themselves Thus as it was the Custom of all Nations to solemnize their Covenants with one another by eating together so God in condescension to the manner of men and to confirm their Faith in his Promises did by the same Rite engage himself in Covenant with them And in the same manner the Sacrifice of our blessed Lord was a Seal and Ratification of the New Covenant upon which account it is called as the Iewish Sacrifices were the bloud of the Covenant Heb. 10.29 Heb. 13.20 For his Sacrifice upon the Cross was the meritorious Sin-offering in which he as the High-Priest the Head and Representative of his Church did solemnize the New Covenant between God and us and obtained of his Father an inviolable Ratification of his Promise of Grace and Eternal life For in that dreadful transaction God did solemnly engage himself to Christ in the behalf of his Church to perform to her what he had promised to the utmost upon the terms specified in the New Covenant And therefore Christ is said to have made reconciliation in his own body on the Cross and to have slain the enmity thereon Eph. 2.16 and to have made peace that is a Covenant of peace through the bloud of the Cross Col. 1.20 But then to this Sin-offering there follows a Peace-offering and that is the Lord's Supper in which the Church for her self by eating and drinking at this Table strikes Covenant with God and upon those holy signs of Christ's Body and Bloud gives to and receives from God assurance of mutual Amnesty and Friendship and hence 1 Cor. 10.16 20. this holy Supper is called The Communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ and drinking the Cup of the Lord and being partakers of the Table of the Lord. For when God in this Supper doth by the hand of his Priest present his Bread and Wine to us he doth thereby renew his Covenant with us and when we receive and eat and drink God's Viands we thereby renew our Covenant with him Thus God in great condescension to our desponding minds hath been pleased to ratifie his Covenant with us in our own way and manner not that this ratification doth render his Covenant surer in it self for nothing can be surer than his promise and yet for the confirmation of our diffident minds he is sometimes pleased to add his Oath to his Promise and for the same reason to his Promise and Oath he hath superadded these federal Ratifications which being the same with those legal Forms and Rituals by which men were wont to ratifie their Covenants and Agreements with one another are upon that account more apt to assure and confirm our minds And now what a mighty influence must this solemn confirmation of the New Covenant have upon us to excite and quicken our Piety and Vertue and render us actively zealous of good Works For when God hath not only owned all the promises of the New Covenant to be his by the many miraculous attestations he hath given them but hath also vouchsafed by all those federal Rites that were most sacred among men to oblige himself to perform them we have abundant reason to believe not only that it is he that hath promised all the good things of this Covenant but also that he is fully resolved to perform those promises to us if we perform the conditions of them since by the Bloud of his own Son he hath engaged himself to him in our behalf and by the Sacramental signs of the Body and Bloud of his Son he hath engaged himself to us in our own persons to perform what he hath promised to the utmost punctilio So that now our Faith in the Covenant stands upon a firm and immoveable foundation as having not only the Promise aâ—d the Oath but also the Seal of God to depend on and having all the good things of the Covenant thus solemnly consigned to us what abundant encouragement doth it give us to return to God and our Duty For now we are not only assured of his pardon and gracious reception but also of the assistance of his blessed Spirit to back and enforce our pious endeavours and to enable us to conquer all those resistances of flesh and bloud with which we are to contend and to encourage us to contend with all our might we have an immortal Crown of Glory proposed to us as the reward of our victory and are firmly assured that after we have spent a few moments here in the practice of Piety and Vertue we shall be removed from hence into that triumphant state of Immortality there to reign in unspeakable glory and delight among the blessed Conquerors above and sing Hallelujahs with them for ever For to all these blessed things we are entitled by the ratifications of the New Covenant Having therefore these great and precious Promises sealed to us by the bloud of Iesus Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord 2 Cor. 7.1 And thus you see how effectually the Death of Christ as it is a Sacrifice for sin contributes to our reformation But after all it must be acknowledged that it contributes only as a concurrent cause with our own endeavours it doth not work upon us as if we were dead Machines that have no vital principle of action in us nor yet as necessary Agents that have no free-will or principle of self-determination it draws us indeed but it is with the cords of a man i. e. with a powerful grace and perswasion but doth not drive or hale us with any violent or irresistible Agency For after all the powerful influence of his Death to reform and amend us we are still in our own disposal and so may resist and baffle the efficacy of his Death and in despite of it continue in our wickedness if we please But if we do it is at our own eternal peril and we must one day expect to answer not only for the bloud of our own souls which in despite of the most powerful method of saving them we have wilfully ruined and destroyed but also for the bloud of our Saviour which we have not only defeated but trampled on and if both these be brought to our account it had been better for us not only that we had never been born but that our Saviour himself had never been born since all that he hath done to save us will be brought in judgment against us as an horrid aggravation of our guilt to inflame the reckoning of our punishment So that unless we concur with this great design of Christ by endeavouring our own reformation to the utmost of our power his Death will not only be as insignificant to our happiness as it is to the redemption of Devils but even those vocal wounds of his which were made to plead for will accuse and condemn us and that eloquent Bloud which in its Native Language speaks better things for us than the
reason to repose our trust and confidence in him and therefore that we might have the same reason to confide in him in his Mediation for us as God had in his Mediation for him God so ordered it not only that he should assume our nature which if he had so thought meet he might have done without either being seen of us or born among us but also that he should so assume it as to be visibly born of humane kind and manifested in it in the open view and sight of the World. For in the fulness of that time which was long before prefixed in the Eternal Council of God the Holy Ghost by an immediate invisible and miraculous operation on the pure and Immaculate Womb of a Virgin called Mary of the Lineage of David inabled her without any Congress of Man to conceive a Child of humane kind consisting of a rational Soul in a mortal body which the Eternal Word or natural Son of God who was before all Worlds immediately assumed into a personal Vnion with himself whereby he became God-man who before was only God and this without either commixing his two natures into one or converting either of them into the other but under their Personal Union preserving them still distinct and separate which God-man the blessed Virgin that conceived him actually brought forth after the natural time of Women and Nursed and Educated till he arrived to the Age of man at which time he began personally to treat with men in his Father's behalf and in order to the reducing them to their bounden duty and allegiance to the Throne of Heaven revealed his Mind and Will to them with his own mouth and pressed and inforced it upon them with the most powerful Motives that ever were urged to mankind and by his own miraculous Works and most holy Example abundantly demonstrated to them that what he revealed to be the Will of his Father was true and practicable Thus far in his own person he Mediated for his Father with Men as I shall shew more fully hereafter The consideration of which ought in all reason and conscience to render his Mediation more prevalent with us For when God the Father hath condescended so far as to send down his only Son from Heaven on an Embassie to us to propose to us terms of reconciliation who had so highly incensed and affronted him when God the Son hath condescended so far as to cloath himself in our nature that therein he might indear himself to us and thereby oblige us to listen more attentively to his gracious proposals what a stupendous height of obstinacy will it be in us to stop our Ears against him and reject those terms of Mercy he proposes to us by persisting in a wilful