commanded the power of Heaven When God of a sudden like one highly provoked drew forth the sword of his destroying Angel and by it cut off so many thousands in the midst of us Then we fell upon our knees and begg'd the mercy of Heaven that our Lives might be spared that we might have time to amend them but no sooner did our fears abate but our devotion did so too we had soon forgotten the promises we made in the day of our distress and I am afraid it is at this day too true of us which is said in the Revelations of those who had escaped the several plagues which so many had been destroyed by And the rest of the men which were not killed by these Plagues yet repented not of the work of their bands For if we had not greedily suckt in again the poyson we had only laid down while we were begging for our lives if we had not returned with as great fury and violence as ever to our former lusts the removing of one judgement had not been as it were only to make way for the coming on of another For the grave seemed to close up her mouth and death by degrees to withdraw himself that the Fire might come upon the Stage to act its part too in the Tragoedy our sins have made among us and I pray God this may be the last Act of it Let us not then provoke God to find out new methods of vengeance and make experiments upon us of what other unheard of severities may do for our cure But let us rather meet God now by our repentance and returning to him by our serious humiliation for our former sins and our stedfast resolutions to return no more to the practice of them That that much more dangerous infection of our souls may be cured as well as that of our bodies that the impure flames which burn within may be extinguished that all our luxuries may be retrenched our debaucheries punished our vanities taken away our careless indifferency in Religion turned into a greater seriousness both in the profession and the practice of it So will God make us a happy and prosperous when he finds us a more righteous and holy Nation So will God succeed all your endeavours for the honour and interest of that people whom you represent So may he add that other Title to the rest of those you have deserved for your Countries good to make you Repairers of the breaches of the City as well as of the Nation and Restorers of paths to dwell in So may that City which now sits solitary like a Widow have her tears wiped off and her beauty and comeliness restored unto her Yea so may her present ruines in which she now lies buried be only the fore-runners of a more joyful resurrection In which though the body may remain the same the qualities may be so altered that its present desolation may be only the putting off its former inconveniences weakness and deformities that it may rise with greater glory strength and proportion and to all her other qualities may that of incorruption be added too at least till the general Conflagration And I know your great Wisdom and Iustice will take care that those who have suffered by the ruines may not likewise suffer by the rising of it that the glory of the City may not be laid upon the tears of the Orphans and Widows but that its foundations may be setled upon Justice and Piety That there be no complaining in the Streets for want of Righteousness nor in the City for want of Churches nor in the Churches for want of a settled maintenance That those who attend upon the service of God in them may never be tempted to betray their Consciences to gain a livelihood nor to comply with the factions humours of men that they may be able to live among them And thus when the City through the blessing of Heaven shall be built again may it be a Habitation of Holiness towards God of Loyalty towards our Gratious King and his Successors of Iustice and Righteousness towards Men of Sobriety and Peace and Unity among all the Inhabitants till not Cities and Countries only but the world and time it self shall be no more Which God of his infinite mercy grant through the merits and mediation of his Son to whom with the Father and Eternal Spirit be all Honour and Glory for evermore SERMON II. Preached before the KING MARCH 13. 1665 9. PROV XIV IX Fools make a mock at Sin WHEN God by his infinite Wisdom had contrived and by a power and goodness as infinite as his Wisdom had perfected the creation of the visible world there seemed to be nothing wanting to the glory of it but a creature endued with reason and understanding which might comprehend the design of his wisdom enjoy the benefits of his goodness and employ it self in the celebration of his power The Beings purely intellectual were too highly raised by their own order and creation to be the Lords of this inferiour world and those whose natures could reach no higher than the objects of sense were not capable of discovering the glorious perfections of the great Creator and therefore could not be the fit Instruments of his praise and service But a conjunction of both these together was thought necessary to make up such a sort of being which might at once command this lower world and be the servants of him who made it Not as though this great fabrick of the world were meerly raised for man to please his fancy in the contemplation of it or to exercise his dominion over the creatures designed for his use and service but that by frequent reflections on the author of his being and the effects of his power and goodness he might be brought to the greatest love and admiration of him So that the most natural part of Religion lyes in the grateful acknowledgements we owe to that excellent and supream Being who hath shewed so particular a kindness to man in the creation and Government of the world Which was so great and unexpressible that some have thought it was not so much pride and affectation of a greater height as envy at the felicity and power of mankind which was the occasion of the fall of the Apostate spirits But whether or no the state of man were occasion enough for the envy of the Spirits above we are sure the kindness of Heaven was so great in it as could not but lay an indispensable obligation on all mankind to perpetual gratitude and obedience For it is as easie to suppose that affronts and injuries are the most suitable returns for the most obliging favours that the first duty of a Child should be to destroy his Parents that to be thankful for kindnesses received were to commit the unpardonable sin as that man should receive his being and all
though upon different grounds agree in the neglect of their own salvation But is the case of such men grown so desperate that noremedy can work upon them hath the love of sin and the world so far intoxicated them that no reason or consideration whatever can awaken them have they hardned themselves against all the power of divine Truths with a resolution as strong as death and as cruel as the grave whither they are going Will neither the love of happiness nor the fear of misery their own interest and the wisdom of avoiding so great a danger the dread of the Majesty and Power of God and the horror of the great day prevail at least so far on men to consider whether these things be true or no and if they be what unspeakable solly it is to neglect them And the better to make that appear I shall prove these following things 1. That God by the Gospel hath taken so great care of mens happiness that nothing but a gross neglect can make them miserable 2. That nothing can be more unreasonable than when God hath taken so much care of it men should neglect it themselves 3. That it is very just for God to vindicate himself against so gross a neglect by the severe punishments of the life to come 1. That God by the Gospel hath taken so great care of mens salvation that nothing but a gross neglect can make them miserable For whatever the mind of man can imagine necessary in order to its own happiness in its present fallen and degenerate condition is abundantly provided for by the Gospel of Christ. For man was so wholly lost as to his own felicity that among the ruins and decays of his Nature he could not pick up so much as the perfect image and Idea of his own happiness