is worse Will he slay the righteous for the wicked by punishing the just for the unjust Now that he underwent it willingly answers all this God hath made a Law that the Son shall not be put to death for the Father much less one Stranger for another Therefore this maketh it ordinarily sinful among men to give such or for the Magistrate to accept such commutations because God hath deprived them of this power But shall we say His ways are unequal because not like or above our ways or that that is necessarily unlawful to God which he hath made so to us Say they this would declare Gods unrighteousness to set forth an Innocent Propitiation for the Nocent It would do so indeed to punish the Innocent for the Nocent except he chuse it All see it is not injustice to demand debts of a bonds-man a surety for God hath given men power over their estates and he willingly undertook it I grant it is ordinarily unlawful to offer to be or to except sureties and undertakers for others with lives or members but the reason is because God hath not given men this power otherwise it would be all one Therefore there is no injustice in his life going for ours He had right and authority so to dispose of his life as we have not and he willingly undertook it If God was wroth with his beloved Son it was from his own Choice and undertaking through his love to us Father lay not the punishment on these my enemies and thine I will bear it If thou wilt be paid it have Satisfaction pour out thy wrath on me that can satisfie not on them that cannot but by their eternal and utter sinking under it 6. A Death of infinite Value If Gods justice do require a Satisfaction it will not be put off with a meer shew or colour of one or with a partial lame defective one but it must be commensurate and proportionable to the infinitely hainous and numberless sins and provocations of Men and to the justice of God and so it must be of infinite dignity and value Now the death of Christ was of infinite value Infinite in satisfaction but not in duration for if in duration then the expiation would never have been made and perfected and so we should never have been redeemed He should then and so we have ever remained under the power of death and condemnation for the utmost farthing would never have been paid It would have been unworthy of Christ it would have been unprofitable for us and it was not necessary for satisfaction for Christ to have undergone pains infinite in duration But his sufferings being actually infinite in merit do more than equal a suffering only infinite in duration for that would never have been actually infinite Sins against God naturally deserve and therefore God threatens infinite punishment for Sins are increased according to the greatness of the person against whom the offence is committed They have not only rejected thee bâ—t rejected me saith God as a greater matter and it is brought in as a great aggravation to speak evil of Dignities and in our Law a Scandalum magnatum is a greater matter than the scandalizing of our Equals Therefore Sin is of infinite demerit being against an infinite God And hence it follows that the punishment of Sin must either be infinite in the extremity and greatness or in the duration Now to speak naturally Reason and Justice considering the ends of punishment in Moral Government would immediately urge Let it if it can be infinite in the greatness weight and gravity that the offender having satisfied in suffering might work again But human nature being finite is not capable of such infinite punishment and upon this account it was necessary that it should be infinite in the extensiveness and duration because a finite Creature is not capable of punishment infinite in intensiveness and greatness But now when Christ suffered for us he underwent punishment infinite in magnitude and greatness But still this infinity is to be estimated not from the intensiveness and greatness of the punishments themselves which human Nature and so Christ's human Nature was not capable of but from the dignity of the person that suffered them Just as sin that is finite in its own nature coming from a finite creature becomes infinite by being committed against an infinite Majesty So the punishments of Christ being in their own nature finite became infinite in their value and satisfaction by the infinite dignity of the person suffering And the stress as I have told you before is still laid on this in Scripture the dignity of the person that he was God that suffered And this very consideration of his death being infinite in value and recompence and not in duration doth prevent such a difficulty as could not be answered For had our Redeemer been to continue for ever under this condemnation of those he suffered for this might have made the Christian Religion less rational and credible it would have been such an unaccountable excess of charity to destroy himself eternally to save others But God knew and Christ knew he could so wrestle with death and condemnation as to overcome and that it would not be an utter losing one worth ten thousand of the guilty in saving them which would have been a thing unaccountable to be either done or permitted to be done by the King and Governour of the World but his Sufferings were to be to him an entrance into Glory and the obtaining a Name above every Nature Thus of this Third Head to die and manner of this Death 4. A Propitiation Died a Propitiation for Sin and Sinners that is implied yea signified in the very word Propitiation that it was for Sin and Sinners Propitiation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this is the word the Septuagint use to express the Mercy-seat by The word we translate Mercy-seat is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which coming from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to hide and in Piel to expiate and propitiate this word coming from it doth so too It signifieth Opercuium tegumentum and placamentum piamentum a cover or hiding and an Expiation or Propitiation to make God propitious reconciled and favourable Now this Mercy-seat this Operculum Propitiatorium was a cover of pure Gold laid over the Ark of the Covenant just the dimensions of the Ark the length and breadth of it Two cubits and a half the length and one cubit and a half the Exod 35. 10 17. breadth of either of them as you maâ— see We read nothing of the thickness of this Propitiatory Cover but some Râ—bbins say it was of one Palm And this Ark which this covered ver 16. had in it the Law and so this Mercy-seat or Propitiatory that covered the Ark wherein was the Law typified and signified Jesus Christ fully covering our sins being transgressions of the Law out of Gods sight the Righteousness and Satisfaction of Christ
being as broad and as long as the Law and our transgressions of it Above the Mercy-seat on either side were the Cherubims and the Majesty of God appeared between the Ceerubims Christ interposeth between God and his Law to make him propitious to his People From above the Mercy-seat Ver. 22. between the two Cherubims will I meet thee and commune with thee So you see this Mercy-seat this Cover of Gold typified Christ the true Propitiatory or Mercy-seat covering out of God's sight all our Transgressions of the Law and God through him meeting with us and made propitious and reconciled to us And here now Christ is called by the name of his own type as often elsewhere when he is called the Lamb and Lamb slain and so called the Propitiatory or Propitiation God having made him really that to us which that did but typifie Christ was made an Expiation and Ransom and Propitiation for Sins for these things the Hebrew word signifies Here now under this Head I will make it my business irrefragably to prove to you what I have taken hitherto almost for granted 1. He died not for Himself He was the Lamb without spot as indeed he that was to wash away others spots was to be without spot Himself Messiah cut off but not for himself 2. He could not die but for some Sin Death befalleth not Men as Men but as Sinners The Apostle proveth all to be Sinners because all die else it was impossible in justice God Act. 2. 24 raised him up having loosed the pains of death for it was not possible he should be holden of it Death being but the Servant of God's Justice and Christ having satisfied Justice it could not but let go its hold He could not but be taken from prison and from judgment We may use the same argument it was impossible Death could not have taken hold of Him at all had it not been for Sin 3. It remains therefore that he died for our sins according to the Scripture for none else come in competition None will pretend He died for the Sins of Angels good or bad or of Brutes which are not capable of sin Was delivered to death for our sins Bore the sins of many Gave himself for us that he might redeem us The professed Adversaries of this Doctrine the Socinians will grant He died in some sense for our Sins Therefore How died he for our Sins 1. He died for our Sins so as to turn us from them this is truth but this is as they suppose all and they will grant no more But we must go further 2. He died for our Sins as a meritorious deserving cause of his Death For the transgression of my people was he smitten Wounded for our transgressions Isa 53. Rom. 4. 25. Delivered to death for our sins So that if it be asked What meaneth the heat of this great anger wherefore was he thus wounded We must answer He was wounded for our transgressions We have pierced him this hath been by our means we have ate sowre grapes and his teeth were set on edg the Children ate sowre grapes and the everlasting Father's teeth were set on edg 3. He died for our sins in our place and stead that we might not perish for them In our place and stead for expiation for satisfaction for compensation though not in such an unâ—ound irrational sense as some pretend and I shall have occasion to speak of hereafter in a more convenient place I shall prove this first from express Scriptures second from the peculiarity of his Death third from the Sacrifices that typified Him 1. From express Scriptures in three Instances 1. We often read of his Sufferings for our fins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This man after he had â—ffered one sacrifice for sins Heb. 1. 12 Gal. 1. 4. Who gave â—imself for our sins Now this word translated for may signifie only the final cause as to turn us from them But words must be understood secundum subjectam materiam according to the subject matter and in such speeches the subject matter will not bear that sense We never read in Scripture or any where else of one dying and suffering for sins but it is for them as the meritorious cause of the sufferings as some compensation for the fault as when he saith I will punish you for your iniquities And Israel suffered for the sins of Jeroboam 2. We often read of his Suffering for persons I lay down my life for my sheep Redeemeth us from the curse Joh. 10. 17. Gal. 3. 17. of the Law being made a curse for us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the usual sense of this is instead of another As Paul could wish himself accursed for his brethren Yet I know this phrase for another may in some instances signifie only the final cause only for their good and not in their stead A man may be said to die for his Country only as the final cause for their good and to lay down his life for his brother only for his good to save his life But it is not capable of such a narrow sense when one dieth for another as a sinner as an offender Now we read of Christ's dying the just for the unjust there it must be meant in his stead And when sinners he died for us And Hs who knew no sin was made sin that is a Sin-offering for us * The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the words the Septuagint express a Sin-offering by called in Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that place Rom. 8. 3. which as it is translated is scarce sence should have been translated God sending his own Son in the likeness of â—inful flesh and a Sin-offering 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned â—â—a in the flesh as the same words are well translated Heb. 10. 6. In Burnt-offering and Sacrifice for sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast no pleasure And so again vers 8. It is good sense to say such a one died for his Country as in the Warrs only to denote the final cause for the good of his Country But because Men go not into the Warrs because of their faults neither are they killed in the Warrs ordinarily for any fault Men die not in the Warrs as Malefactors but as Soldiers It would not be sense to use such speeches He died for his Country though an innocent man it would be a frigid sapless dilute manner of speaking for here would be no Opposition in it But you see He who knew no sin was made sin for us We esteemed him smitten of Isa 53. God But he was wounded for our sins 2 Cor. 5. 15. c. Because we thus judg if one dyed for all then were all dead and he dyed for all c. This place would not be true if one interpret dying for all only for the good of all not in their stead For it
would not be true arguing If Christ died for the good of all then were all dead But this way that I am speaking of is good and cogent If in the stead and room of all they all were judicially dead Again the word used in the Original for us is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may when there is fit subject matter signifie only the final cause but it is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which as Grotius well observes always imports either contrariety or commutation and it can by no means signifie contrariety therefore it signifies commutation compensation He gave himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransom for many like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 20. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. vice So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who devoted themselves to death in the stead of others 3. He is said in many places to redeem us Gave himself for us that he 2 Tit. 2. 14. might redeem us from our iniquities To ransom us to be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransom He gave himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransom for all 1 Tim. 2. 6. Now the proper import of redeem and such words is by way of price And what if as they object the word redeem sometime be used Metaphorically for our deliverance from any evil whether with price or without for redemption by power as when he saith I will redeem you with stretched-out arm and with great judgment Doth it therefore follow that it can possibly so signifie redemption by power when we are said to be redeemed with price and bought with a price and with a price of great value and when we are told with what price we are redeemed Not with corruptible things as silver and gold but 1 Pet. 1. 18 19. Act. 20. 28. with the precious blood of Christ And when we read it was done by bearing the punishment due unto us His own self bare our sins in his body on a tree 2. This is plainly proved by the peculiarity of his Death We will readily grant He died for us as none in the world else ever died for us therefore not only for our good Socinus and his Followers tell us that Christ having taught as a Prophet sent from God a Doctrine of holiness and piety and that they that imbrace it believe repent return shall be saved notwithstanding all their former sins He died only to confirm the truth of his Doctrine and to leave the world an example of patience and submission courage in suffering but not for expiation satisfaction Certainly Christ did some singular thing by his Death and if this be all we may ask What singular thing hath he done Have not all Martyrs done the same by their Death they taught true Doctrine and died to give Witness to the Truth and to encourage us in sufferings Did not the Apostles do the same the Apostle speaketh of his sufferings for their good in Col. 1. 24. this sense Who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you for the Church Therefore I endure all things for the Elects 2 Tim. 2. 10. sake that they also may obtain the Salvation by Jesus Christ And yet he speaketh it with abhorrence Was Paul crucified for you Do we suffer 1 Cor. â—1 13. for you in the sense that Christ suffered for you as a Satisfaction as an Expiation And if this be all the meaning of our Redemption by his blood and Justification by his blood then we may as well say We are redeemed and justified by the blood of Martyrs however as really though not fully his death and sufferings being at most but a greater attestation of the truth and encouragement of us in our suffering for it If Christ died only for the Confirmation of the Gospel which he preached and for our encouragement and imitation in suffering for the truth we may say Where is the Lamb for the Burnt-offering We are guilty and want atonement Captives and want a ransom If we should look on Christ's Death as one saith through Socinus his Spectacles we should look on it as neither satisfactory to God nor us we have yet no help meet for us there is no days-man between us he that was to come is not come And yet we look not for another 3. I shall prove it from the Sacrifices under the Old Testament which typified and shadowed out these things The Law had a shadow of good Heb. 10. 1 2. things to come not the very image implying Christ's Sacrifice was the very reality The blood of Bulls and Goats could not expiate moral guilt but only shadowed out that which could do it Every Priest standeth daily Heb. 10. 11 12. ministring and offering often times the same Sacrifices which can never take away sins But this Man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins c. They were but dumb shews of this Tragedy to be acted Consider these three things 1. These Sacrifices did take away did expiate typical guilt in some sense took away the typical punishment of being excluded the congregation and society and such temporal punishment as was to be inflicted by God or Man for such faults as they were appointed Offerings for For the Apostle saith The blood of bulls and goats did sanctifie thus far to the purifying of the flesh Now by sanctifie he meaneth expiate which will appear by perusing how this Author useth this word in other places of that Epistle and not taking away the fault it self But these Sacrifices were Heb. 9. 14 Lev. 10. 14 but only typical of that which took away the eternal punishment and moral guilt and obligation Now since these typical Sacriâ—ices were expiatory satisfactory in respect of typical guilt What similitude can there be what relation of Types can they have if Christ's offering up Himself was no expiation for real moral guilt for Types were not ordained for their own sakes but for the sake of those things they did shadow out Why would God put them upon typical propitiatory Sacrifices if they did signifie nothing of real Propitiation 2. The Sacrifices were offered in Men's stead in the Sinners stead to make atonement for his Soul for his Life that he died not for such typical guilt He shall put his hand on the Lev. 1. 4. head of the Burnt-offering and it shall be accepted for him They were offered for Man's good indeed but how for his good why in his stead When a man was to die they died for him and he was kept alive And that which yet maketh it more plain is this because in capital offences where men were absolutely to die without remedy there were as is well observed by many no private Sacrifices instituted because the man himself was to die for his fault and so a beast could not die in his stead And if Sacrifices were only offered for the good of Men and not by way