rebellion Had God sent but one of the lowest Angels in Heaven to us to promise pardon and eternal life to us upon condition we would but sincerely submit to his Will one would have thought a proposal so infinitely reasonable in it self and advantagious to us should have been imbraced by us with transports and raptures but to reject it now when he hath sent it to us by his own Eternal Son whom all his Angels adore and by his Son incarnate in our own natures is such a degree of obstinacy and ingratitude together as no Devil was ever guilty of Suppose that you beheld this most glorious Person coming down to you from the right hand of God to tender you a Pardon and a Crown upon condition you would submit to his Father's Will and denounce everlasting vengeance against you if you persist in your rebellion would you dare by refusing to submit to reject that Pardon and that Crown and defie that vengeance to his face One would think it were impossible but yet in effect you do the same thing who believe that that Jesus who preached this Gospel to the World 1600. years ago was the Son of God in Humane Nature and yet obstinately refuse to submit to its proposals Hence from this very Topick that God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his own Son Heb. 1.2 the Apostle himself makes this inference Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip Heb. 2.1 And now having finished his Personal Treaty or Mediation with us for God he lays the foundation of his everlasting Intercession for us with God before our own Eyes viz. in the Sacrifice of himself for the sins of the World. He might if he had pleased have suffered death for us in the invisible state and received those tortures from the malice of Devils which were inflicted on him by the malice of devilish men but that would not have given so great a satisfaction to our Faith. For for the Son of God to lay down his life for Sinners is such a stupendous instance of love as would have exceeded the belief of Mankind had it not been openly and visibly transacted and therefore he rather chose to resign up himself into the hands of the Iews his cruel Persecutors and by them to offer up his Life upon the Cross in the Publick view of the World. And now having given this sensible evidence to our Faith that he died for us to satisfie us farther that his death was accepted by his Father as a full atonement for our sins he rose again from the dead the third day after his Crucifixion which was a plain evidence that his Father was fully satisfied with what he had suffered for us because he exacted no more but by his Resurrection actually discharged him from any farther suffering for ever So that the Resurrection of Christ is not only an evidence of the truth of his Religion under which notion I shall discourse of it hereafter but also of the acceptation of his Sacrifice For so the Apostle intimates in Rom. 8.33 34. Who then shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again i. e. Who is there now that can presume to denounce eternal condemnation against any good Christian since Christ himself hath laid down his life for him yea rather since he is risen again from the dead and hath thereby given sufficient evidence that God hath accepted his death as our ransom from eternal condemnation And now having satisfied our Faith in these two great points that he died for our sins and that God hath accepted his death in lieu of that eternal punishment that was due for them all the farther satisfaction we can ask or need is that as he came down from the Father to Mediate personally with us for him so he should return back again to the Father to Mediate personally for us with him to exhibite and plead his meritorious Sacrifice in our behalf and in vertue thereof to solicite our pardon and acceptation with God.
which he very often imprints on us with that life and vigour and repeats and urges with that efficacious Ardour and restless Importunity that unless we are strangely obstinate we cannot find in our hearts to repel or resist them Fourthly Another of these ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit on mens minds is comforting and supporting them or inspiring their minds with such joys and refreshments as are necessary to support them under the difficulties and temptations they are here exposed to For this operation of the Spirit is a standing provision against such Difficulties and Temptations as are too great for an ordinary patience and courage to conâ—est with and is not ordinarily vouchsafed to us but only at such times when we are called to do or suffer something beyond our selves and above our own strength and ability in which cases we are secured of this supporting influence of the Spirit by that Promise 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithful who will not suffer ye to be tempted above what ye are able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it For thus we read of the Primitive Church that they walked in the comfort of the Holy Ghost Acts 9.31 i. e. had the constant supporting influence of the Spirit of God to strengthen and bear up their minds under that mighty work and grievous persecutions they were to undergo and the Apostle makes it his earnest Prayer to God for his Christian Romans that he would fill them with all joy and peace in believing that is in their profession of the Christian Faith and that they might abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost Rom. 15.13 And accordingly we find the Ages of Persecution abounding with remarkable instances of this operation of the Holy Ghost For whereas constant Persecutions never failed to exterminate false Religions from the World witness the Heathen Religion and the Christian Heresies the Priscillians Arians and Donatists which whilst they were tolerated or connived at did mightily encrease and multiply but under vigorous persecutions immediately shrunk and in a little time dwindled into nothing the true Christianity on the contrary bore up its head under the heaviest oppressions and triumphed in the midst of flames and was so far from being vanquished by all the barbarous cruelties of its Persecutors that the more they persecuted it the more it conquered and prevailed which doubtless is in a great measure to be attributed to this supporting influence of the Holy Spirit which still accompanied its Confessors and Martyrs For how was it possible that a company of tender Virgins delicate Matrons and aged Bishops could ever have endured those long and dolorous Martyrdoms as many times they did when their Tormentors took their turns from morning to night and plied them with all kinds of cruelties till they were oftentimes forced to give over and confess that they had not heart enough to inflict the Tortures which those poor Sufferers had courage enough to endure How could they have sung in the midst of Flames smiled upon Racks triumphed upon Wheels and Catastaes and there challenged their Executioners as they often did to distend their Limbs to the utmost stretch to tear their flesh with Vngulae to scorch their tender parts with fires and rake their bowels with Spikes and Gaunches How I say could they have endured all these miserable harrasings of their tender flesh with the most witty and exquisite Tortures and this sometimes for sundry days together when for one base and cowardly word they might have been released when they pleased had they not been supported with an invisible hand and refreshed with such strong consolations as not only abated but sometimes quite extinguished their pains And the same comforts though not perhaps in the same degree other good men have frequently experienced sometimes upon their undertaking some great and Heroick Office of Piety or Vertue sometimes in their conflict with some great Temptation sometimes when they have been sorely oppressed with some mighty sorrow or affliction and sometimes in the hour and extremities of Death for it is only upon these or such like extraordinary occasions that the Holy Spirit usually administers these great Consolations to our minds And this he also performs in the same manner as he doth the aforenamed operations viz. by suggesting to and vigorously impressing comfortable thoughts upon our minds for there is no doubt but that as he can impress on us what thought soever he pleases so he can also impress it with what strength and vigour soever he pleases and accordingly as he impresses a comfortable thought on us more or less vigorously it must of necessity be a greater or a less consolation to us if he think fit and our state require it he can imprint a comfortable thought on us with that strength and vehemence as that it shall even ravish us from our sense and so ingross all our attention to it as that we shall be altogether mindless and insensible of any pain or pleasure of the body For thus it is usual for serious Contemplators in their profound Muses to collect and call together all their animal spirits to attend that work so as that many times there are none or not enough at least remaining to supply the Offices of their sense and carry