when he reflects upon himself he finds himself such a consused mass of folly and weakness that he can never imagine that so noble a design should have its ground-work laid upon so course a Being And rather than believe the foundation of his happiness to be within himself there is nothing so vain and trifling without him but he is ready to fall down before it and cry out Here I place my selicity Sometimes he admires the brave shews and the Pomp and Gallantry of the World and thinks nothing comparable to a glorious out-side and a great train of attendants sometimes he raises himself and flutters upon the wings of a popular Air till a cross blast comes and leaves him in the common rout sometimes his eyes are dazled with the glory of the more refined and solid pieces of that Earth out of which he was framed and thinks it reasonable that the softness of flesh and blood should yield to the impressions of silver and gold sometimes he even envies the pleasures of the Brutes and if it were possible would outdo them in their grossest sensualities sometimes again he slatters himself and then adores his own imperfections and thinks his Passions Honour and his Profaneness Wit So far is vain man from making himself happy that the first step to it is to make him understand what it is to be so But supposing that the true image of his happiness should drop down from Heaven and by the place from whence it fell should conclude where the thing it self is to be found yet this were only to make him more miserable unless he withal knew how to come thither He is sure not to climb up to it by the tops of the highest mountains nor to be carried thither upon the wings of a mighty wind he hath no fiery Chariots at his command to ascend with to the Glories above but only he that maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flame of fire is able to preserve the souls of men from vanishing into the soft air and to conduct them to the Mansions of eternal Bliss It is he only that can make them capable of the Joys of another life by purging them from the stains and the pollutions of this And therefore without his grace and favour ever to hope for the happiness of Heaven must be by fancying a Heaven to be there where there is no God So that it is necessary that the Proposals of this salvation must come from the Author of it and that with such arguments as may perswade men of the truth of it and with such motives as may encourage men to accept of them Now the Gospel of Christ affords us all these things which are necessary to our happiness there we have the most agreeable and setled notion and Idea of it the most large and free offers of divine goodness in order to it the greatest assurance that these things did immediately proceed from God and the most encouraging motives to accept of these offers in order to that great salvation which is tendred to us 1. We have the most agreeable and setled notion of true happiness not such a mean and uncertain thing which lies at the mercy of the continual vicissitudes and contingencies of this present state but that which is able to bear up the mind of man against all the troubles of this life and to carry him to a Region beyond them all where there is a fulness of joy without an allay of sadness after it and ever-flowing rivers of pleasures that need no dams to make them rise higher nor falls to make their motion perceived Our Blessed Saviour never flatters his followers with the expectation of a felicity in this life Contentment is the most he hath promised them and that they may enjoy if they follow his directions let this world be what it will and do what it pleases with them He never tells his Disciples they may have satisfaction here if they lie upon their beds of down with their heads full of tormenting cares that the pleasure of humane life lies in the gratifications of the senses and in making what use they can of the world he never deceives them with the promise of so poor a happiness as that which depends upon health friends prosperity and having our own wills No but he tells them of a more noble and generous felicity that will preserve its own state and grandeur in spight of the world a happiness consistent with loss of Estate loss of Friends with affronts and injuries with persecutions and death it self For when our Saviour begins to discourse of happiness what another kind of strain doth he speak of it in than any of those Philosophers who have so much obstructed the happiness of mans life by their voluminous writings and contentions about it Here we meet with no Epicurean softness which the sense of true Vertue carried the minds of the more noble Heathens above no rigid and incredible Stoical Paradoxes that make men only happy by the change of names no Aristotelean supposition of a prosperous life for Vertue to shew its power
we should be so near a final subversion and utter desolation as the ten Tribes were when none of these things would bring them to repentance but yet the method God hath used with us seems to bode very ill in case we do not at last return to the Lord. For it is not only agreeable to what is here delivered as the course God used to reclaim the Israelites but to what is reported by the most faithful Hisiorian of those times of the degrees and steps that God made before the ruines of the British Nation For Gildas tells us the decay of it began by Civil Wars among themselves and high discontents remaining as the consequents of them after this an universal decay and poverty among them after that nay during the continuance of it Wars with the Picts and Scots their inveterate enemies but no sooner had they a little breathing space but they return to their luxury and other sins again then God sends among them a consuming Pestilence which destroyed an incredible number of people When all this would not do those whom they trusted most to betrayed them and rebelled against them by whose means not only the Cities were burnt with Fire but the whole Island was turned almost into one continued flame The issue of all which at last was that their Country was turned to a desolation the ancient Inhabitants driven out or destroyed and their former servants but now their bitter enemies possessing their habitations May God avert the Omen from us at this day We have smarted by Civil Wars and the dreadful effects of them we yet complain of great discontents and poverty as great as them we have inveterate enemies combined abroad against us we have very lately suffered under a Pestilence as great almost as any we read of and now the great City of our Nation burnt down by a dreadful Fire And what do all these things mean and what will the issue of them be though that be lockt up in the Councils of Heaven yet we have just cause to fear if it be not our speedy amendment it may be our ruine And they who think that incredible let them tell me whether two years since they did not think it altogether as improbable that in the compass of the two succeeding years above a hundred thousand persons should be destroyed by the Plague in London and other places and the City it self should be burnt to the Ground And if our fears do not I am sure our sins may tell us that these are but the fore-runners of greater calamities in case there be not a timely reformation of our selves And although God may give us some intermissions of punishments yet at last he may as the Roman Consul expressed it pay us intercalatae poenae usuram that which may make amends for all his abatements and give us full measure according to that of our sins pressed down shaken together and running over Which leads to the third particular 3. The Causes moving God to so much severity in his Iudgements which are the greatness of the sins committed against him So this Prophet tells us that the true account of all Gods punishments is to be fetched from the sins of the people Amos 1. 3. For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof so it is said of Gaza v. 6. of Tyrus v. 9. of Edom v. 11. of Ammon v. 13. Moab ch 2. 