a 〈…〉 g ordering Providence about 〈…〉 could not be said to punish or 〈…〉 n his people for their corrections are for the most part by their hatred and malice the sins of wicked men Suppose Gods ways above our ways above our reach as in some things they are shall we say They are unrighteous unjust when he sets Him forth a Propitiation that he might be just 2. Jesus Christ Set forth Jesus Christ God-Man God and Man in one Person Emanuel a Mediator a Middle-person not only in Office but in Nature partook of both Parties not like the medium negationis but participationis utriusque extremi So that we need not take up Job's dark complaint There is not a days-man between us to lay his hand upon us both i. e. Is not an Umpire to day our differences There is indeed a great distance yea a contrariety between God and us but though far asunder he can reach both parties he is both can lay his hand upon us both He is truly God Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is Rom. 9. 5. 1 John 5. 20. Tit. 2. 13. God over all blessed for ever Called the true God and everlasting life God manifest in the flesh He is truly man the Word was made flesh not only appeared in flesh as formerly but now made flesh 1. He must needs be Man that he might be near a kin to us our Goel that as man sinned man might suffer dye and satisfie that there might be as little alteration as might be in the execution of the threatning that as by the offence of one man one a-kin one near to us death came on all so by the righteousness of one man one near a-kin righteousness and life might come on all that as man was to be redeemed man might pay the price He came as near us as could be in a close union so that the Members in some sense may be said to have suffered in their Head For both he which sanctifieth that is by way of Heb. 2. 11 expiation for so the Author to the Hebrews often useth the word and they which are sanctified are all of one of one mass lump of one and the same nature for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren Forasmuch then as the children that Verse 14. is they to be redeemed are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself took part of the same that through death c. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his Verse 17. brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest to make reconciliation for the sins of the people for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted 2. He must needs be God that suffered not only to support the humane nature in bearing wrath due to sinners that it might overcome death that it sink not under the weight as the Altar of Wood was to be covered Exo. 27. 2 with brass that it might not be consumed with the fire but to give worth to the sufferings to make them satisfactory that the dignity of the person might add virtue and value to the sufferings And Socinus his Objection here is contrary to all Reason viz. That because the Divine Nature did not suffer it cannot be considered in the sufferings One may with as much reason say It is all one whether you strike a private man or your Prince because the stroak lighteth on the body immediately and not on the dignity it is all one whether you strike a stranger or your Father because the stroak hits the body immediately and not the relation of the person The Scripture placeth the emphasis the value of the sufferings in the worthiness of the person in being God God redeemed the Church with his own blood If the blood of Bulls and Acts 20. 28. Heb. 9. 14 Goats sanctifie to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit that is his Divinity offered himself purge your Conscience c. Being in the form of God and thought it no Phil. 2. 6. robbery to be equal with God made himself of no reputation and took on him the form of a servant humbled himself and became obedient to the death of the Cross Hence called the 1 Pet. 1. 19. 1 John 1. 17 precious blood of Jesus Christ The blood of Jesus Christ his Son that cleanseth us from all sins So that if any should ask What Justice what Equality is there in this commutation one suffering for many It may be answered He was but one but he was One worth Ten thousand of us the Prince of Life was killed the Lord of Glory crucified The blood of a man is of more value than the blood of a beast the blood of a King of more value than the blood of a common man but the blood of God of more value than Ten thousand millions of Kings Here then is a high price indeed the King of Kings and Lord of Lords the King of Heaven and Earth's Son for Traitors and Traitors Sons The Man that was Gods fellow was smitten Thousands of Rams and Ten Zac. 13. 7. thousands of Rivers of Oyl could not have bore proportion to such a suffering for satisfaction This is more than if all the men in the world had eternally perished and doth more keep up the repute of the Law before Angels and considerate men Set forth Jesus Christ to declare his righteousness It declared it indeed 3. To dye To dye this we have in those words in the Text Faith in his blood Object Could not God have declar'd his righteousness and his hatred of sin and have kept up the repute of his Law and have made that honourable in dispensing with it upon a less consideration Would it not have been penalty enough satisfaction enough for Christ only to have taken upon him our nature though he had lived as King of kings attended with Princes Kings and Emperors Or however to have taken on him the form of a Servant though he had not dyed Or yet would it not have been enough if he had undergone some little part of his suffering Would not some one or few drops of his blood have sufficed as those shed in his Circumcision Some of the Ancients have spoken strangely concerning these things but Pope Clement the sixth most strangely for by his Decretal-Epistle he hath determined this difficulty so rationally in the account of Canonists that it is inserted into the body of the Canon-Law Extrav tit Vnigenitus viz. thus One drop of Christs blood was enough to save the world and therefore the over-plus of it is laid up in the Treasury of the Church to be given out by the Popes in Pardons and Indulgences But we are sure God thought it not sufficient By his blood is meant death But yet there remains a seeming difficulty
Wisdom Justice and Holiness that saving the honour of these he might pardon and advance to dignity rebells against Heaven upon their returning to their subjection and allegiance that the honour and credit of these might be maintained and yet the offenders not perish And this atrocious death of the Son of God for sin did do God great honour in the face of the Sun and of the World did assert his holiness and ha 〈…〉 proclaim his Righteousness and is a loud Thunder-clap of terror against such as shall again a second time and after such hope brought in undo themselves And by this all the dishonour that would have come to God by pardoning submitting and yielding enemies and rebells is cleared and wiped off and the repute of the Law as well secured and kept up and offenders considerate no more imboldened to sleight Him and his Laws and Threats by looking on him as no great enemy to sin than if the penalty had been executed upon all Men for ever I shall add no more here because I have prevented my self in speaking largely of this before 6. That God might be just and a justifier of faln man that God might be just and merciful 1. That God might be just it would not be sense to stop here for God would have been just without this Propitiation inflicting the punishment on sinners themselves but then he would have been meerly just and no justifier of faln man because man could never have satisfied he would have been always paying and yet the debt always to pay still so that there could never have been any Justification of sinners 2. But that he might be just and a justifier He set out Christ a Propitiation for the remission of sins Here you see two causes of Christ's death The love of God to Man one and the justice of God the other He was induced to this amazing act by his Philanthropy his love of man and zeal of justice He so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed on him might not perish but might have everlasting life And here his justice did not swallow up his Mercy nor his Mercy his Justice but they are of quite distinct considerations Here is a loud Testimony of his Love to us and love to his Law and Justice of love to us that Christ should die rather than we perish and of love to his Law and Justice in that he hereby took order that they should not be injured by his pardoning of us Yet observe well here for the understanding of the things I have spoken of and shall speak of depend much upon it that this love was not the love of Complacency or Rectoral love for that is and was the fruit of Christ's Death but a love of pity such as was consistent with Rectoral and Legal hatred Zaleucus might lawfully have a love of pity to his Son before his invented Satisfaction but Rectoral wrath and hatred He was bound in honour as a iust Rector to execute the Law to keep it sacred and unblemished and this restrained his natural pity from doing an injury to justice And this Love that I am speaking of was the Love of one that was bound in honour and justice to be an enemy as things stood but yet of one willing to find out some way that he might with safety to his honour and justice be a friend as Governour that is might justly not inflict the penalty Thus you see the love of Pity that sent Christ was not the fruit of Christs Death But his love of Complacency his justifying love Pardoning love Rectoral love that is the fruit of his Death 7. Justifier of Sinners of faln Man that is implied in the word Propitiation and remission of sin and in the whole texture of the words And here I will shew you he died for Justification of the greatest of sinners upon their acceptance of him yea and of sinners then long since dead 1. For the Pardon and Justification of the greatest Sinners worst of Men whose throat was an open Sepulcher and their feet swift to shed blood as is expressed before in this Chapter The greatest Sins cannot exceed the price paid for they are but the Sins of Man but the Sufferings were the Sufferings of God They that were guilty of the hainousest act that ever the Sun saw of that horrid act of Crucifying Christ upon their repentance and being pricked in their hearts were forgiven as we read in the Acts of the Apostles 2. For the Pardon and Justification of Sinners then dead before Christ's death God now declareth his righteousness in the remission of those past sins Whether all those that were justified and saved under the Old Testament did know of this to come satisfaction or not I do not now dispute But this is plain whether they knew of it or not they were not justified and saved without God's having respect to this to come Propitiation it was by virtue of this which is now declared It is now declared to Men and Angels that it was upon the account of the Satisfaction intended and promised They were justified by virtue of Satisfaction designed and undertaken by Christ and in due time to be exacted and paid but through the forbearance of God the exacting of the price for sins past and fore-committed was deferred till the time of the Gospel A Meritorious cause is a Moral cause and for a Moral cause to operate and have its effect it is not necessary that it do exist it sufficeth that it have an Esse cognitum a beeing in knowledg A man may be properly said to have bought that which he hath not yet paid for and may have the actual benefit of his purchase if he hath undertaken the payment and the other accepts of and rests satisfied with his promise and undertaking Grotius lib. de Satisf thus interpreteth this place remission of sins past And it seemeth probable enough to be the meaning of this difficult place Sanguis Christi profuit antequam fuit Both the Ancients were and we are saved by Christ and God hath now set him forth a Propitiation for those past sins And indeed till Christ thus came the Satisfaction was not paid but through the forbearance of God thus served the turn that it was undertaken and promised and typified and represented by the Sacrifices and Types which shadowed it out but the Truth Reality and true Sacrifice came not till Christ And God did forbear to inflict wrath on them because he should at length have satisfaction and now he declareth his Righteousness in exacting the prefigured Satisfaction They drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them which Rock was Christ Hence it is not improbably concluded by some that he is called The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world * Yet I rather encline to them that read it written from the foundation of the world in the book of the Lamb slain Because in the same Book
explicite knowledg and belief of Christ's death and satisfaction though God did pardon them upon their returning unto him upon the account only of that to come Satisfaction And that which is like a Mathematical demonstration to me that it was not an essential condition of pardon and salvation is this viz. If it was an essentially necessary condition of Justification then then no man could be in a state of justification and salvation without an explicite knowledg of Christ's death and satisfaction to come But the Disciples of Christ at least some of them were truly regenerate men truly children of God and in a justified estate before Christ's Resurrection and believed it not That they were truly the people of God and in a justified estate before his resurrection is clear for saith Christ before that You are clean through the word I have spoken to you And it is said of Nathaniel A true Israelite in whom is no guile And else we must say God had no people in the world at that day for you will confess they were the best And again it is apparent they did not believe any such thing as his death and paying a price of blood Nay they were so far from believing he should so dye that they rather believed that he should not so dye When ever he spake any thing of his death it is said They understood Mat. 16. 23. Mark 9. 31 32 Luke 9. 44 45 Luke 18. 34. none of these things and Far be it from thee and when dead they thought it unlikely that he should be a Redeemer We trusted this was he that should have redeemed Israel They looked on him as the promised Messiah but thought he was to be some great Temporal Deliverer and his Redemption should be with Power and not with Price How then could they be saved if they had then died I answer That they as others before them believed God would pardon sinners upon their repentance and returning from sin unto God but for whose sake or merit they knew not I do not here deny but some before them might and did know something of Christ's death and Propitiation and I do not deny it was their fault they knew no more and understood no more the Types and Prophesies of him but all that I contend for is this that it was not a necessary condition of salvation else the Disciples had not been in a justified estate And I may add this John Baptist was under a clearer dispensation than they before him and the least in the Kingdom of Heaven in a clearer than John and so the Disciples in a clearer than John Hence it is very probable If the Disciples knew not any thing of it very few before them did that lived under more obscure Dispensations and had not the helps they had Now such repentance sincere obedience and turning is still a part of the Gospel-condition for this is not taken away now under the Gospel it is as much a condition of the Covenant as ever That we take God for our God and turn from sin Will any man say That Ministers are not to preach from those Texts If the wicked turn from his wickedness he shall live And If you live after the flesh you shall dye but if you through the spirit do mortifie c. These things are as much a condition as ever But there is something added under the Gospel something required of us as necessary that was not so to them Now if you believe not I am He you shall dye in your sins It might be replied to continue the former Dialogue You have well said in propounding this to be a condition Nonnulla hic desiderari Habes confitentem reum sed quae mihi solutionem alienarum quaestionum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imponerent In quibus quidem aqua mihi non multum haeret At harum enodatio plusculum insumeret chartae paucis enim expedire non licet Et forsan invidiam mihi conciliaret quae tu hujus generis ad populum conatibus maximopere cavenda est Dumque necessitas rerum in confesso est unde oritur non adeo laborandum nec est tanti nobis clarâ— evangelii luce agentiâ—â—s nostra enim res non ageretur â—uare fereâ—at animus hâ—c ut vides aliquantulum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hâ—antia relinquere proculdubio praestat operasis de rebus explicatu difficilibus tacere quam pauca dicere but there is something more yet is fit to be required of those that live under the clear Dispensation of the Gospel viz. That we after Christ is thus come should explicitely know believe trust in and honour our Redeemer It is sit there should be faith in our Lord Jesus Christ as well as repentance toward God That he should save only those that come to God by him and ask in his Name That over and above being true Israelites in whom is no guile there should be a belief of Christ and his death and resurrection And so indeed there are new Articles essential to our Creed Except you believe I am he you shall dye in your sins To conclude This is the Gospel-condition God saith to us as Solomon to Adonijah when fled to the horns of the Altar He deserves to dye but if he will shew himself a worthy man not a hair of his head shall fall to the ground but if iniquity be found in him if he will be false and treacherous to me and my Government he shall dye It is seemingly too high an Allusion but the New Testament often useth the word worthy for carrying in our weak measure suitably I mean however no more but this Be but Christians in good earnest believe the truth of the Gospel stedfastly in such a degree as to venture all upon it and love God and Christ heartily and serve them according to your weak shattered ability faithfully so that it shall be the real grief of your soul when you fall short and this shall serve your turn So the terms are the whole of Christianity the whole duty of man so far as integrity and sincerity What doth Solomon mean when he saith Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man but the whole condition of happiness Doth he set us on any thing not required under the gospel These are the terms of the Covenant of Grace established in the Blood of Christ which you shall be judged justified or condemned by and they are just before God are justified in Law that do thus and shall be sententially pronounced just that do thus in sincerity though not perfectly and they that do not shall be condemned notwithstanding Christ's death Such only are of the Christian Faith I understand Faith thus largely and it is plain the Scripture doth when ever any promise of Justification is made to it Do but well consider these few things following to remove prejudice and to let you see into the nature