on the inferiour operations of Nature and if we our selves by intense thinking can thus alienate our minds from sense we may easily suppose that the Holy Ghost who hath the command of our minds can when he pleases stamp a joyous thought so vigorously upon them as that it shall instantly transport them into an ecstasie and ravish them from all Corporeal sensation And that thus he hath done is notoriously evident in the above-named Martyrs whose Senses were many times so intranced by the rapturous contemplations their minds were seised with that they lay smiling and sometimes singing under the bloudy hands of their Tormentors without any apparent sense of those long and exquisite cruelties that were practised upon them And though the blessed Spirit seldom applies these strong and powerful Cordials to pious minds but in such great and urgent extremities it being much more for their interest to be kept humble and lowly than to be ravished with continued comforts yet ordinarily he administers a standing peace and satisfaction to them and when ever their necessities call for it he inspires them with such degrees of joy and consolation as their case and condition requires Fifthly and lastly Another of these ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit on Men's minds is Intercession by which he enables us to offer up our Prayers to God with such ardent and devout affections as are in some measure sutable to the matter we pray for For Prayer being the immediate converse of our Souls with God wherein our minds are obliged to withdraw themselves from sense and sensible things and wholly to retire themselves from those Objects to
sins of many and make intercession for the transgressors all which expressions do as plainly denote him to be substituted to be punished for us in order to our release as it is possible for words to do and unless we will admit that to be the sence of Scripture which the words of it do as plainly import as they could have done if it had been its sence it will be impossible to determine it to any sence whatsoever because men may prevaricate upon the plainest words and with quirks of Wit and Criticism pervert them to a contrary meaning And I dare undertake by the same Arts that our Adversaries use to avoid the force of these Testimonies to elude the plainest words that the Wit of man can invent to express this Proposition that Christ's Death was a punishment for our sins which to any reasonable man is a sufficient answer to all the Socinian Cavils And indeed the whole current of Scripture runs so clear against them that they do as good as acknowledge that according to the most common and natural acceptation of its words it fairly implies the Doctrine we contend for viz. that the Death of Christ was a real punishment for the sins of the World but their main Plea is that it is unjust in the nature of the thing to punish one man for the sins of another and therefore we ought rather to impose any sence on the words of Scripture how forein soever than attribute to God so great a piece of injustice as the punishing his own Son for the sins of the World. But as for the Iustice of this procedure I shall endeavour by and by to clear and vindicate it II. He died in pure and spotless Innocence and this was highly necessary to his being an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of others For had he been a sinner he had deserved to die upon his own account and the utmost effect of his Death could have been only the Expiation of his own sin by which his life must have been forfeited to the divine Justice and it is impossible that he who hath forfeited his own life should by his death redeem the forfeited lives of others And accorcordingly Heb. 7.26 27. we are told that such an High Priest became us who is holy harmless and undefiled separate from sinners and made higher than the Heavens who needed not daily as those High Priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins c. because the Sacrifice which he offered was his own life so that had he been obliged to offer that for his own sins it could have made no Expiation for ours the bare payment of a man 's own debt being no satisfaction for other mens And therefore herein the Apostle places the vertue and efficacy of Christ's bloud by which it was rendred sufficiently precious to be a ransom for the sins of the World that it was of a Lamb without spot or blemish i. e. the bloud of a most holy and innocent person who never deserved the least evil on his own account and therefore was truly precious and sit to be a ransom for the sins of others 1 Pet. 1.18 19. And accordingly he is said to be made sin for us i. e. to be devoted as a Sacrifice for our sins who knew no sin 2 Cor. 5.21 where you see the great Emphasis of his Sacrifice is laid upon his Innocence as that which was necessary to qualifie him to be a Sacrifice for others So that by that spotless obedience of Christ's life through the whole course of which he did no sin neither was there any guile found in his mouth he consecrated himself an acceptable Sacrifice to God for the sins of the World. III. His Death was of sufficient intrinsick worth and value to be an equivalent commutation for the punishment that was due to the whole world of sinners For the reason why God would not pardon sinners without some commutation for the punishment that was due from them to his Justice was that he might preserve and maintain the Authority of his Laws and Government For had he exacted the punishment from the sinners themselves he must have destroyed the whole Race of Mankind and had he pardoned them on the other hand without any punishment at all he must have exposed his authority to the contempt and outrage of every bold and insolent Offender and therefore to avoid these dangerous extremities of severity and impunity his infinite wisdom found out this expedient to admit of some exchange for our persons and punishment that so some other thing or person being substituted in our stead to suffer and be punished for us neither we might be destroyed nor our sins be unpunished This therefore being the reason of God's admitting of Sacrifice it was highly requisite that the punishment of the Sacrifice should bear some proportion to the guilt of the Offenders otherwise it will not answer God's reason of admitting it For since the reason of his admitting it was the security of his Authority the less he had admitted the less he must have secured his Authority by it For to have exacted a small punishment for a great demerit would have been within a few degrees as destructive to his Authority as to have exacted none at all to punish but little for great Crimes is within one remove as mischievous to Government as total impunity and therefore to support his own Authority over us it was highly requisite that he should exact not only a punishment for our sin but also a punishment proportionable to the guilt and demerit of it For there is no doubt but the nearer the punishment is to the demerit of the sin the greater security it must give to his Authority And upon this account the Sacrifices of the Iews were infinitely short of making a full expiation for their sins because being but brute Animals their death was no way a proportionable punishment to the great demerit of the sins of the People For what proportion could there be between the momentany sufferings of a Beast and those eternal sufferings which the sins of a man do deserve The death of a Beast is a punishment very short of the death of a Man but infinitely short of that eternal death to which the man's guilts do oblige him and accordingly the Expiations which were made for Men by the death of those Beasts were very short and imperfect For so the Apostle tells us that they only sanctified to the purifying of the flesh Heb. 9.13 that is to the acquitting them from their Corporal Penalties and legal Vncleannesses but could not at all make them perfect as pertaining to their Consciences i. e. could not expiate the guilt of any wilful sin by which their Consciences were laid waste and wounded ver 9. And accordingly the Heathen seem to be aware how short the death of Beasts was of the punishment which was due for the sins of Men. For though in ordinary cases they