1. Iudah v. 4. and at last Israel v. 6. And it is observable of every one of these that when God threatens to punish them for the greatness of their iniquities and the multitude of their transgressions which is generally supposed to be meant by the three transgressions and the four he doth particularly threaten to send a fire among them to consume the Houses and the Palaces of their Cities So to Damascus chap. 1. 4. to Gaza v. 7. to Tyrus v. 10. to Edom v. 12. to Ammon v. 14. to Moab ch 2. v. 2. to Iudah v. 5. I will send a fire upon Judah and it shall devour the Palaces of Jerusalem and Israel in the words of the text This is a judgement then which when it comes in its fury gives us notice to how great a height our sins are risen especially when it hath so many dreadful forerunners as it had in Israel and hath had among our selves When the red horse hath marched furiously before it all bloody with the effects of a Civil War and the pale horse hath followed after the other with Death upon his back and the Grave at his heels and after both these those come out of whose mouth issues fire and smoak and brimstone it is then time for the inhabitants of the earth to repent of the work of their hands But it is our great unhappiness that we are apt to impute these great calamities to any thing rather than to our sins and thereby we hinder our selves from the true remedy because we will not understand the cause of our distemper Though God hath not sent Prophets among us to tell us for such and such sins I will send such and such judgements upon you yet where we observe the parallel between the sins and the punishments agreeable with what we find recorded in Scripture we have reason to say that those sins were not only the antecedents but the causes of those punishments which followed after them And that because the reason of punishment was not built upon any particular relation between God and the people of Israel but upon reasons common to all mankind yet with this difference that the greater the mercies were which any people enjoyed the sooner was the measure of their iniquities filled up and the severer were the judgements when they came upon them This our Prophet gives an account of Chap. 3. 2. You only have I known of all the Nations of the earth therefore will I punish you for your iniquities So did God punish Tyre and Damascus as well as Israel and Iudah but his meaning is he would punish them sooner he would punish them more severely I wish we could be brought once to consider what influence piety and vertue hath upon the good of a Nation if we did we should not only live better our selves but our Kingdom and Nation might flourish more than otherwise we are like to see it do Which is a truth hath been so universally received among the wise Men of all ages that one of the Roman Historians though of no very severe life himself yet imputes the decay of the Roman State not to Chance or Fortune or some unhidden causes which the Atheism of our Age would presently do but to the general looseness of mens lives and corruption of their manners And it was the grave Observation of one of the bravest Captains ever the Roman State had that it was impossible for any State to be happy stantibus
than to find fault with them we first pass sentence and then examine evidences first condemn and then enquire into the merits of the Cause Yet surely none of these things can be accounted impossible which have been done by all those who have been sincere and hearty Christians and God forbid we should think all guilty of hypocrisie who have professed the Christian Religion from the beginning of it to this day Nay more than so they have not only done them but professed to have that joy and satisfaction of mind in the doing of them which they would not exchange for all the pleasures and delights of the world These were the men who not only were patient but rejoyced in sufferings who accounted it their honour and glory to endure any thing for the sake of so excellent a Religion who were so assured of a future happiness by it that they valued Martyrdoms above Crowns and Scepters But God be thanked we may hope to come to Heaven on easier terms than these or else many others might never come thither besides those who think to make this a pretence for their sin that now when with encouragement and honour we may practise our Religion the commands of it are thought impossible by them Thus we have made good the general Charge here implyed against wicked men in that they are called Fools by examining the most plausible pretences they bring for themselves I now come to the particular impeachment of their folly because they make a mock at sin And that I shall prove especially by two things 1. Because this argues the highest degree of wickedness 2. Because it betrays the greatest weakness of judgement and want of consideration 1. Because it argues the highest degree of wickedness If to sin be folly to make a mock at it is little short of madness It is such a height of impiety that few but those who are of very profligate consciences can attain to without a long custom in sinning For Conscience is at first modest and starts and boggles at the appearance of a great wickedness till it be used to it and grown familiar with it It is no such easie matter for a man to get the mastery of his conscience a great deal of force and violence must be used to ones self before he does it The natural impressions of good and evil the fears of a Deity and the apprehensions of a future state are such curbs and checks in a sinners way that he must first sin himself beyond all feeling of these before he can attain to the seat of the scorners And we may justly wonder how any should ever come thither when they must break through all that is ingenuous and modest all that is vertuous and good all that is tender and apprehensive in humane nature before they can arrive at it They must first deny a God and despise an immortal soul they must conquer their own reason and cancel the Law written in their hearts they must hate all that is serious and yet soberly believe themselves to be no better than the beasts that perish before men can come to make a scoff at religion and a mock at sin And who now could ever imagine that in a Nation professing Christianity among a people whose genius enclines them to civility and religion yea among those who have the greatest advantages of behaviour and education and who are to give the Laws of civility to the rest of the Nation there should any be found who should deride religion make sport with their own prosaneness and make so light of nothing as being damned I come not here to accuse any and least of all those who shew so much regard of religion as to be present in the places devoted to sacred purposes but if there be any such here whose consciences accuse themselves for any degrees of so great impiety I beseech them by all that is dear and precious to them by all that is sacred and serious by the vows of their Baptism and their participation of the Holy Eucharist by all the kindness of Heaven which they either enjoy or hope for by the death and sufferings of the Son of God that they would now consider how great folly and wickedness they betray in it and what the dreadful consequence of it will be if they do not timely repent of it If it were a doubt as I hope it is not among any here whether the matters of Religion be true or no they are surely things which ought to be seriously thought and spoken of It is certainly no jesting matter to affront a God of infinite Majesty and Power and he judges every wilful sinner to do so nor can any one in his wits think it a thing not to be regarded whether he be eternally happy or miserable Methinks then among persons of civility and honour above all others Religion might at least be treated with the respect and reverence due to the concernments of it that it be not made the sport of Entertainments nor the common subject of Plays and Comedies For is there nothing to trifle with but God and his service Is wit grown so schismatical and sacrilegious that it can please it self with nothing but holy ground Are prophaneness and wit grown such inseparable companions that none shall be allowed to pretend