thing that hath no sting no great hurt in it Let not my soul come into your secrets You do in your hearts blaspheme this great and stupendious transaction of Heaven and that worthy name of Christ wherewith you are called You despise God in your hearts and say as David to Saul After whom doth the King of Israel pursue after a dead dog after a flea As if he should say Methinks the great King of Israel should never be so vain as to trouble himself about such an inconsiderable fellow as I am A dead dog cannot bite a flea can bite but a flea-biting is a small matter you that think sin but like a flea and its hurt like a flea-biting you do charge the God of Israel in your hearts foolishly as if he made all this ado in Christ's death about nothing you in effect maintain as if God did magno conatu magnas nugas agere as if these things were but Childrens play as if Christ dyed as a fool dyeth to no purpose for if sin be such a slight matter then Christ died in vain How far are your thoughts from God's thoughts You shall see it an evil and bitter thing and of dreadful desert and admire at instead of contemning this Justice of God manifested in this wise plot of the Trinity for man's salvation before ever you come to have this great benefit of it 6. This speaks dreadfully to all unbelieving impenitent Christ-refusing sinners What will become of them that slight their Redeemer that shall have no part in his blood because they tread it under foot If Christ died for this end because else God could not with safety to his Justice pardon believing repenting returning sinners what will become of them that believe not repent not return not The death of Christ is to incorrigible sinners the dreadfullest story they can read it setteth convincingly forth before their eyes and thundereth out to their ears the inexorable Justice of God and what a fearful thing it is to fall into the offended hands of the living God It may make a man sweat may put a man into an agony to tell of those things that are by the sufferings of Christ proclaimed aloud to the World to befall wilful contemners of this offer of Christ and Grace If these things were done to the green tree what shall be done to the dry If he whose judgment was not to have drunk this Cup hath drunk so deeply of it Art thou he that shalt go unpunished Jer. 49. 12. How shall they escape that neglect so great salvation You that say you cannot believe God will be so severe to impenitent sinners as the Scripture and your Ministers tell you See here dreadful Justice and believe see here how severely God dealt with his only beloved Son when he had undertaken to satisfie for our sins to be as it were our Substitute If any should now escape surely he should he was but as a Surety How little encouragement hast thou to think he will dispence again with his threat that hast seen how hardly he hath dispensed with it before God hath once indeed accepted of a great Sacrifice for sin but if men now once finally refuse him that thus speaketh from Heaven There remains no more sacrifice for sin If any man when he hears the words of this curse that fell on Christ being made a Curse for us shall bless himself in his heart saying I shall have peace though I walk in the way of my own heart and not after the appointment of my Lord-Redeemer surely the wrath of God shall smoak against that man and God shall blot out his name from under heaven and he shall bear his iniquity himself for ever and ever What remaineth for such but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour such adversaries such enemies that would not have this man the Lord Jesus to rule over them 7. This speaks comfort to true Believers to repenting returning sinners notwithstanding their great sins they have been guilty of before conversion and since conversion God hath you see set forth Christ a Propitiation You need not fear that you should feel what he felt such expiatory Hell-sorrows or eternal and destructive punishments Yours shall be common to men common to Christians leight afflictions and for a moment and sanctified and well rewarded When your hearts ake and consciences accuse and the Law and Justice and Holiness of God seem to urge for Satisfaction look here at Christ made a Propitiation Do not say It is we that have sinned and we must suffer the sins were committed by us and must lye on us for ever What did God lay the punishment of our sins on Christ for It would have been thus if Christ had not dyed if it must yet be thus Christ dyed in vain Who 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 dyed yea rather is risen again who is at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us who will make it his business to see you have the fruit of his death God is well-pleased with you through him that loved us and gave himself an offering and satisfaction to God for a sweet-smelling savour Thou art often it may be saying within thy self I want Righteousness The righteous Lord loveth righteousness Heaven is a place only of righteous ones How can such an unworthy Creature stand before him without righteousness If I had not sinned or not so hainously sinned how well it would have been with me O happy Angels and Saints in glory they have righteousness Why notwithstanding our unrighteousness yet in the Lord Christ we have righteousness whereby we are made acceptable in the Beloved So that now Justice it self is become your friend Now because God is just the penitent true Believer is and must be justified Now God is faithful and just to forgive you your sins it would not be justice and faithfulness to do otherwise when he hath made this Righteousness over to the World by this Law of Grace this second Covenant and you have the condition of the Covenant You that are sensible of the great wrong you have done the Lord here you may comfortably see it made up and satisfied for Lord thou art well paid thou hast greater Satisfaction in saving than in damning me in damning me thou hast only my blood for Satisfaction but in saving me the blood of Christ God hath been dishonoured by you but look here and see Christ giving him as much honour as you deprived him of The price is paid yea and accepted by God and he hath declared his Satisfaction therewith and made a Law of Grace upon it and cannot go back and now saith Fury is not in me This should be health to our bones and wine to our hearts And that which hath satisfied God for the sins of Thousands now in Heaven may well
roaring Lion of Hell and found out a way to do the creature good and himself and his Law no dishonour I have found a ransom not by advice or consultation with others He alone contrived it invented it it was God himself that provided this Lamb for a Burnt-offering it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ crucified was such wisdom as none of the Princes of this World knew The Angels desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with stooping 1 Pet. 1â— 12 down to look into these things He alludes to that that the Cherubims Exod. 25. 10. were pictured with their faces looking down upon the Propitiatory The Angels knew not these things naturally they were hid in God and made known to them and not made known to them immediately or primarily but by the Church but by the Revelation made to the Church The Apostle speaking or preaching of Eph. 3. 9. 10 the unspeakable riches of Christ he addeth To the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God How we admire them that find out Inventions rare Inventions especially if beneficial ones to the world how should we adore that Wisdom that found out this Expedient for the salvation of the guilty Rebel-world Here is heighth and depth length and breadth of Wisdom to pardon and punish both together to display riches of Mercy and Grace without derogation from his Justice This was that abyss the mind of man could not fathom for things so far asunder so distant in their own nature as greatest Mercy and greatest Justice to be made to meet and concentre was a wonderful plot and contrivance of Divine Wisdom ever to be adored and being now revealed appears Wisdom to men that are perfect yea to all men sober and sound in their Intellectuals that hear of it Again If God thus fore-ordained him a Propitiation How weak and wicked is Socinus his arguing who argues just contrary That he cannot be a Propitiation a Satisfaction because we grant God fore-ordained him set him forth to be so He argueth thus God was not at odds with men not angry with men because he found out this way therefore God was appeased his Justice satisfied before he was reconciled before and so needed no Propitiation to make him reconciled to the World else he would not have ordained or given Christ thus All that this Argument of his proves is this That God though he was as things stood necessarily an Enemy by virtue of his strict Justice yet he was such an Enemy as desired to be atoned or appeased Like that we read of his command to Job's three friends My wrath is kindled against Job 42 7 thee and thy two friends saith God to Eliphas therefore take seven bullocks and seven rams and go to Job and offer c. One may as well argue God's wrath was not kindled against them though he saith it was because he directeth to means how to appease his wrath whereas it sheweth he was angry but willing and desirous of atonement in that he sheweth means how to come into his favour The love of God that set Wisdom on work to find out this of Christ was not the love of one that was bound in Honour and Justice to be an Enemy that is to execute the curse upon us as things stood but of one desirous of finding out a way that he might with safety to his Honour and Justice be a Friend as a Rector 2. The word signifies as it is translated set him forth The death of Christ the making Christ a Propitiation was of Gods ordering and disposing God set him forth to dye Not a Sparrow falleth to the ground without Gods Providence much less the Son of God They did no more nor otherwise in crucifying Christ than what Gods determinate Councel had appointed The sufferings of Christ were Heavens Counsel and Hells Suggestion and Earths Execution the effect of Gods goodness the Devil's malice and the Jews hatred When they had fulfilled all things that Acts 13. 29 were written of him they took him from the tree and put him in a Sepulcher Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and afterward enter into glory It pleased the Lord to bruise Isa 53. him God was never so pleased with any thing in the world as with the Sufferings of Christ they were a sweet-smelling Sacrifice and yet never so displeased with any wicked act as with the betraying accusing and condemning of Christ He decreed and ordered the death of Christ delighted in the thing alone in some sense but had the greatest hatred against the wicked cruel actors of it Whom you slew with wicked hands and so with wicked hearts God decreed Christ should dye a cursed death that we might live but their hearts thought not so it was in them to destroy You intended it for evil but the Lord turned it for good saith Joseph Gen. 50. 20. to his Brethren We see God hath an ordering hand about sins an active providence about sins Ye sent me not hither but God God hath his good will and pleasure by mens evil will The Jews did what they did to satisfie their rage and lusts but God ordered it to save our souls God could have hindered the death of Christ but then he had hindered his own counsel and promise Yet take heed of the other extream God stirreth up no man to sin gataker Gataker's Gods eye upon Israek tells us that that difficult place 2 Sam. 24. 1. should be read passively he was stirred up incitatus est viz. from his own heart as the Jewish Expositors commonly or by Satan as 1 Chron. 21. 1. and brings many instances of it But however we must understand that and such places by leaving them to temptation and their own hearts as when it is said God hath bidden Shimei curse And to speak of the thing in hand God in his Providence ordered all to such a concurrence of circumstances that the death of Christ was brought about without any violence or force offered to mens wills only God actively sendeth Christ whom the wicked hated because of the light of his Life and Doctrine to Jerusalem to the Passover and actively taketh off restraints from them so that their is no man or thing to binder them from doing what they would and then God leaveth them to their own hearts and wills and they wickedly crucifie him So that we are not to thank the Devil nor the Jews for what their wickedness was instrumental to bring about for as God is no way accessary to their malice cruelty and wickedness so neither do they partake of Gods righteousness in such acts wherein he declareth his righteousness Therefore God useth after to burn the rods of his anger and this cursed act brought ruin on this Nation and a curse on their Children and Posterity to this day they noâ— repenting of their sin If God had noâ—
it is added and they talked of his decease His whole life was a life of sorrows Faith in his blood doth not exclude his obedience and other parts of his sufferings but all are comprehended under this most eminent part which was most grievous and painful to body and soul 1. His Body What torments did that endure What scourgings piercings and the exquisiteness of his bodily temperature and constitution would augment his torture He had not dulled and blunted his spirits and sense by intemperance 2. His Soul What punishment of sense was there on his Soul in his Agony in the Garden when he sweat as it were clods of blood and complained My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death and an Angel was fain to comfort him when he cryed Father if it be possible let this cup pass sure there were some dregs some gall and wormwood in his cup. What punishment of loss when he cryed out Why hast thou for saken me We hid as it were our faces from him saith the Prophet but this was a small matter in comparison of God's hiding his face His Disciples forsook him but he complains not of their forsaking but why hast thou forsaken me If it be asked What need of soul-suffering soul-trouble was not bodily enough It is answered already God would have sufferings as near the same threatned as could be would dispense as little with the Law as might be How are the Socinians here upon the rack when to give an account of his crying out and discomposure beyond the ordinary rate of Martyrs for they shouted and triumphed since they maintain he suffered no otherwise and on no other account than they did only to attest the truth and leave us an example of patience They make his groaning heavier than his strokes if he had no more of bitterness in his Cup than they 2. A shameful death God set him forth to a publick notorious shameful death that he might be just c. It was at a solemn time the Passover when the Jews were come from all parts of the Land and Proselytes and others from remote parts of the World and at the most publike place Jerusalem Then and there the God of Heaven was spit on stripped and whipt naked in the sight of the multitude crucified before all Israel and in the sight of the Sun All Nations have as it were by consent agreed that hanging on a tree crucifying should be the most contemptible death of the vilâ—st of Creatures and vilest of men Whom you sâ—â—w and Acts 5. 