sacrificed Beasts as well as the Iews yet in great extremities when they conceived their Gods to be highly displeased with them even the most civilized of them sacrificed Men which shews that they thought the death of Beasts to be an insufficient expiation for the sins of men And indeed it cannot be denied but that the Sacrifice of a Man as such is much more proportionable to the punishment which the sins of men deserve than the Sacrifice of a Beast because a Man is a much nobler Creature as being far advanced above a Beast by the Prerogative of his Reason and consequently his death considered as a Man must be a much more valuable exchange for the punishment that is due to those he dies for But herein the Heathen were miserably mistaken that they did not consider that the men whom they sacrificed were sinners as well as themselves and that it is a much greater flaw in an Expiatory Sacrifice to be a Sinner than to be a Brute For whereas the latter only renders it less effectual and valuable the former as was shewn before renders it utterly void and insignificant and therefore though the death of a Man considered as such is of much more value than the death of a Beast yet to expiate for the sins of men there is more internal vertue and efficacy in the death of an innocent Beast than of a sinful Man because the latter can expiate only for his own sin whereas the former can have no sin but that of others to expiate Since therefore men were all spotted and blemished with Sin there was no life so fit for them to offer to God in commutation for their forfeited lives as that of innocent Brutes so that the best commutation they could make was infinitely short of their demerit And suppose that the men which the Heathen offered had been all pure and innocent yet their lives would have been only an equivalent commutation for the forfeited lives of an equal number of sinners unless therefore one half of Mankind had been innocent and they had been sacrificed for the other half that was guilty it had not been an equal Commutation so much as for the temporal punishment which was due to God from the guilty but then for their eternal punishment a Hecatomb of Angels had been short and insufficient For what proportion is there between a temporary death and an eternal misery Since therefore in great compassion to us God hath thought meet to accept of a Sacrifice in lieu of that punishment which was due to him from Mankind and since to secure his own Authority it was highly requisite that what this Sacrifice suffered for us should be in some measure equivalent to what we had deserved and since we had deserved to suffer for ever it necessarily follows that this Sacrifice must be something infinitely more precious and valuable than the bloud of Bulls and Goats yea than the lives of Men or Angels and what can that be but the bloud of the Eternal Son of God the infinite dignity of whose Person rendered his sufferings for us equivalent to the infinite demerit of our sins For it was the dignity of his Person that gave the value to his sufferings and inhanced his temporary Death to a full equivalence to those endless miseries which we had deserved For if the life of a King be as David's People told him worth ten thousand lives of what an infinite value must the life of the Lord of glory and of the Prince of life be who being the Son of God of the same Nature and Essence with his eternal Father must from thence necessarily derive upon his Sacrifice an immensity of worth and efficacy And hence we are said to be purchased with the bloud of God Acts 20.28 and to have the life of God laid down for us Iohn 3.16 and to be redeemed not with corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the precious bloud of Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 19. and accordingly the Author to the Hebrews makes the vertue and efficacy of Christ's bloud to consist in the worth and value of it For if the bloud of Bulls and Goats c. sanctified to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the bloud of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living God Heb. 9.13 14. By all which it is evident that it was the infinite dignity of Christ's Person which derived that infinite merit on his Sacrifice whereby it became an equivalent to the infinite demerit of our sins Nay of such an infinite value and worth was his Sacrifice that it not only countervailed for the punishment due for our sin but did abundantly preponderate it upon which account God ingaged himself not only to remit that Punishment in consideration of it but also to bestow his Spirit and eternal life on us both which as hath been shewn before are as well the purchace of Christ's bloud as the remission of our sins For God might have remitted our punishment without superadding the gift of his Spirit and eternal life to it and therefore since in consideration of Christ's bloud he hath superadded these Gifts to the remission of our punishment it is evident that his bloud was equivalent to both i. e. that it was not only a valuable consideration for the pardon of our sins but also for the assistance of his Spirit and our eternal happiness IV. His Death was on his part voluntary and unforced For since as a Sacrifice he was to be innocent and yet to undergo the punishment of our sin he could not be the one and do the other without his own free consent and approbation For no innocent person can be justly made obnoxious to punishment but by his own Act and Choice because punishment bears a necessary respect to sin and the desert of suffering evil doth originally spring out of doing evil So that an innocent person considered as such cannot deserve to be punished nor consequently be justly obliged thereunto but yet notwithstanding his innocency he may by his own Will and Consent oblige himself to undergo a punishment which otherwise he did not deserve and when he hath so obliged himself the punishment may be justly exacted of him For though he hath no sin of his own to be punished for yet he may by his own act oblige himself to undergo the punishment of another man's And therefore though merely as an innocent person he cannot deserve to be punished either upon his own account or any other man's because having no sin of his own he cannot be guilty of another man's yet so far as he hath the free disposal of himself he may substitute himself in the room of one that is guilty and thereby render himself obnoxious to his punishment As for instance suppose that by some criminal action of his own a man hath forfeited his liberty or life to the Law it
God himself can give us of his mercy and our happiness hath any force in it to oblige us to repent and amend this our Saviour's Intercession you see fairly proposes to us so that if this proposal doth not effectually influence our hope and thereby excite and animate our endeavours it is impossible that any encouragement should ever move or affect us And thus you see in all these several particulars how effectually this way of God's communicating his Favours to us through the Intercession of our Saviour tends to our reformation and amendment what a fruitful Topick of motives it is to induce us to repentance and how pathetically it addresses to every affection in us that is capable of persuasion what awful and reverential thoughts of Almighty God it suggests to our minds to dispose our stubborn Wills to an humble submission to him what a horrible representation it makes of our sins and of God's wrath and indignation against them and what a dreadful alarm it gives to our fear to rouse and awake us out of our sinful security And in a word how powerfully it encourages us to draw near unto God and to make our addresses to him with an humble and generous freedom and what vast assurances it gives to our hope of his gracious intentions towards us if we repent and amend All which considered one would think it were impossible for any man that believes and understands this wonderful method of mercy not to be moved and affected by it and certainly that man who hath obstinacy enough to withstand all its persuasions and finally to defeat and baffle those powerful attempts which it makes to reclaim him is a Creature not to be moved by Reason and Argument For in this he hath conquered the greatest motives of all sorts that can be urged to persuade men and when once he is got beyond the reach of persuasion and no motive of ingenuity or hope or fear can affect him his condition is desperate and his obstinacy incurable Wherefore as we would not finally disappoint this wonderful contrivance of God to reclaim us and thereby render our selves for ever desperate let us at length be persuaded seriously to consider the Motives and Arguments it proposes to us and never to cease urging and pressing them upon our own souls till they have conquered our obstinate Wills and prejudiced Affections and finally captivated us into a free compliance with their powerful persuasions For if through our wilful neglect and inconsideration this mighty project of mercy prove utterly unsuccessful with us it is certain we have sinned our selves past all hope of recovery and it will be in vain to make any farther experiment on us And when we have once baffled this last and most powerful remedy of the divine Goodness what remains but that it should give us up and utterly abandon us to the just desert and dire effects of our own folly and obstinacy SECT VI. Of the Kingly Office of our Saviour WHen I first entred upon this Argument of the particular Offices of our Mediator I proposed to handle them in the same order that he performed and executed them and accordingly as he began with his Prophetick Office of which his whole life was a continued Ministry so I have treated of this Office in the first place and as from his Prophetick he proceeded to his Priestly Office one part of which he executed on the Cross where he offered himself a Sacrifice for the sins of the World