fulfilled Adams Law in our stead as that it justifieth us by Fac hoc vives Ans 1. The affirmers quite mistake Moses and Paul in thinking that it is the Law of Innocency which the words cited by Paul describe when indeed it was Moses Law of Works which had Sacrifices and Promises of Pardon which the other had not of which before 2. Christ is there said to be the End of all the Law as to its shadows types and conjunct Promises The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth that is the things promised and typified came by Jesus Christ The confounding of these Laws confoundeth many in these Controversies Qu. 42. Whether the sufferings of Christ merit our freedom from nothing but what he suffered in our â—tead Qu. 43. And whether hence it follow that his sufferings merit not our deliverance from death spiritual and habitual or actual pravity because Christ suffered tâ—em not Ans To the 42d The affirmation of the first is a corrupting addition to the
which you fear will so effectually confute themselves that they will occasion more good among sober knowing Christians than hurt to the ignorant professors that will be tost up and down with every wind of Doctrine For 1. The whole tenour of the Bible is against them And will not Christians read the Bible 2. The Divine Nature on the Soul and all Christian Experience is against them And will not Christians know that Work and Doctrine of Gods Spirit in them For Insâ—ance 1. Will they that are saved from Atheism ever believe that the most Holy God is the maker of sins yea and mâ—de his own Son the greateâ—â— sinner in the World when the Devil himself cannot make one man a sinner but only tempt him â—o be suâ—â— yea that God made himself in the second Person a sinner 2. Will Christianâ— easâ—ly believe that our Saviour came to delâ—ver us â—rom sinâ— by making himself worse 〈…〉 becoming the greatest haâ—er of God aâ—d Gâ—â—â—ness the greatest Infidel Atheist Blasphemer Murderer Adulterer Lyar Thief c. in all the World and consequently like the Devil hated of God and having a Hell in himself All Christians believe that our sins were laid upon Christ as to their penalty that he was Vicarius poenae that he suffered for us the just for the unjust to reconcile us to God and that he was made for us a Sacrifice for sin that we might be healed by his stripes and washed in his Blood But what Christian can believe Dr. Crispe and his Sectaries that Christ took not only the punishment and guilt reatum poenae but all the very sins themselves of all the Elect habitual and actual privative and positive of omission and commission and so really became the most wicked man in all the World and that lie saveth us from sin by becoming a thousand times worse himself than any of us when it cannot be proved that any one Devil had so great a hand in mans sin as to make all our sins his own And Dr. Crispe well vindicateth God from false Imputation of that sin to Christ which was not his But it is by Blasphemy making that his which was never his even the very sins of all the Elect. 3. And do you think any Soul that hath the Spirit of God and readeth and believeth the Scriptures can believe this Dr. that no sin can possibly hurt the Elect because they are fully saved already by Christ And that it is against Christ and his Grace to intend our Salvation or any good to our selves by any Duty we do or to look to be ever the better for praying obeying believing but must do all only in thankfulness and for the good of others 4. Do you think that a man not to say a Christian can believe that the torments of the Stone Gout Collick Convulsion c. are no hurt or no castigatory Penalty And that it is no hurt or punishment for an Elect Person to be under decays of Holiness increase of Sin prevalency of Temptations the terrours of God and loss of his Consolations and fears of Death He that can believe all this may believe Transubstantiation against all the senses of mankind A Hundred of such Instances may be named which have so ugly a countenance that men that loved their Souls will be affrighted from Antinomianism by the reading of them And I further tell you that too sudden and eager disputing against Heresy doth but engage men to stretch their wits to find out what to say to defend it and to take those for Enemys to God and them who shame their folly And I must confess that tho' I am much for Ministers associations and consultations in order to Concord and mutual Edification I am not much for the way of deciding doctrinal Controversies by majority of Votes remembring what Councils have done that way these 1300 Years and how often either errour or unskilful decissions have the greater number so that tho' now with us they will consent against errours it may be taken for a precedent for erroneous pluralities to Tyrannize or tread down truth hereafter Ortho. But shall we therefore let Heresy spread unresisted Reconcil No But you will let it pass uncured whether you will or not You let not ignorance and pride go unresisted But if it were not uncured there would be no such Heresies If all the Ministers in England subscribe a detestation of gross ignorance and pride do you think it would cure them Doth it cure Atheism Infidelity Drunkeness Lust though all Preachers condemn them If you can prevail with these men to read and consider but one half of that which I have written on these Subjects instead of reviling that which they never read or tryed you will not need to call for more Confutations of them Ortho. But a Confutation short and newly published will be read by those that will not read Books old and large Reconcil I have staid since your first motion to see whether there be like to be any apparent necessity of any renewed opposition to this infection and I acknowledge that now some necessity appeareth to me in the new and zealous attempts of the erroneous But God in great mercy hath raised up many that are fitter to oppose them than I that in pain and languishing weakness have time little enough to meditate on my approaching change But because the erroneous have learn'd of the transformed Angel of Light and his pretended Ministers of Righteousness to call their Errours the Preaching of Christ and Free Grace and to say that all they Preach not Christ but the Righteousness of man that wrong not Christ as much as they I shall by God's help attempt briefly to try whether indeed they Preach Christ or Preach against him and whether they Exalt him or Deny him and whether they Preach up Free Grace or as Enemies Reproach it And I shall publish a brief Decision of the many Controversies of Justification which I cast by these Fourteen Years lest I should provoke any to revive the allay'd quarrels But their new and earnest Attempts do now call it out by telling us that this evil Spirit is again at work and calleth us to a renewed Defence of Truth CHAP. II. An Enumeration of the Errours which have corrupted Christianity and subverted the Gospel Reconcil BEfore I give you a Confutation of the Errours of the Anti-Gospellers I will promise these two things 1. I will here give you a Catalogue of their Errours which I am Confute 2. I think it needful to caution you what to think of the Persons that you Censure them not too hardly tho' the Errours as worded be very great I. And 1. As the general Fault of their Errours is the confounding of things which greatly differ so by this they corrupt the Doctrine of Adams Communication of sin and guilt to his posterity and thereby raise more dangerous Errours They feign that God made a Covenant with Adam and all his