20 hanged on a tree the emphasis of the shame is hanged on a tree So endured the Cross and despising the shame It is a shame for a King â—o suffer an ignominious death how much more for God He suffered as a Malefactor as a Traytor against Caesar his Prince as a Blasphemer of his God as a Deceiver and Impostor Yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted We that is the generality of the people esteemed him as one smitten for his own sins justly condemned for his own sins and so far from taking away condemnation from others He was numbred with transgressors accounted a wicked person suffered with thieves as being accounted the fittest companion for them To live with iâ—famy is accounted worse than death What is it then to dye with infamy Many men could with less regret bear the pain of hanging than the shame of it He is insulted over in his miseries nothing is so intolerable as shame to noble ingenuous spirits He is scoffed at in all his Offices as Priest He saved others himself he cannot save As Prophet Prophesie unto us who smoâ—e thee This Deceiver c. As King Hail King of the Jews I am the reproach of men Psal 22 6 and despised of the people was spoken not without cause of him in the type 3. Cursed death that God might be just c. I must not leave this out though I have an averseness to speak of things I do not well understand And I must confess that I do not so clearly understand as I do other things what is meant by Curse distinct from pain and shame But I will tell you my thoughts of it As Benedictio blessing as Amiraldus saith seemeth to be the solemn declaration of the good will of one superiour in Power and Dignity The Heb. 7. 7. less is blessed of the greater So Maledictio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seemeth to be nothing else but a solemn declaration of the anger and displeasure of the Rector and higher Powers So that every death that carrieth in it the tokens and marks of the displeasure of the higher Powers may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a curse This is it that it be inflicted by the King for a fault and therefore a death of hanging on a Tree which is inflicted for a fault by the authority of the Higher Powers being a painful and especially a shameful death wherein the chief of punishment consists is accounted a Curse by the consent of Nations That Curse which the Apostle alludeth to seemeth to be only some Gal. 3. 10. ceremonial Curse which was pronounced Dâ—ut 21. 23. on every one that hanged on a tree I suppose whether rightfully or wrongfully hanged such a carkass was to be shunned in a special manner and not to be buried with ordinary burial it may be And this Ceremonial Curse was by the wise foreseeing Providence of God pronounced on every one hanging on a Tree that it might be typical of Christ being cursed with another kind of curse in being hanged on a tree with a moral Curse the Curse of the Moral Law which was due to sinners Cursed is he that continues not in all things written in the Law What a Curse did he bear in being made a curse for us What millions of Talents of vengeance were in his cup All the curses written in the Book of the Law in a sense fell on him he was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 piaculum The Son of God's dearest love became the subject of his Rectoral displeasure for us children of wrath that we might becom objects of his favour 4. An undeserved death of his own as for any fault That God c. No guile was in his mouth The Lamb without spot in all things like us yet without sin holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners By his knowledg shall my righteous servant justifie many And the stress is laid here in righteous He who knew no sin was made sin for us He was not like the High Priest who was first to offer for himself and then for the people Therefore God ordained him to be born of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost that he Isa 53. 4 5. might be without sin These seem to be opposed We did esteem him smitten of God and afflicted that is smitten as an offender for his own faults as being so far from taking away the curse from us that
he was cursed for his own sin But saith he he was wounded for our transgressions The Antithesis shews these to be inconsistent The cause was just contrary to what David pleaded Let it be on me and on my Fathers house but these sheep what have they done But here it may be said The shepherd what hath he done that laid down his life for his sheep when the sheep only were in fault All we like sheep have gone astray aâ—d the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all And to speak here by way of anticipation The Innocent suffering for the Guilty should be so far from prejudicing us against the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction to Justice that on the contrary this alone maketh it satisfactory to right Reason for had he himself been guilty he had been in no capacity to pay a ransom for others If he was bound to pay all he had suffer all he could suffer for himself How should he pay any thing for us suffer any thing for us 5. A willing voluntary death That God might be just c. God set him forth but yet by his own consent He gave himself for our sins according to â—al 4. 1. the will of God and our Father That which casts a stain and blemish upon the most Satisfactions we read of in humane Authors and maketh them ingrateful unto us is this That either they did not undergo their sufferings for another willingly as when they chastned the Infant-Prince's darling-Pages for his fault or if they did undergo them willingly they had not lawful authority and power to do so For men have not that full power and authority over their lives and members to give them a compensation for others which they have over their money and estates God hath not given them this power and also Governours are under the Law of God and so have not regularly authority to take away mens lives or members upon such commutations instead of others therefore those Authors that thought men had full authority over their lives and members do hugely commend the act of Zaleuchus in putting out one of his own eyes and were it not for this obstruction we should commend it as one of the bravest acts of Justice mixed with prudence in those circumstances that ever was Now both these difficulties are removed here 1. Christ had power and authority over his own life I have power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have authority to lay down John 10. 18. my life and authority to take it up again He had authority over his own life as other men have not being God And further we are sure the Father gave him leave 2. He willingly undertook this task of dying a Propitiation for sinners Burnt-offering thou wouldst not then said I Lo I come I delight to do thy will O God I lay down my life for my sheep no man taketh it from me against John 10. 16 my consent I lay it down of my self It was a voluntary Sacrifice a Free-will-Offering He was the Priest himself offered himself by the eternal Spirit though the Jews were the Butchers Thinkest thou not saith he to Peter smiting off of Malchus's ear that I cannot now pray my Father and he shall send me more than twelve legions of Angels He gave Pilate no answer as if afraid of hindering his own Sufferings Had he spoken as he could have done as one having authority he could with few words have daunted Pilate's heart and caused his own release But he went as a Lamb to the slaughter as a sheep before the shearer he was dumb and opened not his mouth So that Pilate is impatient at his patience angry at his silence Answerest thou not When he was reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not Had 1 Pet. 2 23. he but threatned he might have forced his own dismission Two things can only be objected here against his willingness 1. His great natural averseness Father if it be possible c. He feared this Cup. Ans In speaking of his Humane Nature there is no difficulty about his Divine we must distinguish with the School-men thus There is volunt as ut natura and voluntas ut ratio There is the natural will or inclination and the rational will according to this natural will he desired to escape this death Nature abhorring things destructive to its self But by his rational will for God's honour and our redemption he willingly submitted to it Aquinas instanceth thus A Man according to his natural will desires to avoid a bitter potion and the lancing or cutting off of any Member and yet by his rational will he consenteth to these for the good of the whole And this is most properly to be called the will Quod quisque mavult id maxime proprie vult This natural willingness and averseness in him doth commend and advance the meritoriousness of Christ's willingness as Mediator and merciful High Priest and not at all proves his unwillingness in the properest sense of the word 2. Here may also be objected He was for the most part careful to secure himself from the Jews treacheries and injuries and sometimes fled Ans This doth not prove his unwillingness to suffer at all but only his chusing the fittest time and hour and his reserving himself for the time and place appointed by the Father And he used to say before that his hour was not yet come But consider how he carried himself when his hour was come and he knew it was come Now before the feast of the Passeover Joh. 13. 1. when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this World to the Father Then he prepareth his Disciples These words spake Jesus and Joh. 17. 1 4. lift up his eyes to heaven and said Father the hour is come Glorifie thy Son I have finished my work now glorifie Ver. 4. me with thy own self Jesus knowing all things that should come upon him Joh. 18 4. went forth to Judas and his band of Soldiers and said unto them Whom seek you they answered him Jesus of Nazareth Jesus saith unto them I am He. They went backward and fell to the ground He that threw them to the ground could have thrown them into hell but he suffers them to rise again offers himself and saith Whom seek you They said Jesus of Nâ—zareth Jesus answered I have told you that I am he If therefore you seek me let these Disciples go away He had care of them to keep them out of cruel hands while he willingly yielded up himself He was straitned till it was accomplished Now the main of the Socinian Objections fly before this as dry leaves before the wind One may thus rhetorize in objecting with them What shall not the just Judg of all the Earth do right Will he sâ—â—y the righteous with the wicked However will he slay the righteous and let the wicked escape Or which
of compensation and expiation in their stead What possible reason can be given why no Sacrifices were to be offered for them that were to be taken away out of the land of the living 3. Now Christ is called our Sacrifice Walk in love as Christ also hath Eph. 5. 2. loved us and hath given himself for us an Offering and Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour He alludeth to the expression of the Old Testament where God is said to smell a sweet savour or a savour of rest in their Sacrifices He is called as was said before Gen. 8. 21 Lev. 1. 9. by the name of his own Types Lamb without spot Behold the Lamb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lamb of God the eminent Lamb the true propitiatory Lamb indeed that did that in reality which others but represented that did really take away and expiate the sins of the World So he is called our Passeover I will here answer two Objections more before I pass to another general head Object But can one satisfie himself Christ was God and so the party offended as well as Man Answ Passing by what may colourably be said upon consideration of the distinctions of Persons I answer 1. Do we not read of God reconciling the World to himself God was 2 Cor. 5. 19. the Agent in it and this he could not do but by finding out some way to satisfie and propitiate himself that he might not impute their sins 2. Did not Zaleucus in part help to satisfie his own Law by his own suffering losing one of his own eyes as we heard in the story fore-mentioned And this is not accounted an imprudent act but commended highly by the Authors that relate it as a worthy noble act and expedient and I told you we have only one thing to object against it which cannot be objected here 3. Tell me O vain dark man that wouldst teach God that repliest against God What way was there else possible Think a little on that What way so ever you will propound as suppose of less satisfaction by some meer creature or no satisfaction you may see the reason why you like it better is because you have not the hatred of Sin and love of Holiness and care of Law and Justice that God hath nor indeed such as you ought to have or else you must say You would have had God suffer Mankind remedilesly to perish and then it is because you have not that love to Mankind that God and Christ had And this last is the most seeming rational ground of our offence and surely we will easily be prejudiced against and offended with what God doth when God displeaseth us because he did not leave us irrecoverably to perish without remedy O curvae in terris animae caelestium manes O the crooked mind ef dark man Object But some have objected It is impossible one cannot suffer for another I have already answered what can be objected about the injustice but here the impossibility is objected Answ 1. God's ways are above our ways and understandings Shall we say that is impossible which he hath said he hath done because we cannot understand it 2. It is not oriously possible God's forbidding Men to punish one for another argueth the thing possible he would not forbid impossible things The Heathens knew it very possible we may see by their offering up the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul 3. It is so highly possible that it hath been and is common amongst Men. How common is the translation of punishment from one to another as in Hostages and men undertaking to bring out the offender liable to the mulct of the offender Solomon writeth much about avoiding suretiship because the debter failing he must pay Which takes it for granted as a thing common 4. If the Papists who yet would not be accounted Socinians and many of them are not should scoff at this doctrine of Justification by Christ's Righteousness and Satisfaction as absurd impossible as some of them do you may tell them how shamefully they contradict themselves and grant it eminently possible by their proclaiming a Justification by the merits and sufferings of Saints Saint Francis his Wounds and Becket's Blood yea the Virgin 's Milk will justifie Men yea the scourgings and severities and good deeds of Men of their religious Orders will so stand Men in stead as if they had done those things themselvs And yet some of them can make little or nothing of Christ's Death 5. To declare his Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to declare plainly his Righteousness There is such a rectitude in God's Nature as causeth him to hate sin and inclineth him to punish it and this natural justice inclineth him to punish fin in the person that commits it but yet not as fire burneth that cannot do otherwise but this inclination or this which we must conceive as analogical to an inclination is subject to his wisdom and orderable by it And this Oeconomy or dispensation concerning a Satisfaction was as Governour and Rector of the world that he might not dishonour Himself in pardoning to secure the glory of his Justice which would otherwise have been aspersed by sins impunity and to please himself in displaying the glory of his Attributes God is just and this was an act of justice governing justice to declare at this time c. We are prone to think that this time of the Gospel was only a time of love grace and compassion to sinners but we see it was also a time of Demonstration of Justice of the strictest justice and most inflexible holiness and hatred of sin He hereby sheweth how little he respecteth persons that if the dearest Son of his love will intercede undertake for the pardon of sinners He shall pay dear for it Here is inexorable Justice indeed There were indeed former demonstrations of God's justice in the Destruction of the Old World Overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Babylonian Captivity but never any like this at this time to vindicate his injured Law and Honour before Men and Angels It is natural to God to have a regard to himself to his own honour and concernment that he make not himseif contemptible slighted as a patron of sin or no great en 〈…〉 to it And as Rector it beho 〈…〉 assert his Majesty and keep up the repute of his Law and Government How unworthy is it of a Rector by impunity and indulgence to seem to have a confederacy with the breakers of his Law Though he pardon offenders yet it must be in such a way as there may be no ground of suspition as if he was pleased with sin become such a one as themselves or not highly displeased with the violators of his Law it must be upon dreadfully-awing honourable terms What can you imagin Christ's Death was a compensation for or a satisfaction unto but to those high and glorious Attributes of his