and the other upon his Ascension into Heaven where he presented and still continues to present his Sacrifice to the Father by way of intercession for us so I proceeded in the next place to treat of his Priesthood in both the parts of it and now in the last place in pursuit of the same order I proceed to his Regal or Kingly Office which was the last he entered upon after he had finished his Prophecy offered his Sacrifice and presented it to his Father in Heaven For so in Scripture the Regality of Christ is always spoken of as successive to both his Prophetick and Priestly Office and as the fruit and reward of his faithful discharge and execution of them So Phil. 2.8 9 10. it was because he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the Cross that God highly exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name that at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth And Rom. 14.9 the Apostle tells us that it was for this end that Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living and accordingly the Angels in St. Iohn's Vision attribute his advancement to his Regal dignity to the merit of his Death and Sacrifice Rev. 5.12 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive Power and Riches and Wisdom and Strength and Honour and Glory and Blessing And hence his sitting at the right hand of God which is the great Scripture-Metaphor by which his Regal Authority is expressed of the sense and meaning of which Pearson's Exposition of the Creed p. 277 278 279. is mentioned as the fruit and consequence of his Death and Intercession So Heb. 1.3 When he had by himself purged our sins i. e. by dying for us on Earth and presenting his Sacrifice in Heaven he sate down on the right hand of the Majesty on high and Heb. 10.12 But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever sate down on the right hand of God and so also 1 Pet. 3.22 we are told that it was upon his going into Heaven i. e. to present his Sacrifice to his Father there that he was advanced to the right hand of God and that Angels and Authorities and Powers were made subject to him For his going into Heaven was a Priestly Act corresponding to the Priest's going into the Holy of Holies to present his Sacrifice to God there so that Christ's first arrival into Heaven and presenting his Sacrifice there is the beginning and commencement of his Intercession in answer to which he first received of his Father that Royal Power and Authority which he exercises both in Heaven and Earth and it is by vertue of the continuance of that his Priestly Intercession that this his Royal power is continued and perpetuated to him So that as he is a Royal Priest i. e. a Priest invested with Regal power to bestow the blessings he intercedes for so he is a Sacerdotal King i. e. a King that holds his Regal power in the right and virtue of his Priestly Intercession For it is by the continuance of his Intercession that he obttains the continuance of his Royal Authority to bestow those blessings on us which he intercedes for So that as Christ intercedes in the vertue of his Sacrifice so he rules in the vertue of his Intercession And accordingly you find in
his continual intercession in Heaven Royal Authority to dispense that Promise to us doth by vertue of that Authority actually pardon us upon our actual repentance So that as soon as ever we perform the condition of Gods grant of pardon our Saviour who knows the inmost thoughts of our hearts and perfectly discerns our sincerity immediately pronounces our sentence of pardon and by a particular application of that general grant to us absolves us from our obligation to eternal punishment and freely receives us into Grace and Favour For though the completion and publication of our pardon is reserved for the day of judgment when we shall be absolved from all punishment i. e. not only of eternal misery but also of corporal death and temporal sufferings in the publick view and audience of the World yet it is certain that every penitent Believer in Jesus is actually pardoned by him in Heaven as soon as ever he believes and repents that is he is in foro Christi and before the Tribunal of his Royal Judgment Absolved from the obligation to suffer eternal misery which he lay under during his state of impenitence and Christ in his own mind judgment and estimation hath Judicially thus pronounced concerning him By vertue of my Fathers grant to all penitent offenders and of that Royal Authority which he hath committed to me I freely release thee from all that vast debt of everlasting punishment which thou hast too justly incurr'd by sinning against him Thus as the Father forgives us vertually by that publick grant of mercy which for Christs sake he hath made to all penitent offenders so the Son forgives us actually by that Royal Authority which the Father hath given him to make a particular application of that his general grant to us upon our actual repentance and as it is by the Fathers grant that the Son pardons us so it is by the Sons application of it that the Father pardons us and therefore we are said in or by Christ to have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sin Col. 1.14 i. e. to be forgiven for the sake of his blood in consideration whereof God the Father hath given him power to forgive us for so he himself tells us that all power in Heaven and Earth was given him Matth. 28.18 and there is no doubt but in all power the power of forgiving sins was included for so S. Peter tells us that through his Name i. e. by his Authority or judicial sentence Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Acts 10.43 And thus you see what the first Regal act is which our Saviour hath always performed and will always continue to perform viz. forgiving of sins II. Another of his Regal acts of this kind is punishing obstinate offenders For as he mediates for his Father in ruling and governing us he must be the Minister of his Fathers providence and being so whatsoever divine punishments are inflicted upon offenders are to be look'd upon as the stroaks of his hand and the Ministries of his power for he hath the Keys of Death and Hell i. e. the power of punishing both here and hereafter Rev. 1.18 and accordingly he threatens the corrupt Churches of Asia that he would remove their Candlestick and that he would fight against them with the sword of his mouth that he would come upon them as a Thief and that he would spew them out of his mouth Rev. 2.5.3.16 and Chap. 3. Vers. 16. all which is a sufficient proof that the punishment of offenders both here and hereafter is committed to him as a branch of that Royal Authority with which he is invested by the Father in the execution of which Commission he many times Chastens bad men in this life in order to their reformation and amendment for as many as I love saith he i. e. wish well to I rebuke and chasten Heb. 3.19 and many times he persecutes them with exterminating judgments thereby hanging them up in Chains as it were as publick examples of his vengeance to warn and deter the World from treading in their impious footsteps For so he threatens Iezebel and her followers I gave her space to repent of her fornications and she repented not behold I will cast her into a bed i. e. into a Bed-rid and irrevocable condition and them that commit Adultery with her into great tribulation and I will kill her Children with death and all the Church shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and heart and I will give unto every one of you according to your works Rev. 2.21 22 23. And though for wise and gracious ends he oftentimes spares bad men in this life and sometimes shines upon them a continued day of prosperity without any cloud or interruption yet he always overtakes them with the fearful storms of his vengeance in the life to come For no sooner do their souls depart from their bodies but they are immediately consigned by his warrant into the hands of evil Angels those skilful spiteful and powerful executioners of his justice under whose savage Tyranny they indure all the tortures and Agonies that the wrath and power of Devils together with their own awakened consciences and furious and unsatisfied affections are able to inflict Of which see Part 1. Ch. 3. For that the souls of bad men are transmitted into a state of wretchedness and misery immediately upon their separation from their bodies is evident from the Parable of Dives and Lazarus wherein in the first place Dives immediately after his death is said to be in great torment in Hell and this while his body lay buried in the grave Luk 16.22 23. which is a plain argument that in all that interval between death and the resurrection of the body the souls of bad men abide in a state of torment for secondly this torment of Dives's soul in hell was then when his Brethren were living upon earth and under the teaching of Moses and the Prophets ver 27. and 28 29 30 31. which shews that our Saviour supposes it to be at that very time when he delivered this Parable and consequently he supposes all bad men who were then dead and whose condition he represents by that of Dives to be then in Hell and there suffering unspeakable Agonies and Torments and if so then it 's plain that when ever impenitent souls leave their bodies they are carried by Devils into some dismal abode and there kept under a perpetual discipline of torment and in this deplorable state they remain expecting that fearful day of accounts when their condition through their reunion to their bodies and that dread bodily Torment they must then be condemned to will be rendered yet far more intolerable III. Another of those Regal Acts which our Saviour hath always and always will continue to perform is his protecting and defending his Kingdom in this World. For thus he promises his faithful Church of Philadelphia Because thou hast kept the