to the one but such as dare be highly guilty of the other Far be it from those who have but the name of Christians either to do these things themselves or to be pleased with them that do them especially in such times as ours of late have been when God hath used so many ways to make us serious if any thing would ever do it If men had only slighted God and Religion and made a mock at sin when they had grown wanton through the abundance of peace and plenty and saw no severities of Gods justice used upon such who did it yet the fault had been so great as might have done enough to have interrupted their peace and destroyed that plenty which made them out of the greatness of their pride and wantonness to kick against Heaven but to do it in despight of all Gods judgements to laugh in his face when his rod is upon our backs when neither Pestilence nor Fire can make us more afraid of him exceedingly aggravates the impiety and makes it more unpardonable When like the old Germans we dance among naked swords when men shall defie and reproach Heaven in the midst of a Cities ruines and over the graves of those whom the arrows of the Almighty have heaped together what can be thought of such but that nothing will make them serious but eternal misery And are they so sure there is no such thing to be feared that they never think of it but when by their execrable oaths they call upon God to damn them for fear he should not do it time enough for them Thus
shewing his power in working miraculous Cures and his humility in concealing them Conversing with the meanest of the people and choosing such for his Apostles who brought nothing to recommend them but innocency and simplicity Who by their heats and ignorance were continual exercises of his Patience in bearing with them and of his care and tenderness in instructing them And after a life thus led with such unparallel'd humility when he could add nothing more to it by his actions he doth it by his sufferings and compleats the sad Tragedy of his Life by a most shameful and ignominious Death This is the short and true account of all those things which the admirers of the greatness of this world think mean and contemptible in our Saviours appearance here on earth But we are now to consider whether so great humility were not not more agreeable with the design of his coming into the World than all that pomp and state would have been which the Son of God might have more easily commanded than we can imagine He came not upon so mean an errand as to dazle the eyes of Mankind with the brightness of his Glory to amaze them by the terribleness of his Majesty much less to make a shew of the riches and gallantry of the World to them But he came upon far more noble and excellent designs to bring life and immortality to light to give men the highest assurance of an eternal happiness and misery in the World to come and the most certain directions for obtaining the one and avoiding the other and in order to that nothing was judged more necessary by him than to bring the vanities of this World out of that credit and reputation they had gained among foolish men Which he could never have done if he had declaimed never so much against the vanity of worldly greatness riches and honours if in the mean time himself had lived in the greatest splendour and bravery For the enjoyning then the contempt of this world to his Disciples in hopes of a better would have looked like the commendation of the excellency of fasting at a full meal and of the conveniencies of Poverty by one who makes the greatest hast to be rich That he might not therefore seem to offer so great a contradiction to his Doctrine by his own example he makes choice of a life so remote from all suspicion of designs upon this world that though the foxes had holes and the birds of the air had nests yet the Son of Man who was the Lord and Heir of all things had not whereon to lay his head And as he shewed by his life how little he valued the great things of the World so he discovered by his death how little he feared the evil things of it all which he did with a purpose and intention to rectifie the great mistakes of men as to these things That they might no longer venture an eternal happiness for the splendid and glorious vanities of this present life nor expose themselves to the utmost miseries of another world to avoid the frowns of this From hence proceeded that generous contempt of the World which not only our Saviour himself but all his true Disciples of the first Ages of Christianity were so remarkable for to let others see they had greater things in their eye than any here the hopes of which they would not part with for all that this world thinks great or desirable So that considering the great danger most men are in by too passionate a love of theâ—e things and that universal and infinite kindness which our Saviour had to the Souls of men there was nothing he could discover it more in as to his appearance in the world than by putting such an affront upon the greatness and honour of it as he did by so open a neglect of it in his life and despising it in his death and sufferings And who now upon any pretence of reason dare entertain the meaner apprehensions of our Blessed Saviour because he appeared without the pomp and greatness of the world when the reason of his doing so was that by his own humility and self-denyal he might shew us the way to an eternal happiness Which he well knew how very hard it would be for men to attain to who measure things not according to their inward worth and excellency but the splendour and appearance which they make to the world who think nothing great but what makes them gazed upon nothing desireable but what makes them flattered But if they could be once perswaded how incomparably valuable the glories of the life to come are above all the gayeties and shews of this they would think no condition mean or contemptible which led to so great an end none happy or honourable which must so soon end in the grave or be changed to eternal misery And that we might entertain such thoughts as these are not as the melancholy effects of discontent and disappointments but as the serious result of our most deliberate enquiry into the value of things was the design of our Saviour in the humility of his appearance and of that excellent Doctrine which he recommended to the World by it Were I to argue the case with Philosophers I might then at large shew from the free acknowledgements of the best and most experienced of them that nothing becomes so much one who designs to recommend Vertue to the World as a real and hearty contempt of all the pomp of it and that the meanest condition proceeding from such a principle is truly and in it self more honourable than living in the greatest splendour imaginable Were I to deal with the Iews I might then prove that as the Prophecies concerning the Messias speak of great and wonderful effects of his coming so that they should be accomplished in a way of suffering and humility But since I speak to Christians and and therefore to those who are perswaded of the great kindness and love of our Saviour in coming into the World to reform it and that by convincing men of the truth and excellency of a future state no more need be said to vindicate the appearance of him from that meanness and contempt which the pride and ambition of vain men is apt to cast upon it 2. But not only our Saviours manner of Appearance but the manner of his Conversation gave great offence to his enemies viz. That it was too free and familiar among persons who had the meanest reputation the Publicans and Sinners and in the mean time declaimed against the strictest observers of the greatest rigours and austerities of life And this no doubt was one great cause of the mortal hatred of the Pharisees against him though least pretended that even thereby they might make good that charge of hypocrisie which our Saviour so often draws up against them And no wonder if such severe rebukes did highly provoke them since