not by the same natural person and if any Laws do lay any stress on the person of the Debtor so that it shall be judged as no payment except paid in person such are hard Laws and against natural equity so that though payment should justly according to such Munucipal Laws be refusable from another yet it is not fairly tefusable But it is quite otherwise in all Law and natural Equity in the case of obedience and punishment for here the Laws do justly and equitably determine the very person that shall obey or suffer and allow not any delegation as doing or suffering by another so that if another suffer it is not the same in Law if the penalty be suffered by another natural person it is suffered by another person in Law And here Dum alius solvit aliud solvitur therefore such suffering of another contrary to Law may be a satisfaction that the Rector may with honoâ—r not execute the Law but cannot possibly be an execution of the Law the idem the same threatned I will make all plain to you thus Suppose the Law-threat had run thus If any man sin he shall dye be damned or another for him he or another thus disjunctively either of these would have been the very thing threatned the same in Law as the Principal and Surety are and then all these after-mentioned inconveniences would have followed First In this case had God provided one to dye for us here would have been nothing of pardon Here indeed would have been grace and favour in thus procuring one but nothing of pardon remission of sin for it would not have been a refusable payment either of their deaths would have been the same in Law and so no act of Pardon or Grace to acquit upon it whereas God for Christ's sake forgiveth We have by Eph. 4. 32 his blood the remission of sins This would have been like proper solution and then the strictest Justice cannot deny an acquittance and justification to the party for whom it is paid and there need not be there cannot be in this case any such thing as pardon pardon and full satisfaction may stand together but not pardon and solution or payment e. g. If a Law be made that threatens That for such an offence the Delinquent shall sit in the Stocks or another for him thus disjunctively here would be grace and favour in the Prince to procure one to sit for the offender but nothing of pardon or remission for the utmost rigour of Justice could not refuse to acquit upon it here is no remitting any thing the Law requires no pardon at all for the Law never required the offender himself should suffer but he or another indifferently Secondly It would also in this case be injustice to inflict the least part of the penalty threatned upon the offender when the other hath suffered because it would be to inflict what was never threatned by the Law and so what is not due for the utmost Justice requires no more than the suffering of one of them Thirdly It would also in this case be non-sense or injustice to prescribe the Delinquent terms or conditions on which he should have justification the benefit of the other's death or of the other's sitting in the Stocks or else to have no benefit by them for the offender would have right without performing such conditions And therefore as a plain denying the offender the thing he hath right to would be injustice so to reduce back his absolute right to a conditional would be injustice in part To threaten damnation if men believe not repent not would be something of injustice being a partial denial Fourthly Also in this case the offender would be justified immediately by the other's death by the Law that threatned by the very Law of Works there would need no Covenant of Grace or Gospel-promise it would be injustice to prescribe terms of benefit by it as Faith Repentance as in the other case the Delinquent would have right to impunity for his offence by the other's sitting in the Stocks by the very Law that threatned it There needs no Law of Grace for requital for it is the idem in Law the very thing threatned and so not refusable by the strictest Justice to promise here would be to promise that which we have right to without promise and such promises would not be of Grace but meer Nullities But this death of Christ was a satisfaction much like a refusable payment for the threat was The soul that sinned should dye be damned not he or another The death of Christ was a satisfaction a refusable payment for God might have refused if Christ had interceded as Moses Blot me I pray thee out of the Book of Life for the people and save their souls their lives God might have answered Those that sin against me I have only threatned and those only I will punish but of thee will I require nothing and from thee will I accept nothing For the threat was not If a man sinned he should dye or some other for him for then either of them would have been the idem the same in Law and so not refusable but it was that the offender himself should dye so that whatsoever else than the offender's sufferings could be offered was refusable and so could be but a Satisfaction And then these things will suit and agree 1. Here is pardon and remission in accepting and acquitting for he might have refused to accept of Christ's death and to acquit us upon it It is plainly a not standing to his threat a dispensing with his Law notwithstanding Christ's death for him not to execute the Law upon us though an honourable dispensing with it 2. Being a Satisfaction a refusable payment God may take off what part of the penalty He and his Son agreed from the offender and leave on him what part they please and as long as they please and judg meet And indeed though they did agree and God hath promised for Christ's death-sake that they who perform the Gospel-condition shall not perish but shall have eternal life they shall not undergo eternal sorrows Hell-sorrows yet they never agreed and God never promised that Believers should not be afflicted for their sins in this life or that they should not dye temporally or that the ground as to them should be freed from that first curse or that believing Women should not undergo pain in Child-bearing for these things God doth inflict therefore the Son in paying the ransome and the Father in accepting never agreed they should be freed from them in this life though yet they did so to moderate and help in them and sanctifie by them that a Christian life in this World is worth living Phil. 1. 22. To live in the flesh is worth while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 operae pretium And it is contrary to all Scripture to say Believers afflictions are not for sin and if they were not for sin they
would not be chastisements or corrections for it is of the essence of chastisement that it be a punishment for punishment is the genus and the whole nature of it is in every species in every chastisement Punishment is truly defined the infliction of a natural evil for a moral evil and this is in every chastisement If a Father should whip his Child not for any fault but only to do him good we might possibly call it blood-letting but not chasâ—isement because it is not pe 〈…〉 If â—e tye up his Child not for any 〈◊〉 but left he run into dangers in his absence you cannot call this correction or chastisement though grievous to the Child because it is not for a fault And if God do punish his people with temporal chastisements then they are so far and as to those temporal chastisements unpardoned so far as they are punished so far they are unpardoned If a Traytor be pardoned but must lose some part of his Goods he is then pardoned as to his Life and Lands but not as to that part of his Goods It is not less absurd to speak of chastening for a fault never committed than for a fault perfectly and every way pardoned You may see how this answers these difficulties If it be a Satisfaction he may pardon the offenders as to their ruin and destruction by their sins and yet leave some part of the penalty on them that may make their hearts ake and eyes weep though they be as brands plucked out of the fire yet he may chuse not to make them immediately in this life be like those whose garments smelled not of it without any shew of injustice 3. If the Sufferings of Christ were a Satisfaction a refusable payment then As God is bound no further to acquit the parties for whom it is paid than he accepting it and Christ paying it agreed so which is the main thing I have spoken all this to answer He is bound only in such a way and on such terms and conditions to acquit the Offender as the party paying the price and the party accepting of it agreed on Now God did not set forth Christ a Propitiation and Christ did not give himself a Pr 〈…〉 ion that sinners should immediately be acquitted without any more ado only be sinners for the Father and Son had a care not only of the offender's good but also of their own honourâ— for if we shall suppose that through this Satisfaction it might now well have consisted with God's Justice yet it is certain it was not consistent with his wisdom and prudence in Government to pardon and deliver those that should slight deliverance so to reâ—eem Creatures as to have them lawless to lose his Rule and Government over them that they may say We are delivered to commit all these abominations to be like School-boys that have their orders that they may do well if they will but if they will not the Master cannot justly according to those Temporary Laws punish them Christ was not properly a Surety though Metaphorically once so called who hath only a care of one party to get deliverance for the Debtor and careth not for the Creditor but he was a Mediator a middle person and had care of both would have their redemption and deliverance only in such a way as should no way dishonour God He had a care of the Worship Service and Honour of God as well as of man's impunity and deliverance and he would also have a care that he should not be reproached as an unholy Saviour to have redeemed one to live as if the Blood of the Covenant was an unholy thing and would allow them impunity in all sin He would not for his part have his unspotted Righteousness to serve as a covering to wrap and cover wilfully continuing running sores Nay Christ was so far from meerly designing and bargaining for the salvation of them that should continue wilful contemners of God and his Laws from intending his death for a Sanctuary where wilful continuing enemies might find refuge and safety that his design was to bring Religion into the World and to fetch it back from that swoon wherein it must needs have lain had not Christ dyed had there been no hope for repenting returning sinners He was so far from meerly purchasing the pardon of any live they as they list that one of the great ends of his death was That purchasing such hope for them that returned they might purifie themselves purchasing such Promises they might cleanse themselves from all pollutions of flesh and spirit Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself Tit. 2. 14. a peculiar people zealous of good works He bare our sins that is the 〈◊〉 Pet. 2. 24 punishment of our sins in his own body on a tree that we being dead unto sin might live unto righteousness That whereas God would have had no service no obedience there being no forgiveness with him that he might be feared but Earth would have been like Hell now God might have such poor shattered service as our degenerate estate is capable of Therefore be sure He would not use such an unlikely means as this to bargain for and purchase of his Father pardon of sinners so absolutely that should they wilfully slight their Redeemer they should yet have the benefit of his death and he should be unjust in denying them pardon and therefore wish them only to repent believe reform out of good nature and ingenuity and by way of thankfulness but if they should refuse he should be unjust according to such an Oeconomy if he deny to them the pardon and justification procured by Christ Nay let any man that is not forsaken of Reason as well as Religion that is not giddy and drunk with error and is not ignorant of the wickedness of man's nature judg Whether this would be as likely a means for Christ to bring Religion into the World to obtain that they should have the fruit and benefit of his death to justification and salvation whether they repent return or noâ— you shall have these things live as you list only I beseech you by way â—f gratitude repent reform Or for God to give his Son and Christ give himself that whosoever should believe repent return should have 〈◊〉 benefit of it and otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 short Whether of these are 〈…〉 lier way to lay such a sound 〈…〉 the world judg 〈◊〉 Would 〈…〉 pardoning sins against the first 〈…〉 nant shew so dreadfully by the death of his Son how hardly and difficultly he dispensed with his Law that men might after go on in sin without danger Surely one of the ends of Christ's dying was to shew that if he would not pardon sinners against the first Covenant without such a stupendious Satisfaction how hopeless will their condition be that perform not the terms of this second Covenant founded in the blood of Christ
Christ never agreed for the salvation of final impenitent Unbelievers never satisfied for that though he did for impenitency and unbelief and rejection of Christ for a time provided they came in at last He obtained of God not to take every denial every rejection for an utter loss of all for then we had all perished but obtained that God would wait and be long-suffering to sinners and accept them to righteousness and life provided they come in before death They that have a mind to it notwithstanding Christ's bearing their sins may bear them themselves and many will do so even they that knowing the terms of Justification and Salvation by Christ do chuse rather his eternal wrath and displeasure than to accept him on the condition of his love and favour They agreed that they and they only shall have benefit by this Propitiatory death of Christ that shall in this life perform the conditions whereon it is offered and if they finally refuse it on these terms they shall have no benefit by it but the wrath of God shall abide on them yea and they shall perish with heavier perdition with soâ—â—r punishment because of their treading under foot the blood of the Covenant slighting of it as not worthy their acceptance upon the terms of it Which is this new Covenant this second Covenant made in the blood of Christ So that I may say Though immediately and antecedently to the consideration of fixing the terms and making this second Covenant Christ dyed as I told you before that God might be just though he should pardon sinners yet he dyed eventually and the new Covenant being considered that God might be just and the justifier of him that is of the faith of Jesus He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed c. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the new Covenant that by means of death for the redemption of Transgressions they which are called that is Heb. 9. 15 effectually called converted might receive the promise of the eternal Inheritance Now it is necessary for your instruction herein that I make out to you these three things 1. What Justification is 2. What the Covenant 3. What the Condition First What Justification and to justifie â—s If you know what Condemnation is you may by it know what Justification is for contraries are mutually known by one another Now Condemnation is contrary to Justification Who shall lay any thing to Rom. 8. 33 the charge of Gods Elect it is God that justifieth Who is he that condemneth If there be a controversie between men Deu. 25. 1 and they come unto judgment that the Judges may judg them then they shall justifie the righteous and condemn the wicked Now there is a two fold Condemnation viz. by the Law and according to the Law that is by the Law and by the sentence of the Judg. A man that transgresseth a Law is immediately condemned by the Law Adam in the very moment he transgressed the Law was condemned in Law that is made guilty the death threatned was made due to him And again when an offender is proceeded against according to the Law and by the sentence of the Judg sentenced according to the Law then he is Sententially condemned First the Law condemns him and then the Judg according to the Law So there is a Justification in Law and a Justification by the Sentence of the Judg. And these two senses of the word can only challenge any kind of propriety one is called Sentential Justification by the sentence of the Judg pronouncing him righteous and one that ought to be acquitted according to the Law The other is called * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Constitutive Rom. 5. 19 Justification or Justification in Law which is of one that hath right to be acquitted when accused When the Scripture speaketh of Justification by Christ by faith or to life it constantly useth it in one of these senses He that is a believer that hath performed the Gospel-condition is justified immediately ipso jure in Law-title by the Law of Grace he is constitutively justified by that Covenant or Gospel-grant He that believeth shall be saved hath right to not-perishing and a right to eternal life by this promise though he is not sententially justified till the day of Judgment The Lord grant he may find mercy at that day saith the Apostle By the Law of Grace or Promise immediately the sinner upon his believing hath right to impunity as to Hell and right to the Inheritance by Promise and at the last day shall be adjudged to it to the immediate possession of all those Immunities which were given by the Law of Grace or Promise Not the hearers but the doer of the Law shall be justified In the Gal. 5. 5. day when God shall judg the secrets of all men according to my Gospel We through the spirit do wait for the hope of righteousness by faith that is for justification by faith at the last day But this Sentential justification is to come Therefore whensoever the Scripture speaketh of justification in this life as for the most part it doth being justified by faith we have peace with God But you are sanctified you are justified it is to be understood of justification in Law-title and in this sense it is to be understood here We may say of a man whose case is good according to the Law that ought to be acquitted when it cometh to trial The Law justifieth him the Law acquits him he is justified already in Law and so are believers in this life There is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit The justification here spoken of is expressed by another word in the Text viz. Remission of sins And the Scripture constantly useth Justification in the Gospel-way and pardon or remission of sins as equipollent terms and the Apostle proveth there is no justification now by works but by pardon of sins Rom. 4. 7 8. citing it out of the Psalms Blessed are they whose iniquities are pardoned and whose siâ—â— are covered Blessed is the man to whâ—â— the Lord doth not impute iniquity Observe the place and you will see he useth imputing righteousness without works and not imputing iniquity as the very same Again in the Text justified freely by his grace through the 〈…〉 pt 〈…〉 â—hat is in Christ is thâ—s 〈…〉 Scriptures Redemption through his Eph. 1. 7. blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace And redemption through his blood even Col. 1. 14. the remission of sins Be it known unto Acts 13. 38 39. you therefore brethren that through this Man is preached unto you the remission of sins and by him all that believe are justified from those things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses The blood of the Matt. 26.