of the Earth For the Scripture not only foretels this universal conquest of his but also describes and delineates the whole method and progress of it which upon laying the Scripture Prophesies together in their proper Train and Series seems to me to be this that the opening of this great Scene of Providence will be the conversion of the Iewish Nation those obstinate and hitherto implacable Enemies of our Saviour whom notwithstanding they have been a thousand times over conquered slaughtered and oppressed and do to this day continue scattered over the face of the whole Earth he hath preserved by a strange and unparalleled Providence for above sixteen hundred years together a distinct and separate people from all the Nations of the Earth to shew his mighty power in them and once more render them what they have always been the Subjects of his miraculous conduct For by a wonderful effusion of his Holy Spirit upon them such as that was on the day of Pentecost though far more extensive he will all of a sudden and in a most surprizing manner open the eyes of this blinded Nation and powerfully convince them of the error and wickedness of their infidelity and malice against him whereupon with one heart and one mind they shall return to the Lord and with penitent tears wash off the guilt of the blood of their Saviour which like an Heir-loom hath hitherto descended upon them from one Generation to another for thus Rom. 11.25 26. I would not brethren that ye should be ignorant of this mystery that blindness in part is hapned to Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till when the fulness of the Gentiles be come in and so all Israel shall be saved as it is written there shall come out of Zion the deliverer c. From whence it is plain that that blindness which then hapned to Israel and which continues on them to this day shall one day be removed viz. about that time when the Conversion of the Gentiles shall be compleated and that then all Israel and not a small remnant of them as at first shall be saved so also 2 Cor. 3.14 16. But their minds are blinded meaning the People of Israel for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord the vail shall be taken away where he first supposes that Israel that till then was blinded and that till now remains so should turn unto the Lord and then asserts that then the vail of ignorance which hindered 'em from discerning Christ in the Figures and Prophesies of the Old Testament should be removed from before their eyes And now the Jews being thus converted by the power of our Saviour shall under his victorious Banners be conducted into the Holy Land and repossessed of their ancient native Country whither they shall be close pursued with mighty Hosts of the Eastern Infidels and be reduced by them into imminent danger of utter desolation in which extremity of theirs our blessed Saviour will make bare his Almighty Arm and in a most miraculous manner confound and scatter those mighty swarms of Infidels and crown his Israel with Victory and Triumph The fame of which miraculous events spreading far and wide even to the utmost ends of the Earth shall in a little time convince all the Heathen World of the truth of Christianity and prevail with the Kingdoms of the earth to become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ And now the Kingdom of Christ in this World being arrived to its full extent and growth Truth and Peace Charity and Justice shall reign and flourish over all the Earth Now all the World shall be Christendom and Christendom shall be restored to its ancient Purity For now he who is to come with the Fan in his hand will throughly purge the Floor of his Church from all that Chaff of Superstition and Idolatry Schism and Heresie Irreligion and Immorality with which it is almost totally covered and the true Faith the sincere Piety the generous and unaffected Vertue which Christianity teaches and prescribes shall be the universal livery and cognisance of the Christian World For much about the time of this Conversion of the Iews and that glorious Call of the Gentiles thence ensuing that corrupt and degenerate Faction of Christians whom the Scripture calls the mystical Babylon and the Antichrist and which for several Ages hath been the great Nuisance of Christendom will in these Western parts of the World muster up all its Forces to destroy and extirpate the purer Professors of Christianity by a general persecution in which attempt for some time this Faction will be very prevalent and successful when all of a sudden the Kings and Princes of the Earth who have thitherto been partakers with it in its foul Impostures and corruptions being either awakened by those miraculous Conversions of the Jews and Eastern Gentiles or convinced of their errors by the powerful impressions of his Spirit in whose hands the hearts of Kings are will turn their Swords upon this Antichristian Faction whose Cause they have hitherto espoused and conspire to root it out from off the face of the Earth which being effected the Western Church will universally reform it self according to the Standard of the Church of Ierusalem which will then be in a literal sense the Mother of us all Thus partly by destroying and partly by converting its Enemies our Saviour will yet mightily enlarge the borders of his Kingdom and advance it to the utmost pitch of purity and splendour that this state of mortality will admit and in this happy state he will preserve and continue it for several Ages till a little before the commencement of the General Iudgment at which time the Devil who had been hitherto chained up will be loosed again to work in the Children of disobedience to excite them to delude and deceive the World again and to persecute the sincere Professors of Christianity with incessant cruelties when all of a sudden and while they are securely triumphing in the success of their Villanies they shall be surprized with the Day of Judgment which like a Thief in the night shall come upon them and put an end to all their mischiefs for ever II. Another of those Regal Acts which he is yet to perform is to destroy Death the last Enemy by causing a general Resurrection of the Dead which being one of the great Articles of our Creed I shall insist more largely upon it and endeavour First To prove the certainty of the Fact and Secondly To explain the manner how it will be performed I. I shall endeavour to prove the certainty of the Fact viz. that our Saviour shall raise the dead which is as plainly and frequently asserted in holy Scripture as any Proposition contained in it for so 2 Cor. 4.14 we are assured that God will
smallest threds and fibres of their hearts laid open and exposed to the view of men and Angels their own shame and the intolerable rack of their consciences will force them to confess their Charge and proclaim themselves guilty before all that vast Congregation of Spirits But O the inexpressible horror and confusion these wretched Souls will then be seized with when they shall see themselves thus publickly unmasked and turned inside outwards and be forced to stand forth like so many loathsom spectacles before God and his Angels without any excuse or retreat for their shame without any vail to hide their infamy and blushes when their filthy practices shall be no longer confined to the talk of a Town or a Village but be proclaimed in the hearing of all the rational World O now it would be happy for them if as formerly they could drown the retorts of their conscience in noise and laughter and forget its cutting repartees which were always uneasie to bear but impossible to Answer But alas those jolly days are gone and now in despite of themselves they must listen with horrour and confusion of face to what those two great Judges Iesus and their own Consciences unanimously give in charge against them Thus he whose piercing Eye doth now penetrate their hearts and ransack every corner of their souls will in that great day of discoveries bring forth all that secret filth that is there reposited and expose it for an infamous spectacle to the publick view of men and Angels IV. Another particular implied in this judgement of wicked men is their Sentence Their Trial being now over in which their guilt hath been sufficiently evinced and detected to their everlasting infamy and reproach they will by this time have