the preservation of civil Societies as this doth yet all this it doth by way of subordination to the great end of it which is the promoting mens eternal happiness And the more we consider the vast consequence and importance of this end to mankind the greater reason we shall find that St. Paul had why he should not be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. For can we imagine any end more noble that any doctrine can aim at than this Supposing the common principles of all Religion to be true viz. the Being of God and Immortality of our Souls there can be nothing more becoming that God to discover or those Souls to be imployed about than the way to a blessed immortality And if we admire those discourses of the Heathen Philosophers wherein they speak more darkly and obscurely concerning those things what admiration doth the Gospel deserve which hath brought life and immortality to light If we commend the vertuous Heathens who according to those short and obscure notices which they had of God and themselves sought to make the world any thing the better for their being in it what infinitely greater esteem do those blessed Apostles deserve who accounted not their own lives dear to them that they might make even their enemies happy If those mens memories be dear to us who sacrifice their lives and fortunes for the sake of the Country they belong to shall not those be much more so who have done it for the good of the whole world Such who chearfully suffered death while they were teaching men the way to an eternal life and who patiently endured the flames if they might but give the greater light to the world by them Such who did as far out-go any of the admired Heroes of the Heathens as the purging the World from sin is of greater consequence than cleansing an Augaean Stable from the filth of it and rescuing men from eternal flames is a more noble design than clearing a Country from Pyrats and Robbers Nay most of the Heathen Gods who were so solemnâ—y worshipped in Greece and at Rome owed their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to such flenâ—er benefits to mankind that sure the world was very barbarous or hugely grateful when they could think them no less than Gods who found out such things for men If a Smiths forge and a Womans distaffe if teaching men the noble arts of fighting and cheating one another were such rare inventions that they only became some of the most celebrated Deities which the grave and demure Romans thought fit to worship sure St. Paul had no cause to be ashamed of his Religion among them who had so much reason to be ashamed of their own since his design was to perswade them out of all the vanities and fooleries of their Idolatrous Worship and to bring them to the service of the true and ever living God who had discovered so much goodness to the world in making his Son a propitiation for the sins of it And was not this a discovery infinitely greater and more suitable to the nature of God than any which the subtilty of the Greeks or wisdom of the Romans could ever pretend to concerning any of their Deities Thus we see the ex cellent end of our Religion was that which made St. Paul so far from being ashamed of it and so it would do all us too if we did understand and value it as St. Paul did But it is the great dishonour of too many among us that they are more ashamed of their Religion than they are of their sins If to talk boldly against Heaven to affront God in calling him to witness their great impieties by frequent oaths to sin bravely and with the highest confidence to mock at such who are yet moâ—e modest in their debaucheries were not to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ we might find St. Pauls enough in the Age we live in and it would be a piece of gallantry to be Apostles But this is rather the utmost endeavour to put Religion out of countenance and make the Gospel it self blush and be ashamed that ever such boldfaced impieties should be committed by men under the profession of it as though they believed nothing so damnable as Repentance and a Holy life and no sin so unpardonable as Modesty in committing it But to use St. Pauls language when he had been describing such persons himself Hob. 6. 9. We are perswaded better things of you and things that accompany that salvation the Gospel was designed for though we thus speak For certainly nothing can argue a greater meanness of spirit than while wicked and profane persons are not ashamed of that which unavoidably tends to their ruine any should be shy of the profession and practice of that which conduces to their eternal happiness What is become of all that magnanimity and generous spirit which the Primitve Christians were so remarkable for if while some are impudent in sinning others are ashamed of being or doing good If we have that value for our immortal souls and a future life which we ought to have we shall not trouble our selves much with the Atheistical scoffs and drollery of profane persons who while they deride and despise Religion do but laugh themselves into eternal misery And thus much for the first ground of St. Pauls confidence viz. The excellent end the Gospel was designed for 2. The effectualness of it in order to that end It is the power of God to salvation Wherein two things are implyed 1. The inefficacy of any other doctrine for that end 2. The effectualness of the Gospel in order to it 1 The inefficacy of any other Doctrine for this end of promoting the eternal salvation of Mankind If the world had been acquainted with any doctrine before which had been sufficient for the purposes the Gospel was designed for there would have been no such necessity of propagating it among men nor had there been reason enough to have justified the Apostles in exposing themselves to so great hazards for the preaching of it If the notion of an eternal God and Providence without the knowledge of a Saviour had been sufficient to reform the World and make men happy it had not been consistent with the wisdom or goodness of God to have imploy'd so many persons with the loss of their lives to declare the Doctrine of Christ to the World So that if Christianity be true it must be thought necessary to salvation for the necessity of it was declared by those who were the instruments of confirming the truth of it I meddle not with the case of those particular persons who had no means or opportunity to know Gods revealed will and yet from the Principles of Natural Religion did reform their lives in hopes of a future felicity if any such there were but whether there were not a necessity of such a Doctrine as the Gospel is to be discover'd to
his Soveraign and that all passions are to be destroy'd that pain and grief are nothing that vertue in all conditions is a sufficient reward to it self Which are so contrary to the common sense of mankind that the only way to perswade men to believe them is first to perswade them they are not men So that he was certainly the wisest man among the Heathens who concluded that we ought to expect a higher Master to teach us these things and to acquaint us with the happiness of a future life And hereby an answer may be given to Porphyries grand objection against Christian Religion viz. If it were so necessary for the good of Mankind why was it so long before it was discovered Because God would thereby discover the insufficiency of all the means the wit of man could find out to reform the world without this That not only the Iews might see the weakness of that dispensation they were under but the Gentile world might groan with an expectation of some more powerful means to goodness than were yet among them For when Philosophy had been so long in its height and had so little influence upon Mankind it was time for the Sun of righteousness to arise and with the softening and healing influence of his beams to bring the World to a more vertuous temper And that leads to the Second thing implyed which is the peculiar efficacy of the Gospel for promoting mens salvation for it is the Power of God to salvation and that will appear by considering how many ways the power of God is engaged in it These three especially 1. In confirmation of the Truth of it 2. In the admirable Effects of it