Heaven and whosoever shall do any other duty or act for these ends seeks to be justified by works in the Apostle Paul's sense They make it a certain damning sin to do any other act that we may be pardoned justified obtain right to Salvation For that certainly was it which the Apostle wrote against Now quae nimium probant nihil probant that which will prove more than they upon deliberate thoughts dare grant that use the argument that answers it self as to them Surely they dare not own what inevitably follows from this Then it follows that no man must pray for pardon of sin upon pain of damnation for this is to do one act more for Justification than that one act No man must repent for this end That his iniquities may be blotted out that is for Justification No man must by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and immortality for then he must be damned for surely well-doing comprehends more than believing when they take it for one act but God hath said To such only he will give eternal life No man must do the Commands of God for this end That he may have right to salvation If he do he shall be accursed whereas God saith Blessed Rev. ult 14. are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life What hath God made promise to repentance returning sincere Obedience of Pardon Justification Heaven and shall we provoke God if we perform the condition for attaining the benefit and expect the benefit upon performing the condition Would not this be as rational to threaten death for sin and yer be angry at us for fearing his threat for avoiding the sin upon the account of his threat as to be angry at us yea according to this principle damn us for performing the condition of the Promise that we may have right to the thing promised There is no possible avoiding this consequence for if you may act for reward then for right to the reward for you are not as I shewed before to act for Possession any further than for right to it And if any should object But you must not expect Justification and Salvation to come by these this would be to say You must think God unfaithful and his Promises nullities and we are apt to be too distrustful herein without bidding or but you must not think to merit by these things Very true but is it impossible to perform them for these ends but we think to merit by them Do they that say they may do the one act of Believing for Justification think they merit Justification by it Sure I am that many that held these things notionally did not hold them practically for many of the worthiest men both Prelates and others that ever England had held these things notionally yet so as to deny the consequence but never any good man held them practically I mean except just in a sudden fit of temptation I shall now yet more fully make out to you what this Gospel-condition the Covenant-terms of Justification and Salvation and all other benefits by Christ are for they have all the same condition every Covenant-benefit or any Covenant-benefit by reciting some of the most eminent Names the Gospel-condition is called by which is an easie matter to do and some may think it as well let alone as needless But the thing I am speaking of seems to me to be as weighty a matter as any point in Divinity and is opposed by many and therefore it shall not be grievous or burdensome to me and for you I think it safe and needful and let the more intelligent pardon my using so many words yea and Tautologies since I do it that the lowest-parted may understand me and doubt no more That Condition which we are to be justified and saved by is called by many Names which yet always mean the same thing for substance 1. It is called Knowledg By his Isa 53 11. knowledg shall my righteous servant justifie many Knowledg here is taken objectively not subjectively viz. for our knowledg of Christ not his knowledg whereby he knows So This is life eternal i. e. the condition of life to know thee and thy Son but it meaneth also Love Believe Obey and carry suitably to such Knowledg 2. The Gospel-condition is called Confession If we confess he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins So if any man say I have sinned and perverted that which is right it profiteth me not he will deliver his soul But the meaning is Si caetera sint paria Confess so as to forsake obey c. Else if God meant no more by these Promises we should have right and he would be unfaithful in denying us possession though we forsake not our sins 3. Sometime it is called Faith The righteousness of Faith speaketh on this wise that is the Gospel the Law of Faith in opposition to the Covenant of Works If thou confess with Rom. 10. 9. thy mouth and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved What doth he mean no more than you must believe Christ is risen Nay you must believe he is ascended into Heaven also yea and believe the whole Gospel and obey and carry suitably to the Gospel also The Gospel-condition which is a sincere endeavour according to the best of our knowledg to perform the whole duty of man is frequently called by the name of Believing in the New Testament because it was the great business at that time to perswade the Jews and Gentiles that Christ was the Messiah and that he rose again There were new Articles now added to the old ones new Conditions to the old They take it for granted as a thing known that they were to repent and obey that they knew the duty of repentance toward God But this was the great difficult Doctrine to perswade them there was a necessity of Faith in the Lord Jesus and to believe his death and resurrection Try the spirits for many false prophets are gone out into the world and 1 Joh. 4. 1 2 3. gives this as a trial of the Prophets every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God but he that confesseth it not is not of God We may take this as a probable interpretation of the place He takes it for granted that they knew they that taught wickedness and idolatry were not of God whatever confession they made of Christ But his meaning may be If any coming as a Prophet seeming to be a man teaching Holiness he is not of God if he deny Christ come in the flesh but if he add to other such virtues Faith in the Lord Jesus he is of God You may easily apply it to the case in hand And whatever interpretation else you will give of this as confessing Christ in time of trial yet it must be meant and teach suitably to such confession
imagine when the Apostle saith Gal. 2. 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Christ we have believed that we might be justified c. That he means we did not repent that we might be justified did not obey turn from sin that we might be justified or not be condemned All that I will do here further shall be to speak so as to keep you from dangers on both sides if you will observe this distinction and it will be plain I hope to the meanest capacity There is in this Justification by Christ spoken of there being two Laws or Covenants one of Works and the other of Grace a lex remedians and both in force else if the old Law as a Law with its penalty was repealed it would be no sin not to obey perfectly and we might say Christ his death had not satisfied for our sins and the legal desert of them but prevented them from being sins and from legally deserving damnation there is in this Justification as it were a two-fold Righteousness or Justification and the distinction of these two is so necessary to any competent measure of understanding this Doctrine of Justification and would be so helpful to make us understand it and speak intelligibly of it that I desire you would never forget it Passive Justification the effect of active is our right constituted as I have shewed you But to speak of active Justification It is essentially from some Charge pleaded or possibly pleadable against us 1. Suppose the Accusation be We are sinners have offended God deserved wrath broken the first Covenant the Law of Works and under this are comprehended sins against the Gospel for they are sins against the Moral Law which Christ hath satisfied for all the breaches of that ever were or shall be For the Original Law of Nature is this Keep all my Commandments which I have or shall reveal to thee any way whatsoever whether by Nature or any other way of making my will known the eating of the forbidden fruit was against this Moral Law though immediately against a particular Revelation or thou shalt dye Now if this be the Accusation thou art a sinner hast deserved death transgressed the Law refused Christ and the Gospel a long time yea and hast notoriously sinned since conversion Here nothing will justifie nothing will answer this Accusation but this Christ hath dyed satisfied God hath set him forth to be a Propitiation It would be improper and vain here to plead We have repented believed for thou art a cursed Creature and there is no blood or satisfaction in these thou wilt rather be damned for thy failings in these they are imperfect at best and however cannot buy off thy former sins Here we must plead nothing in our selves to this Accusation nay we must confess we have nothing in our selves to justifie us against this Accusation of being sinners deserving wrath That that must answer this Accusation is altogether without us To plead to justifie from this Accusation something within us is to spit in Christ's face is damnable for whatever we plead must be a Righteousness or it is no way pleadable If we have a Righteousness to answer this Christ dyed in vain 2. But now suppose another Accusation which is possibly pleadable against us suppose the accusation be But thou hast no lot or portion in this Satisfaction for all have not interest in it but there was a second Covenant made wherein God made it over only upon Gospel-terms and conditions of repenting believing obeying sincerely upon sincerity and uprightness and truth in the inward parts for it was enacted that none should have the benefit of it to justifie them against the old Law but they that performed the condition Here now is no danger of pleading to answer this Accusation something in our selves nay it is duty and we wrong our selves if we have the condition and do not Ye must say Yea through grace I have repented believed endeavoured to obey God sincerely and have lamented when I have faln short I have received Christ for my Lord and Saviour endeavoured to serve him and do at this day And this will be your righteousness against this Accusation will justifie you against this Accusation It would be foolishly impertinent to plead here Christ hath dyed hath made satisfaction to the Law when the Charge the Accusation is Thou hast no interest in him and his death and the purchased benefits And it would be false and ridiculous to plead what they that falsly are called the only Preachers of Free-grace would have you plead viz. That Christ hath repented for thee performed the Gospel-conditions for thee Here you may and must plead something in your selves even the performance of the Gospel-condition You must not confess you have nothing to plead except you have not and then I would say Are you mad wilfully to refuse Christ I know men may think they have not and yet have this condition and then God knows there is this good thing in them toward God and Christ though they think not so and so they are justified and know not But if you say I have nothing in me to answer this Accusation and say true and continue in this estate you will be condemned upon this Accusation at the last day when judged according to the Gospel and are at present under condemnation in law But if you be sincere Christians and in some comfortable measure know it you may in this sense rejoyce in your selves you may say I have proved my own work and so have joy in my self and not in another This is our rejoycing the testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God we have had our conversation in this world You may say of a godly man he hath that within him that will bear him out and mean by it the sincerity of his heart but then you must not mean it to satisfie for his ill deeds or against the first accusation but against this only of having no part in Christ Here a man may glory Let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me Jer. 9. 24. We may say in the Apostle John's sense and words Our hearts our consciences acquit us and condemn us not 1 John 3. 20 21. If our hearts truly condemn us God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things Beloved if our hearts condemn us not then have we confidence toward God and whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight So that you may now see that 1. God justifieth as the principal Efficient 2. The Promise or Covenant of God If thou believe thou shalt be saved as the instrument or less principal efficient for an Instrument is essentially an efficient and the act of the principal and instrument are
Providences while they mean only Give us Free-will which I grant in some sense they have though I utterly dislike the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that some plead for and the Gospel and objective evidence which they have already and hold that God will do no more for any whereas God only disowns respecting of persons in Rectoral and Judicial Acts as punishing and rewarding as will appear upon view of those places but no where the doing that for the working the Condition in some which he doth not for others but owns the contrary I dread to affirm That a man in this sense makes himself to differ though man's sin and unwillingness and so destruction is plainly of himself yet not his willingness And though I may well excuse my self from intermedling in these Controversies yet I will in short give you an account of my thoughts concerning them Though I doubt some will say which I cannot much contradict that I had better have said nothing of this nature than speak so little All that I shall say of this Difficulty shall be in answer to this following Objection Object Is not the Condition it self of Justification and Salvation and the working the Condition it self the fruit and effect of Christ's Death Ans I shall endeavour to shew you how it is and how it is not in these Propositions 1. The death of Christ foreseen undertaken or undergone as a Propitiation Expiation Satisfaction was only for sin and so for pardon of sin that God might with safety to his Justice not execute the penalty but might shew kindness and favour to offenders notwithstanding the Threat and therefore as a Satisfaction with this kind of causality causeth no more and then it being agreed between the Father and Son that only Believers in the Scripture-sense should have the benefit of it for salvation We can only say setting aside the comfortable reprieval and the objective evidence and whatever other common helps and assistances of the Spirit there are which were necessary in order to trial He gave his Son and Christ himself that whosoever repented believed on him should not perish but have eternal life 2. This death and satisfaction and the benefit of them offered to sinners on these terms are as a moral cause in their own nature influential to work the Condition Faith and Repentance The death of Christ this promise being made with it is an object aptum natum a thing objectively naturally influential to work this effect and so being the cause of this cause of Faith it is the cause of the thing caused for there would have been no foundation of Religion and turning to God but for God's being made so far pacified as to accept sinners on these terms and make it known to men But this is nothing singular but common to all that enjoy the Gospel and it means no more but this It would have this effect if men did their duty and improved it a right 3. The working the Condition the making the Gospel actually efficacious for the working the Condition is to be ascribed to God's Decree and his execution thereof as most properly its effect and useth therefore to be ascribed to the Father rather than the Son Take this account of it A foundation being laid or foreseen as laid in the blood of Christ that God might with safety to his Honour and Justice return into favour with sinners and that he could as Rector and so would pardon repenting returning sinners and that this was all he could do as Rector with Honour and Justice he could descend no lower than to make this Law of Grace this act of Oblivion He that repenteth believeth returneth shall be saved and he must be true to his own Laws it would not stand with his Honour to pardon any but upon these terms Now these things and this Law being foreseen and also fore-seeing that all men would yet perish by refusing Christ rejecting Mercy through the wilful chosen wickedness of their own hearts notwithstanding the death of Christ for them and the objective evidence of the Gospel He doth this other act I am now speaking of as Dominus Lord Proprietary For as saving and justifying them that believe is actus justitiae the Law being considered The 17th Article of our 39 Articles of Religion can mean no less than what is here affirmed a Rectoral act so as Lord Proprietary he decreed resolved from eternity to and doth in time make and cause such particular men by setting home Truths in evidence and softning their hearts by his spirit in a way to us possibly much unknown and not fit to be insisted on here to believe repent return or accept Christ on his own terms whom otherwise he fore-saw would reject Christ even as others I look upon this Election which is ascribed to the Father as the foundation of the first difference of one differing from another For as being regenerate converted maketh a difference maketh men actually choice men executively elect men differing men the righteous is more excellent than his neighbour So this Decree to give such men grace to convert them is the foundation of this first difference as having the condition of the Promise maketh the first difference so the Decree to work it is the first foundation of it This is that the Apostle speaketh of as a depth to be admired that God should condemn men or decree to condemn men for their sin that reject Christ and Grace this he doth not wonder at he could and we can give sufficient reason for that neither doth he wonder that God should save or decree to save by Christ those that repent and believe and not others there is a congruity in the thing a Satisfaction being that he may do it with Honour But that when all would have rejected Christ and Mercy that he should harden some that is leave them to the hardness of their own hearts and soften others make some repent believe that would have refused grace this was his wonder and the thing unaccountable to the Apostle and so ir is to us Thâ—se are said to be drawn by the Father and given to Christ by the Father and this of drawing men to Christ making them to accept Christ is ascribed you see rather to the Father than the Son All that the Father giveth me shall come Joh. 6. 37. unto me and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast off and I will raise him up at the last day He seemeth to refer to that giving mentioned Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine Inheritance that is I will make that Christ shall be their Lord actually like that Isa 55. and they subject to his Laws actually I will bring them to the obedience of Faith which God doth in giving Faith and Repentance in giving the first Grace in working in them the condition of the Covenant which is the fruit of Election for this giving cannot be