received the sentence of death within themselves and stand condemned in the judgment of all the World the Righteous Iudg who is too great to be overawed too just to be bribed and too much provoked to be intreated whose Ears are now for ever stopped and whose Bowels are impenitrably hardened against all further Overtures of mercy will with a stern look and terrible voice pronounce that dreadful doom upon them Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels which though it be of a horrible import will appear so just considering the horrible things which have been charged and proved against them that it will be immediately seconded with the unanimous suffrage of all that bright Corona of glorified Saints that sit as Assessors round the Throne who with one consent will all cry out together Iust and righteous art thou O Iudge of the World in all thy ways But O the fearful shrieks and lamentations that will then be heard from those poor condemned Creatures For if A Lord have mercy upon thee A take him Iailor from an earthly Iudge be able to extort so many sighs and tears from a hardened Malefactor what will A go ye cursed do from the mouth of the Righteous Iudge of the World and when so many millions of men and women shall be all involved together in the same doom and all at once lamenting their dismal fate Lord what a horrible outcry will they make Now in the bitter Agonies of their souls they will cry to heaven for mercy mercy but alas poor souls they cry too late their Iudg was once as importunate with them to have mercy upon themselves but because when he called they refused when he stretched forth his hands they regarded not now when they call he will not answer when they cry he will not hear but will laugh at their calamity as they did at his counsel and mock when their fear and destruction is come upon them V. And lastly Another particular implied in this Iudgment of the wicked is the execution of their Sentence For immediately after their sentence is past by which they stand doomed to everlasting fire an everlasting fire shall be kindled round about them a fire which within a few moments shall spread it self over all this lower World and convert the whole Almosphere about us into a furnace of inquenchable flames For then all those fiery particles which are every where intermingled with these terrestial Bodies and have hitherto been kept within their proper limits shall be disintangled and set free from those more gross and sluggish ones that now bind and fix them and swarm together like so many sparks into one huge globe of Fire which from the lower-most centre of the Earth shall spire up and kindle upon all that Airy Heaven above and with one continued flame fill all the vast expansum all that fiery matter which is now dispersed up and down within the entrails of the Earth shall by degrees gather together into Rivers of Fire which rolling to and fro within to force their way into the open Air will perhaps produce those prodigious Earthquakes of which our Saviour speaks by which at length the Earth being cleft and torn it shall every where vomit out Torrents of Fire from its flaming bowels and at the same time the Sea shall boil and swell and roar like water in a seething Pot till 't is all evaporated by the strugling flames from below which having rarified its waters into vapours shall kindle those vapours into flames and at the same time also the Heavens above shall groan and crack with incessant Thunder accompanied with thick and fearful flashes of Lightning which joyning with those vast streams of Fire that will be continually issuing out of the Earth and Sea will make such a prodigious deluge of flames as will quickly overflow the whole World. For thus we are assured from Scripture that the Element shall melt with fervent heat and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up 2 Pet. 3.10 So also St. Iohn in his Vision of the day of Judgment Rev. 20.11 I saw a great white Throne and him that sate on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them not that the matter of them shall be annihilated but the form of them shall be destroyed by their being converted into an everlasting Fire and in this Fire shall those condemned wretches live and suffer to eternal Ages Hence it is called the vengeance of eternal fire and we are told that it will be in flaming fire that the Lord Jesus will render vengeance to all that know not God and obey not his Gospel 2 Thess. 1.8 And that this flaming fire shall be the conflagration of the World that of St. Peter seems plainly to imply 2 Pet. 3.7 But the heavens and the earth which are now are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men and being reserved unto fire against the day of perdition of ungodly men we may justly conclude that the fire it is reserved to will be the Perdition of ungodly men Thus upon our Saviours pronouncing
which he shed 1600. years ago he still intercedes for us with the same effect and success as when he first presented it to his Father in Heaven Upon which account there was no need that he should offer himself often as the High Priest entered into the holy place every year with bloud of others for then must he have often suffered since the foundation of the World but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself Heb. 9.25 26. So that Christ's one Sacrifice being of perpetual vertue and efficacy and being as such perpetually presented to the Father in heaven he therewithal makes a continued and uninterrupted Intercession for us and will continue to do so to the end of the World. Hence we are said to be sanctified through the offering of the body of Iesus once for all Heb. 10.10 And whereas every Priest standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same Sacrifices which can never take away sin this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever sate down on the right hand of God vers 11 12. and this offering his one Sacrifice for sins in heaven being for ever it is a perpetually continued act of Intercession for us For so it is said that he ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. 7.25 i. e. he ever lives in Heaven so as by his perpetual presence there to make perpetual Intercession for us And upon the account of the perpetuity of this his Priestly Act of Intercession he is said to have an unchangeable Priesthood not barely because he continues for ever for so he might have done and yet â—eased to have been a Priest but because he continues for ever exercising his Priesthood or presenting his Sacrifice Heb. 7.24 And hence also he is said to be a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedeck that is not only to be a Royal Priest as Melchisedeck was which as I shewed before was the proper Character of Melchisedeck's Priesthood but to be a Royal Priest for ever Heb. 7.17 For Melchisedeck was not only a Royal Priest but also a Type or Shadow of an eternal Royal Priest and that as he was without Father and without Mother without descent or Genealogy having neither beginning of days nor end of life but made like unto the Son of God abideth a Priest continually Heb. 7.3 where the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without descent or Genealogy explains what is meant by without Father and without Mother i. e. without any Father or Mother mentioned in the Genealogies of Moses so the Syriac version whose Father and Mother are neither of them recorded in the Genealogies in which he very much differed from the Aaronical Priests whose Fathers and Mothers names were constantly recorded in the Jewish Genealogies as appears from Esdr. 11.62 and so also Philo on the Decalogue tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the descent and Progeny of the Priests is kept with all manner of exactness So that there being no Genealogy at all of Melchisedeck in Scripture he is introduced into the History like a man dropt down from Heaven for so the Text goes on having neither beginning of days nor end of life i. e. in the History of Moses which contrary to its common usage when it makes mention of great men takes no notice at all of the time either of Melchisedeck's birth or death and herein he is made like unto the Son of God i. e. by the History of Moses which mentions him appearing and acting upon the Stage without either entrance or exit as if like the Son of God he had abode a Priest continually So that as Moses's History treats of Melchisedeck without taking any notice of his beginning or end as if he were a Royal Priest for ever so Christ in truth and reality is a Royal Priest for ever because by the perpetual Oblation and presenting his Sacrifice to the Father he perpetually exercises his Priesthood and makes a continued intercession for Mankind IV. This address being made by the continued Oblation or presenting of his sacrificed body to the Father is in the vertue thereof always effectual and successful For his Sacrifice as hath been shewn at large was the price of his purchace of those blessings he intercedes for the price which God by a solemn agreement with our Saviour had obliged himself to