in the World 3. In the diviue Assistance which is promised to those who embrace it 1. In confirmation of the Truth of it For the World was grown so uncertain as to the grand foundations of Religion that the same power was requisite now to settle the World which was at first for the framing of it For though the Precepts of Christian Religion be pure and easie holy and suitable to the sense of mankind though the Promises be great and excellent proportionable to our wants and the weight of our business though the reward be such that it is easier to desire than comprehend it yet all these would but seem to baffle the more the expectations of men unless they were built on some extraordinary evidence of divine power And such we assert there was in the confirmation of these things to us not only in the miraculous birth of our Saviour and that continual series of unparallel'd miracles in his life not only in the most obliging circumstances of his death nor only in the large effusion of divine gifts upon his Apostles and the strange propagation of Christian Religion by them against all humane power but that which I shall particularly instance in as the great effect of divine power and confirmation of our Religion was his Resurrection from the dead For as our Apostle saith Rom. 1. 4. Christ was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness by the Resurrection from the dead No way of evidence could be more suitable to the capacities of all than this it being a plain matter of fact none ever better attested than this was not only by the unanimous consent of all the witnesses but by their constant adhering to the truth of it though it cost almost all of them their lives and no greater evidence could be given to the World of a divine power since both Iews and Gentiles agreed in this that such a thing could not be effected but by an immediate hand of God So far were they then from thinking a resurrection possible by the juyce of herbs or an infusion of warm blood into the veins or by the breath of living Creatures as the great martyr for Atheism would seem from Pliny to perswade us when yet certainly nothing can be of higher concernment to those who believe not another life than to have try'd this experiment long ere now and since nothing of that nature hath ever happened since our Saviours resurrection it only lets us know what credulous men in other things the greatest Infidels as to Religion are But so far were they at that time from so fond an imagination that they readily yielded that none but God could do it though they seem'd to question whether God himself could do it or no. As appears by the Apostles Interrogation Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead Act. 26. 8. This was therefore judged on both sides to be a matter of so great importance that all the disputes concerning Christian Religion were resolved into this Whether Christ were risen from the dead And this the Apostles urge and insist on upon all occasions as the great evidence of the truth of his Doctrine and this was the main part of their Commission for they were sent abroad to be witnesses of his Resurrection Which was not designed by God as a thing strange and incredible to puzle mankind with but to give the highest assurance imaginable to the World of the truth and importance of Christianity Since God was pleased to imploy his power in so high a manner to confirm the certainty of it 2. Gods power was seen in the admirable effects of Christian Religion upon the minds of men which was most discernable by the strange alteration it soon made in the state of the world In Iudea soon after the death of Christ some of his Crucifiers become Christians 3000. Converts made at one Sermon of St. Peter's and great accessions made afterwards both in Hierusalem and other places Yea in all parts of the Roman Empire where the Christians came they so increased and multiplyed that thereby it appeared that God had given a Benediction to his new Creation suitable to what he gave to the first So that within the compass of not a hundred years after our Saviours death the World might admire to see it self so strangely changed from what it was The Temple at Hierusalem destroy'd and the Iews under a sadder dispersion than ever and rendred uncapable of continuing their former Worship of God there the Heathen Temples unfrequented the Gods derided the Oracles ceased the Philosophers puzled the Magistrates disheartned by their fruitless cruelties and all this done by a few Christians who came and preached to the World Righteousness Temperance and a Iudgement to come whereof God had given assurance to the World by raising one Iesus from the dead And all this effected not by the power of Wit and Eloquence not by the force and violence of rebellious subjects not by men of hot and giddy brains but by men sober just humble and meek in all their carriages but withal such as might never have been heard of in the world had not this Doctrine
hearty and sincere obedience to his will declared by his Son so that all those who perform that though they live not in the nice observance of the Law of Moses shall not need to fear the penalty of their sins in another life Which is the second thing he designs to prove viz. That those who obeyed the Gospel whether Iew or Greek were equally capable of salvation by it For saith he is God the God of the Iews only is he not also of the Gentiles Tes of the Gentiles also because both Iew and Gentile were to be justified upon the same terms as he proves afterwards So that Gods justifying of us by the Gospel is the solemn declaration of himself upon what terms he will pardon the sins of men that is deliver them from the penalties they have deserved by them For the actual discharge of the person is reserved to the great day all the justification we have here is only declarative from God but so as to give a right to us by vertue whereof we are assured that God will not only not exercise his utmost rigour but shew all favour and kindness to those who by belief of the Gospel do repent and obey God doth now remit sin as he forbears to punish it he remits the sinner as he he assures him by the death of Christ he will not punish upon his repentance but he fully remits both when he delivers the person upon the tryal of the great day from all the penalties which he hath deserved by his sins So that our compleat justification and salvation go both upon the same terms and the same Faith which is sufficient for one must be sufficient for the other also What care then ought men to take lest by mis-understanding the notion of Believing so much spoken of as the condition of our salvation they live in a neglect of that holy obedience which the Gospel requires and so believe themselves into eternal misery But as long as men make their obedience necessary though but as the fruit and effect of Faith it shall not want its reward for those whose hearts are purified by Faith shall never be condemned for mistaking the notion of it and they who live as those that are to be judged according to their works shall not miss their reward though they do not think they shall receive it for them But such who make no other condition of the Gospel but Believing and will scarce allow that to be called a Condition ought to have a great care to keep their hearts sounder than their heads for their only security will lye in this that they are good though they see no necessity of being so And such of all others I grant have reason to acknowledge the irresistable power of Divine Grace which enables them to obey the will of God against the dictates of their own judgements But thanks be to God who hath so abundantly provided for all the infirmities of humane Nature by the large offers of his Grace and assistance of his Spirit that though we meet with so much opposition without and so much weakness within and so many discouragements on every side of us yet if we sincerely apply our selves to do the will of God we have as great assurance as may be that we shall be kept by the power of God through Faith unto Salvation SERMON V. Preached at WHITE HALL HEBREWS II. III. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation WHen the wise and eternal Counsels of Heaven concerning the salvation of Mankind by the death of the Son of God were first declared to the World by his own appearance and preaching in it nothing could be more reasonably expected than that the dignity of his Person the authority of his Doctrine and the excellency of his Life should have perswaded those whom he appeared among to such an admiration of his Person and belief of his Doctrine as might have led them to an imitation of him in the holiness of his life and conversation For if either the worth of the Person or the Importance of the Message might prevail any thing towards a kind and honourable reception among men there was never any person appeared in any degree comparable to him never any Message declared which might challenge so welcome an entertainment from men as that was which he came upon If to give Mankind the highest assurance of a state of life and immortality if to offer the pardon of sin and reconciliation with God upon the most easie and reasonable terms if to purge the degenerate World from all its impurities by a Doctrine as holy as the Author of it were things as becoming the Son of God to reveal as the Sons of men to receive nothing can be more unaccountable than that his person should be dispised his Authority slighted and his Doctrine contemned And that by those whose interest was more concerned in the consequence of these things than himself could be in all the affronts and injuries he underwent from men For the more the indignities the greater the shame the sharper the sufferings which he did undergo the higher was the honour and glory which he was advanced to but the more obliging the instances of his kindness were the greater the salvation that was tendered by him the more prevailing the motives were for the entertainment of his Doctrine the more exemplary and severe will the punishment be of all those who reject it For it is very agreeable to those eternal Laws of Justice by which God governs the world that the punishment should arise pro portionably to the greatness of the mercies despised and therefore although the Scripture be very sparing in telling us what the state of those persons shall be in another life who never heard of the Gospel yet for those who do and despise it it tells us plainly that an eternal misery is the just desert of those to whom an eternal happiness was offered and yet neglected by them And we are the rather told of it that men may not think it a surprize in the life to come or that if they had known the danger they would have escaped it and therefore our Blessed Saviour who never mentioned punishment but with a design to keep men from it declares it frequently that the punishment of those persons and places would be most intolerable who have received but not improved the light of the Gospel and that it would be more tolerable for the persons who had offered violence to Nature and had Hell-fire burning in their hearts by their horrid impurities than for those who heard the Doctrine and saw the Miracles of Christ and were much the worse rather than any thing the better for it But lest we should think that all this black scene of misery was only designed for those who were the Actors in that doleful Tragedy of our
of events nor the things being out of our power nor the common condition of humanity no nor that comfort of ill natured men as Carneades call'd it the many companions we have in misery that could keep their passions from breaking out when a great occasion was presented them For he who had read all their discourses carefully and was a great man himself I mean Cicero upon the death of his beloved daughter was so far from being comforted by them that he was fain to write a consolation for himself in which the greatest cure it may be was the diversion he found in writing it But supposing these things had gone much farther and that all wise men could have governed their passions as to the troubles of this life and certainly the truest wisdom lies in that Yet what had all this been to a preparation for an eternal state which they knew little of and minded less All their discourses about a happy life here were vain and contradicted by themselves when after all their rants about their wise man being happy in the bull of Phalaris c. they yet allow'd him to dispatch himself if he saw cause which a wise man would never do if he thought himself happy when he did it So that unless God himself had given assurance of a life to come by the greatest demonstrations of it in the death and resurrection of his Son all the considerations whatever could never have made mankind happy But by the Gospel he hath taken away all suspicions and doubts concerning another state and hath declared his own readiness to be reconciled to us upon our repentance to pardon what hath been been done amiss and to give that divine assistance whereby our wills may be governed and our passions subdued and upon a submission of our selves to his wise Providence and a sincere obedience to his Laws he hath promised eternal salvation in the life to come 3. God hath given us the greatest assurance that these offers came from himself which the Apostle gives an account of here saying that this salvation began at first to be spoken by our Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness by signs and wonders c. Wherein we have all the satisfaction which the minds of reasonable men could desire as to these things It might be justly expected that the messenger of so great news to the World should be no mean and ordinary person neither was he for the honour was as great in the person who brought it as the importance was in the thing it self No less than the Eternal Son of God came down from the Bosom of his Father to rectifie the mistakes of Mankind and not only to shew them the way to be happy but by the most powerful arguments to perswade them to be so Nay we find all the three persons of the Trinity here engaged in the great work of mans salvation it was first spoken by our Lord God also bearing them witness and that with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost So that not only the first revelation was from God but the testimony to confirm that it was so was from him too there being never so clear an attestation of any divine truths as was of the Doctrine of the Gospel From whence it follows that the foundation whereon our Faith stands is nothing short of a divine testimony which God gave to the truth of that revelation of his will so vain are the cavils of those who say we have nothing but meer probabilities for our Faith and do interpret that manner of proof which matters of fact are capable of in a sense derogatory to the firmness of our Christian Faith As though we made the Spirit of God a Paraclete or Advocate in the worst sense which might as well plead a bad as a good cause No we acknowledge that God himself did bear witness to that doctrine deliver'd by our Lord and that in a most signal and effectual manner for the conviction of the world by those demonstrations of a divine power which accompanyed the first Preachers of salvation by the Gospel of Christ. So that here the Apostle briefly and clearly resolves our Faith if you ask Why we believe that great salvation which the Gospel offers the answer is Because it was declared by our Lord who neither could nor would deceive us If it be asked How we know that this was delivered by our Lord he answers because this was the constant Doctrine of all his Disciples of those who constantly heard him and conversed with him But if you ask again how can we know that their testimony was infallible since they were but men he then resolves all into that that God bare witness to them by signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost And those persons whom these arguments will not convince none other will Who are we that should not think that sufficient which God himself thought so who are we that dare question the certainty of that which hath had the Broad Seal of Heaven to attest it Can any thing make it surer than