meant of those that are actually Believers or fore-seen and looked on as such by him for he saith they shall come unto me shall believe on me and this belief and coming is named as the effect of God's giving men to Christ and so the giving is antecedent to the coming in all consideration So Ver. 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him Ver. 45. It is written They shall all be taught of God every man therefore that hath heard and learned of the Father commeth unto me Ver. 65. No man can come unto me except it be given him of my Father This he said knowing that there were some that believed not Such is the wilful wickedness of the world that all would reject Christ yea and they cannot do otherwise in some sense though they can in another sense which senses I could make plain to you but it would take up too much time and be too large a digression so that the working the Condition the first Grace the first difference is to be ascribed to Election 4. Though the common saying is That Christ's death merited no Volitions no Decrees and so his fore-seen death merited not that God should will such and such things and the most build much upon Aquinas his saying Deus vult hoc propter hoc sed non propter hoc vult hoc meaning there are reasons and motives causes of the things willed but not of the willing of those things yet I look upon this saying as meer words and void of truth and we ought to have other conceptions or else we shall have conceptions unworthy of God Yet many go in such a method in speaking of God's Decrees that they make this such a main Pillar of their Fabrick that for one to hold that God's love or pity or man's misery was any motive to God to send his Son to dye which God forbid any should deny would destroy their whole method for it is impossible that any thing should be or be considered as ratio rei volitae a reason of the thing willed but it must be and must be considered as ratio actus voluntatis as the reason of the willing For a reason or motive is essentially a motive to the will of the principal Agent for what can it possibly be conceived to move but the Will Can it be a Motive and move nothing or can it be actually a prevailing-reason and not prevail with the Will What ever God doth in time for the Merits of Christ he decreed and willed from eternity to do it in time for the Merits of Christ for whatsoever God doth now in time for any end whatsoever or upon any motive whatsoever he decreed and willed for that end and upon that motive from eternity to do it If God in time created rain to make the earth fruitful then the reason why he decreed and willed to cause rain was that the earth might be fruitful And for us to conceive otherwise of God would be for us to conceive him to act irrationally as willing things for no end and would put a stop to all admiration of the wisdom of God seen in his Providence and therefore such a conception of him would be offensive to him for we ought to conceive of him in the most honourable way we are able and that is the most pleasing to Him who is above our best conceptions If he condemn men in time for their refusal of Christ then he decreed to condemn them because he foresaw that they would refuse Christ If he save none justifie none in time but for their believing then he willed and decreed from eternity to save none with any decree or violence that we are to conceive of as distinct from his Will or Decree to work the Condition in men that they might be justified and saved but those he foresaw should believe And it seems plain that as he absolutely and without condition justifieth and saveth none so neither did he absolutely and without condition decree to justifie and save any But God foreseeing what an order and concatenation of things he would make and was bound in Honour to make notwithstanding Christ's death As in time without Condition though not without means He worketh Faith and Repentance worketh the Condition in the Elect that they may be justified and saved by Christ So he willed and decreed absolutely and without condition to work the condition the first Grace that they might be justified and saved by Christ 5. Though Christ's death as a satisfaction expiation was the cause of no more to us than this That if we repent and believe we shall be justified and saved Satisfaction and Propitiation being only for sin yet considering this suffering of Christ as a highly pleasing meritorious act as a worthy voluntary undertaking for the Honor of God we may say Christ did merit that God should give this Faith work this Condition and keep it in the Elect for all would notwithstanding this and the easie reasonable terms made of their interest in it through their own wilful wickedness have perished and he deserved that his blood should not thus far be lost as water spilt on the ground but that he should have some fruit of the travel of his soul in seeing a Seed actually to honour venerate and adore their Redeemer Though I must say for the honour of our Redeemer in this great affair He will have some reward in those that perish in that he did a wonderful kindness for them it being only through their own chosen refusal that they had no benefit by it His Goodness and Grace is not therefore no Grace because men reject it And to do a good and gracious act is a reward and satisfaction in it self And you may as well maintain That except God be ignorant and know not that men will reject his mercy he cannot be righteous and just in punishing them for it which is contrary to the knowledg of the whole world as to say Except God be ignorant and know not that they will through their wicked wilfulness refuse his Mercy his Grace and Mercy is no Grace and Mercy If one of you take a long tedious and hazzardous journey to disswade your friend from something you hear he designs to do which you know will undo him though he wilfully persist and will not be perswaded by you and so is undone by it yet he is bound to thank you all his life after and your kindness ceaseth not to be kindness and you have this satisfaction and reward You did a kind act though he reap no benefit And suppose you might have prevailed with him if you had there stayed longer with him and taken more pains yet your kindness ceaseth not to be a kindness because you did no greater kindness since that which you did would have been enough had it not been for his wilful obstinacy And his after-ruing of his own folly bears a loud testimony to
spoken Now to prove that we must not conceive his punishing-Justice as meerly a free act of his Will and Wisdom that he might as well do otherwise but as a virtue or rectitude inherent in his nature Let these things be considered 1. Express Scripture Hab. 1. 13. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil that is without being angry at it without punishing it Now what can be meant by the purity of his eyes but the holiness justice and righteousness of his Nature Psal 11. 5. The wicked his soul hateth Ver. 8. For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness not meerly because he will Josh 24. 19. He will not forgive your trespasses for he is a jealous God 2. A man cannot imagine God indifferent or almost indifferent whether he punish or pardon sinners but in so doing he fancies him very little abhorring sin very indifferent whether men obey or disobey which is to have more unworthy thoughts of him than we have of some men It is as necessary for us to conceive God to do that which we cannot better conceive and express than by saying and conceiving He crossed a strong inclination in not executing the Law upon Offenders themselves through a stronger inclination of love and pity to man not to execute but to provide and accept an offering as it is necessary for us to conceive of God as one crossing a strong inclination of affection to his Son in offering up his dear Son And whatever vain and bold disputers may say to the contrary it is our duty so to conceive and we please God in so conceiving and there is truth in the main in our conception notwithstanding the inadequateness of our Conceptions for we should have sinful and false apprehensions if we should conceive it was all one to God and that it was altogether or almost indifferent to him whether he punish the Offender himself or no or whether he offer up his Son or no or whether man perish or no. 3. The very Heathens knew something of the Natural Justice of God by the light of Nature as we read Rom. 1. 32. which could not be if the deserved Condemnation there mentioned came meerly from the free-will of God and not from his nature for things of his Free-will can only be known by a Revelation of his Will and not by Nature 4. How can his Justice be demonstrated By an act which his Justice requires not What weakness would it be for a Prince to affect a name of Justice and Righteousness in doing those things he might indeed justly do but to the doing of which he was no way bound in Justice and Honour If he could well enough and justly and honourably enough have pardoned offenders without but chose to shew his Justice and hatred of sin in the death of his Son it would be to demonstrate and make a shew of something that is not in reallity To affirm this would be to accuse him of Pageantry Socinus and Crellius themselves that deny God's essential Justice yet say that he cannot with safety to his Justice and Sanctity save impenitent sinners What is this but to grant what they deny even an essential Justice They grant in this so much that it seemeth wilfulness in them not to grant all To let go that which is with much shew of reason insisted on by some That all would have been impenitent without the Satisfaction surely the reason why He cannot pardon impenitent sinners is because this mode of sin contumacy in it is sin and where then will any fix and say Hither he may go in pardoning without Satisfaction and no further See the Apostle here going further implying that he could not have justified saved repenting believing sinners without this Propitiation that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth c. And the Apostle argueth a necessity of satisfaction by Christ's death because sin could not otherwise have been taken away plainly implying that repentance would not have taken it away Heb. 10. 1 4. And how weak would his Argument be to prove a necessity of this Expiation because it was impossible the blood of Bulls and Goats should take it away If it might be taken away without any expiation at all why then not with such low things 5. God is said to commend his love and kindness to us in that when we were sinners Christ dyed for us but what great love could there be shewed if there was no necessity of such an Expiation There was indeed wonderful love if Justice required our blood for his love and pity to overcome and swallow up such inexorable fury to find out and give for us such a Ransom But if Justice no way required it What great Love would it be In such a case it might indeed be Love but not eminent stupendious Love To pardon for he obliges less by pardoning that may easily pardon without diminishing the repute of his Justice or doing himself as it were any injury and he obligeth and engageth the more that forgiveth that which is so contrary to his Holiness Justice and Honour that there needs so great and atrocious a Satisfaction as putting out or tormenting the Apple of his own Eye his dear Son to make Expiation But if no such thing was necessary then to pardon in such a dreadful way as by the death of his Son would not be an act of mercy or of love but of wisdom if of any thing if that indeed may be called wisdom to give up thus his Son without necessity 6. It seems contrary to the Wisdom and Goodness of God when he might go so easie and near and plain a way in pardoning sinners to go in so difficult a way and in a way so far about for then it was a large digression to flee to a Satisfaction And surely God that doth not afflict men meerly because he will would not afflict his innocent Lam. 3. 33 beloved Son meerly because he will if he could without reluctancy without grating on his Justice Holiness and Honour have scattered our sins as a Cloud with an easie breath of his mouth Object But may not one justly part with his own right Can there be any injustice in pardoning a Debtor without Satisfaction And is not he more to be commended that doth it without any Satisfaction May not a party offended forgive a wrong against him If one threaten to beat a man that deserves it may he not justly pass it over without any satisfaction Ans He may and I grant all But the things I am treating of are not Debts but Offences and these not offences against private persons as such God is as most hold the Governour of the World necessarily and essentially however we are sure he hath taken on him the government of it and although it had been a free act at the first to undertake it yet when he hath once undertaken it he by so doing obligeth himself to govern it wisely holily and