admit and accept For the only blessings he intercedes for are those which are specified in the New Covenant which New Covenant God granted to Mankind in consideration of the meritorious Death and Sacrifice of our Saviour and accordingly when he went to offer up himself a Sacrifice for us he tells us that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to what was determined or agreed on between his Father and himself Luke 22.22 And hence our Saviour tells us that his Father in consideration of what he was to suffer did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Covenant to him a Kingdom Luke 22.29 which Kingdom includes a Kingly power to bestow upon his faithful Subjects the Rewards of his Religion which are the blessings of the New Covenant and of this Covenant by which God obliged himself in consideration of Christ's Death to bestow this Kingly power upon him that of Heb. 10.7 seems to be intended then said I Lo I come in the Volume of the Book it is written of me to do thy will O God where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render the Volume of the Book may perhaps be more truly translated the Instrument Indenture or Covenant that is between thee and me For so the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answers signifieth any sort of writing and particularly a Bill Deut. 24.1 according to which sence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must here signifie the volume or folding of a Bill or which is all one an Indenture or Covenant When therefore he sâ—ith Lo I come in the Indenture or Covâ—nant which is between thee and me by which thou hasâ— bequeathed or covenanted to me a Kingdom or power to bestow such and such blessings on my faithful Subjects in this Covenant I say it is exprest or written that I should come to do thy will i. e. to offer up that body which thou hast prepared for me a Sacrifice for the sins of the World ver 5. And indeed how could it have been foretold of him as it is Isa. 53. that he should justifie many by bearing their iniquities and that he should see the travail of his soul i. e. for our Salvation and be satisfied had not the Father obliged himself by Contract and Covenant to justifie and save us in consideration of his Sacrifice And indeed this whole Prediction carries with it a Promise from the Father to Christ that upon the consideration of his Death and Sacrifice he should be effectually impowered to save and justifie us Since therefore the Sacrifice
of Chriâ—t was the great consideration upon which the Father granted to him the blessings of the New Covenant in our behalf and since it is by presenting that Sacrifice and in the vertue of it that he intercedes with the Father for those blessings we may confidently assure our selves he cannot fail of success because he intercedes with a righteous God of whom by presenting to him the consideration of his grant he hath acquired a right to obtain the blessings he intercedes for For now he intercedes for us with the price of our Redemption in his hands so that he doth not act precariously or as a meer Orator that begs and supplicates without any claim and so may be denied and rejected without any injustice but whatsoever he asks he asks in the right of his Sacrifice by accepting of which inestimable consideration the Father hath obliged himself to grant what he aks for So that now he cannot be denied those Favours which he craves in our behalf without manifest injustice because by mutual Contract between himself and his Father he hath purchased to himself a right to obtain them and hath bought and paid for them with his own bloud And how can we imagine that the most just and holy God can ever be so outragiously unjust to his own Son as to be deaf to his Intercessions while he intercedes in the right of that precious bloud which his Son freely paid and he as freely accepted in consideration of those blessings he intercedes for It being therefore evident by what hath been said that the Intercession of Christ is a most effectual and successful address to the Father to all the intents and purposes for which it is made it now remains only that we give an account to what intents and purposes it is that he makes this address to the Father First Therefore it is to move and solicite him graciously to receive and accept our sincere and hearty Prayers and Secondly To obtain of him Power and Authority to bestow on us all those Graces and Favours which in consideration of his Sacrifice God hath promised us I. One intent or purpose of Christ's making this address to the Father is to move and solicite him graciously to receive and accept our sincere and hearty Prayers For thus the Incense which the Priests offered twice a day upon the Golden Altar and which the High-Priest offered once a year in the Holy of Holies was a Symbol or Emblem of the Prayers of the People which they mystically offered up to God with it and hence the Psalmist Let my prayers be set forth before thee as Incense Psalm 141.2 and S. Iohn calls the Odours that filled the Golden Vials the prayers of the Saints Rev. 5.8 and that the Prayers of the Saints were offered with the Incense upon the Golden Altar is evident from Rev. 8.3 And accordingly while the High-Priest was offering the Incense in the Holy of Holies the People in their Court offered up their silent and mental Prayers to God for so Ecclus. 50.15 18 19 21. we read that whiles Simon the High-Priest was offering the Incense to God all the People fell on their faces to the ground and besought the Lord most High in prayer till the Ministry of the Lord was done i. e. till the High-Priest had offered the Incense and S. Luke makes mention of the Peoples praying without in the time of Incense Luke 1.10 By all which it is evident that this fuming of the Incense by the Priests and High-Priest was nothing but a mystical Oblation of those Prayers to God which the People were pouring out while the Mystery was performing Since therefore the High-Priest was a Type of Christ and his entrance into the Holy of Holies a Type of Christ's entrance into Heaven his offering Incense there which was a mystical Oblation of the Prayers of the People must necessarily be a Type of Christ's offering and recommending our Prayers to his Father which he promised his Disciples he would perform when he came to Heaven John 16.26 27. In that day ye shall ask in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you which in our Saviour's way of expression which is when he mentions two things to pass by and seemingly deny the one that so he may the more illustrate and amplifie the other Vide John 12.4 Joh. 5.45 46 47. plainly implies that he would for the Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me And therefore it is through him that we are said to have access unto the Father Eph. 2.18 and by him to have access to the divine grace Rom. 5.2 and in him to have boldness and access with confidence Eph. 3.12 and Rev. 8.3 he is represented as that Angel of the Covenant who at the Golden Altar before God doth offer up the prayers of the Saints incensed by the merit of his Sacrifice For it is the Sacrifice of Jesus that hallows and consecrates all our prayers and good works the best of which have so many sinful defects and imperfections cleaving to them as would render them abominable to the pure and holy God were they not purged and expiated by this great Propitiation And though Prayer be a duty we stand eternally obliged to by our continual dependence upon God yet in this degeneracy of our Nature there are so many sins do still accompany our Prayers as that were they not expiated by some very acceptable and meritorious satisfaction the cry of them would drown the cry of our Prayers and for ever hinder their access to the divine ear and aceptance So that it is only in the vertue of that Sacrifice with which our Saviour intercedes for us in Heaven that our Prayers have admittance thither it is his bloud alone that purifies our polluted Supplications and out-cries the guilt of those sins that go along with them For by presenting that Sacrifice to his Father with which he made satisfaction for our sins on the Cross he continually moves and solicites that those sinful defects which cleave to our Prayers may be pardoned and remitted upon which motion of his our Prayers are continually purged from the guilt of those defects and thereupon introduced into the divine acceptance as pure and innocent spotless and unblemished devotions And as by presenting his Sacrifice he purges the guilt of our Prayers so he enforces and seconds them For as hath been shewn before the very presenting his Sacrifice is a Symbolical Prayer for those very blessings which we pray for and not only so but a Prayer that is enforced with a just claim and doth plead the right of Purchace to all the blessings it sues for and so cannot justly be denied or rejected And when he thus prays with us and continually joyns the cry of his Bloud to the cry of our Prayers we may safely depend upon it that we shall prevail and find free access to the Throne of God's grace and acceptance And