Posterity say some as in him that if he stood God would continue him and his Posterity and if he fell God would take it as if all his Posterity then personally sinned in him and so that either we were all then personally in him or God by Imputation would take us to have so been And so that God's Covenant and Imputation made Adams sin ours further than it is by natural propagation not truly distinguishing between our being Personally in him and being but Virtually and Seminally in him And feigning God to make Adam not only the Natural Father and Root of Mankind but also Arbitrarily a Constituted Representer of all the Persons that should spring from him and so that God made them sinners that were none and that before he made them men II. Whence they infer that Christ was by Gods imposition and his own sponsion made the Legal Representative Person of every one of the Elect taken singularly so that what he did for them God reputeth them to have done by him III. Hereby they falsly make the Person of the Mediator to be the legal Person of the sinner and deny the true Mediatorship IV. But they cannot agree when this Personating of the Elect began Some say It had no beginning but was from Eternity because Election was from Eternity and we were Elected in Christ and so were Persons from Eternity in him V. Others say That it began at the making of the World Christ being then the first of Gods Works in a Super-angelical Nature emaning from the Divine which contained all our Persons in it as the Beams are of or in the Sun VI. Others say that this Personation began at the giving to Adam the first Law or Covenant of Innocency and that Christ was a person in the Bond or Covenant And that the meaning of it was Thou or Christ personating thee shall perfectly Obey or Thou or He shall Die the threatned death for Sin VII Others say that this Personation began at the making of the Promise Gen. 3. of the Seâ—d of the Woman c. And so that Christ personated none under the first Covenant VIII Others say that it began at Christs Incarnation when he took the Nature of Man and therewith all our Persons IX Others say that it began on his Cross or at least at his Humiliation and that he only suffered in our persons X. Others say that it begins at our Believing and our Union with Christ by Faith and then he by Union personateth us XI They deny Gods Covenant or Law of Innocency that required our Personal Obedience as the condition of Life XII They forge a Law that God never made that saith Thou or thy Surety shall Obey Perfectly or Dye XIII They falsly say that God justifyeth none that are not really or imputatively perfectly Innocent Obedient and such as never Sinned but kept all that Law XIV They confound Gods Covenant with Christ as Mediator imposing on him his Mediatorial part and the Covenant of the Father and Son with faln Man imposing on them the terms of Recovery and Life XV. They hold that the first Law and some of them also Moses's Law is done away as to all the Elect but is still in force to all the Reprobates and was in force to Christ But whether it bound him to Obedience as our Representative antecedently to mans fall or only consequently they are in their confusion at a loss And they hold that its curse and penalty sentenced after the fall by God fell on all the Reprobate and on Christ but none of it on any of the Elect as having been suffered by Christ fully for them As I have said The promissary part of that Law ceased and so did the condition of the promise by mans sin making it impossible but the threat did transire in sententiam And if Christ was antecedently in the bond of Obedience for us he was bound not to Eat of the forbidden Tree and bound to dress the Garden and bound to take Eve for his Wife c. which are all false If he were bound by it as our representative after the fall it bound him when it ceased and bound not us which is false And therefore it was only the Law of perfect Innocency anew imposed on himself by the Mediatorial Covenant that bound him And if the Penal Sentence and Curse be Executed on all the Reprobate then it is not ceased And then it must be a Penalty and that Curse even on the Elect before they believe because till then they have no part in Christ And after they believe they must bear part of that Penalty called a Curse which was fixed and not reversed and pardoned that is The privation of those degrees of Grace Peace and Joy which they should have had if there had been no sin The Curse on the Earth Sorrow in Child-bearing and Death These cease not now to be Penals but are Sanctified Penalties A Curse turned to a Blessing an Evil made a Medicine to our good Correction is truly Penal tho' profitable Christ suffered to attain his own Ends and not to cross them His Ends was not to free the Elect from his own Government or Correcting Justice XVI They affirm that the Covenant is made only with Christ for us but not with us As it God made none with man and Baptizing and Christianity were not Covenanting XVII They feign God to have made an eternal Covenant with his Son that is God imposing on God the Law of Mediation XVIII They most dangerously affirm that Christ took not only the punishment of our sin and that guilt or Reatum poenae which is an assumed obligation to suffer the punishment deserved by us to be Vicarius poenae but all our very Sins themselves the very Essence of the Sin of all the Elect the Reatum Culpae So that tho' he never did sin himself yet all our sins habitual and actual positive and privative of commission and omission became truly and properly Christs own sins And so that he was truly judged a hater and blasphemer of God and Holiness and the greatest murderer adulterer thief lyar perjured Traytor in all the World the sins of all the Elect being truly His sins Of which Dr. Crisp is positive and large XVIIII They say that God laid these sins of ours on him and made him properly sin for us and not only a Sacrifice for sin And so that God is the Maker of the greatest Sin XIX They say that Gods Imputation being truly but the accounting one to be what he is had not God made him a Sinner his imputing or reckoning him such had been a Lye which is true tho' they nifer Falshood from it taking Imputation of Sin strictly for a true Estimation XX. They that make this Imputation to be before the Incarnation make God to make himself this great Sinner that is Christ while he was meer God And so make us a wicked God When Satan can but Tempt us to sin