righteously to punish offences and not to let things run at random And God is not to be considered as a private person that pardoneth as a party offended or as a Creditor that parteth with his own right but as the publick Judg and Governour of the World who is by taking this place upon him engaged to judg and rule righteously and to render to men according to their works There is a wide difference between Pecuniary debts which one forgives as a private man or injuries done to a man in particular which he forgives as a private man and Criminal offences against Law and Government A Magistrate being also in another respect a private man having a private interest of his own may as other men forgive things which belong to his profit as Debts and may forgive injuries and affronts done to him so far as they prejudice his private Interest But he may not justly however ordinarily forgive things which belong to his Office and Duty incumbent on him as Governour to punish in vindictive Justice for hereby he would be wanting in his duty and also guilty of violating the authority of his own Law and Rule and of undoing of the Commonwealth by lenity and indulgence I know a Rector or Governour may in some cases dispense with and not execute his Law For sometimes Laws are unjustly made sometime about low petty matters that do not much concern the Common-weal to have them executed sometime it would tend to the destruction of the Community to execute them though not unwisely made at first and sometime he wants power to execute them the offenders being too numerous or too potent and so it may be his duty to pardon and dispense with the penalty without any more ado e. g. Saul intentionally made a good Law threatned death to any that should eat before the evening that he might obtain the greater conquest over his flying Enemies Jonathan his Son transgresseth it Saul resolves to execute the Law the people hinder him and rescue Jonathan now Saul could not execute the Law for want of strength for the people are the strength of the King And there seemeth to be much reason in what Jonathan said It was an ill Law and proved a hinderance to the slaughter of his enemies and in what the people plead to wit That he might well dispence with this Law as to Jonathan because he had wrought with God that day a great salvation There was indeed such a deed done by him that day such a high meritorious act as would amount to a partial if not a total satisfaction So that it would not much weaken Government encourage Offendors take off from the repute of Saul's Rectoral Justice to pardon one in such a circumstance But a Rector cannot without injustice ordinarily and in weighty causes dispense with his Laws since it would be To be wanting to his duty and it would certainly tend to the debauching and ruin of the Community by breaking the reins of Government and encouraging Offenders It is ordinarily as much the duty of the supream Magistrate to execute good Laws or some way to keep them sacred and honourable as it is to make good Laws for both duties are built upon the same foundation Who will say That Parents may justly lawfully and honestly cast off all care of correcting their Children for their faults and leave all things to their wills This would be not so much a parting with their right as the Objection speaks as a ceasing from and being wanting in their duty and office and God's Rectorship and Government is to be conceived of by us analogically to an Office 2. Hence learn the Excellency and Satisfactoriness of the Christian Religion and our great felicity in living in these last days and shiningdays of the Son of Man wherein the Earth is and hath been filled with the glory of the Grace and Mercy and of the Justice and Holiness of God in comparison of former days The Christian Religion discovers plainly to us that which the Heathens were fearfully bewildred about They had Convictions of sin and terrors and consternations of mind for sin and fearful lookings for of judgment and fiery indignation They knew that they that did such things as they did were worthy of death they saw need of Rom. 1. 31 attoning God need of an Expiation and some of them saw the blood of Bulls and Goats could not take away sin Some offered not knowing what they did the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul when they might be flying and hovering about in their meditations and enquiries after these things like Noah's Dove and find no rest We have this safe Ark of the Righteousness and Satisfaction of Christ discovered and opened to us where there is Rest for the sole of the foot of our souls When their soul drew near to the grave and their life to the Destroyer they had none to tell them of such a Righteousness such a Ransome The Heathens had indeed some obscure wavering knowledg of this fundamental Article of Religion the Remission of sins partly by Tradition which in ancient times was more convincing in after and corrupter days more obscure and doubtful partly by the Law of Nature in the Book of Providence seeing the goodness and benignity of God to them notwithstanding their great provocations they might and did thence waveringly gather That God was merciful and would be found in mercy of them that did turn and seek him diligently He left not himself without witness in that he did them good and gave them rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling their hearts with food and gladness and this was that Acts 14. 17. 17. 27. they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him But this knowledg was so weakned by the contrary arguments that militate against it That that very deep apprehension of God's Holiness and Justice and those very consternations of mind for sins which were likely to conduce in working this repentance and reformation would be very apt much to weaken if not almost to blot out this notion That there was hope for them and forgiveness with him that he might be served and feared That it is no wonder if it was ineffectual to work this change and these diligent enquiries after God and that Salvation which they were not fully sure was attainable though yet it was their hainous sin and high irrationality and madness not thus to seek him though to the undoing of themselves in this life upon these probabilities and half-promises if haply and it may be if we turn we shall live and this will be their greatest condemnation It is no wonder if never any did sincerely and thoroughly turn from sin to God amongst them since Tradition was quite worn out or rendred suspicious and unconvincing without some supernatural Revelation as by the Prophets and their Writings I say since Tradition lost or corrupted for in
Abraham's time Abraham thought it probable there might be fifty righteous persons in Sodom though it proved indeed otherwise and he was better acquainted with the state of those times than we are at this distance And to come to the Jews before Christ's time that had the Oracles of God and to whom the Lord sent Messengers rising up betime and sending them because he had compassion on them saying Turn and live And If the wicked turn from his wickedness and keep all my Commandments be shall live Yet it is next to an impossibility but that those amongst them that knew little or nothing of this great price or Satisfaction that scarce understood any thing of their Prophesies Types and Sacrfices but that those should have muddied and fluctuating thoughts about this pardon of sin when deeply convinced of God's Holiness and hatred of sin and of the hainousness of their sins how it could stand with his Justice and Honour to give eternal life to such unworthy wretches upon their repentance and poor broken obedience Good hearts sensible of God's Holiness and the hainousness of sin would be apt to say Though he will pardon sin yet it may be not such great sins as ours What unanswerable Arguments taken from God's Justice and Holiness might they seem to have against it No wonder if they that knew so little of this great Transaction though sincere ones were all their lives subject to bondage through fear of death No wonder if they were as Servants and our condition the state of Sons in comparison of theirs though the almost visibly convincing knowledg they had of God and his placableness and mercy did prevail with them to perform the Gospel-condition to be true Israelites sincere servants of God Blessed be God that hath revealed those things to us that were hid comparatively from many wise prudent yea and holy men What helps have we which they wanted to turn to God! What helps to the love of God and to all cheerful obedience He so wonderfully loving us first even while ungodly as we may clearly and with open face comparatively to them now see Rom. 5. 8. God commendeth his love to us in that while we were sinners and enemies and ungodly Christ died for us And if so much more now when we are converted and so justified by his blood we may easily believe We shall be saved from wrath through him for then we have a Right by Promise ver 10. For if when we were enemies living in opposition to Heaven and so he as Rector an Enemy to us if then he found a ransome and we were then reconciled to God in the death of his Son quoad meritum so far as concerns the price and the conditional pardon made out thereupon much more being actually reconciled as we are upon the performing the Gospel-condition we shall be saved by his living to intercede for us and to see we have the fruit of his Death and our Faith the salvation of our souls v. 11. And not only so but when thus converted we joy in God as having now received the atonement There was an atonement in his death before but now we have interest in it having performed the Gospel-condition we are actually and not only quoad meritum justified by it What madness is in our hearts if we refuse to hear Him that hath thus convincingly spoken to us from Heaven O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was evidently held out crucified amongst you He means by the Ministry of the Gospel for Christ was crucified at Jerusalem and not at Galatia And the same may by the same reason be urged on us O foolish yea more than foolish even bewitched Creatures we to do such an unreasonable thing as to refuse to obey the Gospel even we before whose eyes Christ is evidently held forth crucified If we perish we may every one of us say with him in Terence Et prudens sciens vivus vidensque pereo I perish knowingly and with my eyes open We may say with the Apostle God in times past suffered yet not altogether but comparatively as the following words shew all Nations to walk in their own ways Acts 14. 16. yea and the Jewish Nation in comparison of us And God Acts 17. 30. neglected those times of ignorance as the words should be translated but now commands even with almost compelling-evidence and power all men every where where Christianity comes to repent 3. This informs us That fallen man could never have fulfilled the Law or satisfied Justice for the breach of it else Christ needed not to have died for this end That God might be just for God might then have been just and the justifier of faln man after their good deeds and sufferings or satisfactions without Christ's death whereas the Apostle tells All are concluded under sin and that therefore all that were or are justified were are and shall be justified were are and shall be justified only this way by the pardon of sin through this Propitiation upon their Faith Repentance and new Obedience To account our Reformations Humiliations Faith Obedience in the place of a Satisfaction Expiation for our evil deeds is to pervert the design of the whole Gospel Christ is become of Gal. 5. 4. none effect to you whosoever of you seek to be justified by the Law How contradictory to this whole Doctrine is the avowed Popish Tenent of Merits Though some of their deluded ones amongst us are kept so ignorant of their own Religion as to tell us Their Church holdeth no such thing as the meriting eternal life by their works I know they are all to pieces about this as well as about other things they hold it Heresie to deny But did these never hear or read them discoursing of their works of Super-erogation that they can not only merit but so over-merit as to supererogate and have much to spare for those that need Merits Many of them as Bellarmine confesseth speak at a higher rate for Merit than he himself and yet this moderate man is too high of all conscience Jam verò opera bona justorum Bellar. de Justif lib. 5. cap. 17. meritoria esse vitae aeternae ex condigno non solum ratione pacti acceptationis sed etiam ratione operis probatur his Argumentis c. He maintains here The good works of pious men are meritorious of eternal life ex condigno and that not only upon the account of God's Covenant and Acceptation which is a contradiction in the very words but upon the account of the very works themselves And he tells us Cap. 12 One drop of Christ's blood was of merit enough to have saved the whole World for the infinite Dignity of the Person and cites the Decretal Epistle of Clement the sixth to prove it and then adds At non dissimilis debet esse ratio meriti in Capite membris Igitur
For this Holiness they have in a more glorious manner than our Christ within us our imperfect holiness can present to their view This was not that Christ crucified that the Apostle did so prize the knowledg of And this work of Grace could never have been within us had it not been for a Christ without us and had it been within us yet it would never have been available to Salvation or Justification but for the Christ without us There is no blood no satisfaction in this Christ within us nothing but what would have been esteemed by God and is in reality as menstruous rags in respect of attaining Justification without this work of Christ without us upon the Cross And yet these would make Grace should I say I rather say Morality and Civility yea to speak truly of some of them Incivility and Discourtesie their righteousness though it be a Gospel-command to be courteous These delight so little in our Christ without us that it is with much difficulty that they will confess Christ come and crucified in the flesh if indeed they will confess it for-some shrink at such a question and would fain put it off And I dare say That any of you that ever heard them talk can bear witness that they speak not as men delighting in or making any account of this Propitiation Ransom c. Cursed are they that love not our Lord Jesus These honour not God The honour that cometh to God by works of Creation and Providence is counted as no honour in comparison of the honour that comes to him by this Redemption therefore it is said He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father God accounteth all honour as no honour in comparison of this Hence we read Ephes 3. ult Vnto him be glory in the Church by Jesus Christ Phil. 1. 11. Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God And Spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ And in Heaven the loudest and highest praises will be upon this account Worthy is the Lamb to receive honour c. These seeking to establish their own righteousness make void the righteousness of God through their ignorance of the righteousness of God Wonderful that ever the Devil should so bewitch people that ever the God of this world should so far blind men's eyes that ever he should so prevail with this device to work Christianity out of men's hearts so as to make them renounce the Christian Religion under pretence of high Christianity to look on Christ as a carnal Christ or the blood of Christ as a common or unholy thing on our Redeemer whom all Christians venerate and adore as a low nothing and to call his faithful Ministers Lyers and Deceivers But study you these things that you may admire Christ for he is and is to be admired in and of all his people Here is not such obscurity as to discourage your endeavoâ—rs nor such facility as to occasion your contempt You may easily see enough to admire all your days and yet still you are to learn It may be said to them of the highest form Go and learn what it means what Christ crucified means Here is a riddle of Mercy a riddle of Wisdom a riddle of Justice Christ is called Wonderful He is so in his Natures Offices Death Let these things be much in your mind It is like his complaint Diem perdidi I have lost a day to have cause to say I have lived another day and have not had a serious thought of Christ and his Death Do this in remembrance of me Look upon him whom we have pierced Study the reasons and ends of his sorrows and sufferings He dyed not as a fool dieth it was for some great End and this end must not be frustrated Wo to us if it be as to us This knowledg would be better to us than our daily bread this study is more necessary than our appointed food Is there but one Medicine in the World to heal us and will you not learn it study it and the use and virtue of it and how to apply it by Meditation that it may have its diversity of effects upon us St. Paul desired to know nothing but Christ and him crucified And Peter's last words of Exhortation in his last Epistle are Grow in grace and in the knowledg of our Lord Jesus And acting our faith and knowledg of these things by Meditation would be hugely influential to work and encrease Grace Come to other knowledg and he that encreaseth knowledg encreaseth grief and sorrow but he that encreaseth in this knowledg and is suitably affected with it layeth a foundation for perfect peace quietness and assurance for ever Let Ministers study this more and so preach this more I desire to know nothing among you that is to know so as to preach nothing among you save Christ and him crucified Preach not your selves but Christ Vse much plainness of speech Preach not like Moses with a vail on your face Let not people live and dye in ignorance of Christ if you can help it Discover all to sinners Let them see the Lord their Righteousness Now in studying and contemplating these things Admire 1. Admire the Justice of God Never was such Justice heard of since the world began Justice in a Mystery He spared not his Son that he might spare Sinners He hardned his heart against the cry of his Son that he might opeu his heart to the cry of Sinners Behold how he not only loved us but hated sin The dreadful instances of man cast out of Paradise the drowning of the World the destruction of Jerusalem the reservation of the faln Angels in horror and darkness are fearful Monuments of God's hatred of sin But here Justice and Holiness shine as the Sun in the Firmament When his beloved Son stood in the place and stead of Sinners he must dye such a shameful painful accursed death Surely had there been any respect of persons with God could Justice have been perverted and drawn aside with any considerations his only beloved Son should have escaped Here is inexorable Justice inflexible Justice This declared his Righteousness indeed that he would not spare Sin but punish it though on his innocent Son Here is infinite Justice fear it dread it Make this God thy fear and thy dread 2. Admire the love of the Father and the Son The Father Bless God for this Propitiation How dreadful was our condition How if Justice had taken thee by the throat and said Pay me what thou owest thou couldst not have reply'd Have patience with me and I will pay thee all God lays great engagements upon us in causing his Sun to shine in giving rain and fruitful seasons in making provision for our bodies but that which should endear him most to the world and should occasion our highest praises should be the providing a Righteousness for our souls Oh that