God himself hath done and can there be any other way more effectual for that end than those demonstrations of a divine power and presence which the Apostles were acted by Those that cavil at this way of proof would have done so at any other if God had made choice of it and those who will cavil at any thing are resolved to be convinced by nothing and such are not fit to be discoursed with 4. Here are the most prevailing motives to perswade them to accept of these offers of salvation There are two passions which are the great hinges of Government viz. mens Hopes and Fears and therefore all Laws have had their sanctions suitable to these two in Rewards and Punishments now there was never any reward which gave greater encouragement to hope never any punishment which made fear more reasonable than those are which the Gospel proposes Will ever that man be good whom the hopes of Heaven will not make so or will ever that man leave his sins whom the fears of Hell will not make to do it What other arguments can we imagine should ever have that power and influence on mankind which these may be reasonably supposed to have Would you have God alter the methods of his Providence and give his rewards and punishments in this life but if so what exercise would there be of the patience forbearance and goodness of God towards wicked men must he do it as soon as ever men sin then he would never try whether they would repent and grow better or must he stay till they have come to such a height of sin then no persons would have cause to fear him but such who are arrived at that pitch of wickedness but how then should he punish them must it be by
but too much will unfit them for greater business But do men believe these things to be true or not when they say thus if they be true why need they fear their uncertainty if they be certain what pains and care can be too great about them since a little will never serve to obtain them Let but the care and diligence be proportionable to the greatness of the end and the weight of the things and you never need fear the want of a recompence for all your labour But suppose you say if you were fully convinced of their certainty you would look more after them What hinders you from being so convinced Is it not a bad disposition of mind which makes you unwilling to enquire into them examine things with a mind as free as you would have it judge seriously according to the reason of things and you will easily find the interests of a life to come are far more certain as well as more desireable than those of this present life And yet the great uncertainty of all the honours and riches of this world never hinder the covetous or ambitious person from their great earnestness in pursuit of them And shall not then all the mighty arguments which God himself hath made use of to confirm to us the certainty of a life to come prevail upon us to look more seriously after it Shâ—ll the unexpressible love of the Father the unconceiveable sufferings of the Son of God and the miraculous descent and powerful assistance of the Holy Ghost have no more impression on our minds than to leave us uncertain of a future state What mighty doubts and suspicions of God what distrusts of humane Nature what unspeakable ingratitude and unaccountable folly lies at the bottom of all this uncertainty O fools and slow of heart to believe not only what the Prophets have spoken but what our Lord hath declared God himself hath given testimony to and the Holy Ghost hath confirmed 3. But is not your Interest concerned in these things Is it all one to you whether your souls be immortal or no whether they live in eternal felicity or unchangeable misery Is it no more to you than to know what kind of Bables are in request at the Indies or whether the customs of China or Iapan are the wiser i. e. than the most trifling things and the remotest from our knowledge But this is so absurd and unreasonable to suppose that men should not think themselves concerned in their own eternal happiness and misery that I shall not shew so much distrust of their understandings to speak any longer to it 3. But if notwithstanding all these things our neglect still continues then there remains nothing but a fearful looking for of judgement and the fiery indignation of God For there is no possibility of escaping if we continue to neglect so great salvation All hopes of escaping are taken away which are only in that which men neglect and those who neglect their only way to salvation must needs be miserable How can that man ever hope to be saved by him whose blood he despises and tramples under foot What grace and favour can he expect from God who hath done despight unto the Spirit of Grace That hath cast away with reproach and contempt the greatest kindness and offers of Heaven What can save him that resolves to be damned and every one does so who knows he shall be damned if he lives in his sins and yet continues to do so God himself in whose only pity our hopes are hath irreversibly decreed that he will have no pity upon those who despise his goodness slight his threatnings abuse his patience and sin the more because he offers to pardon It is not any â—elight that God takes in the miseries of his Creatures which makes him punish them but shall not God vindicate his own honour against obstinate and impenitent sinners He declares before hand that he is far from delighting in their ruine and that is the reason he hath made such large offers and used so many means to make them happy but if men resolve to despise his offers and slight the means of their salvation shall not God be just without being thought to be cruel And we may assure our selves none shall ever suffer beyond the just desert of their sins for punishment as the Apostle tells us in the words before the Text is nothing but a just recompence of reward And if there were such a one proportionable to the violation of the Law delivered by Angels how shall we think to escape who neglect a more excellent means of happiness which was delivered by our Lord himself If God did not hate sin and there were not a punishment belonging to it why did the Son of God die for the expiation of it and if his death were the only means of expiation how is it possible that those who neglect that should escape the punishment not only of their other sins but of that great contempt of the means of our salvation by him Let us not then think to trifle with God as though it were impossible a Being so merciful and kind should ever punish his Creatures with the miseries of another life For however we may deceive our selves God will not be mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flâ—sh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting I shall only propound some few Considerations to prevent so great a neglect as that of your salvation is 1. Consider what it is you neglect the offer of Eternal Happiness the greatest kindness that ever was expressed to the World the foundation of your present peace the end of your beings the stay of your minds the great desire of your Souls the utmost felicity that humane Nature is capable of Is it nothing to neglect the favour of a Prince the kindness of Great Men the offers of a large and plentiful Estate but these are nothing to the neglect of the favour of God the love of his Son and that salvation which he hath purchased for you Nay it is not a bare neglect but it implies in it a mighty contempt not only of the things offered but of the kindness of him who offers them If men had any due regard for God or themselves if they had any esteem for his love or their own welfare they would be much more serious in Religion than they are When I see a person wholly immersed in affairs of the World or spending his time in luxury and vanity can I possibly think that man hath any esteem of God or of his own Soul When I find one very serious in the pursuit of his Designs in the World thoughtful and busie subtle in contriving them careful in managing them but very formal remiss and negligent in all affairs
of it made them hate him the more since they thought with themselves what strange things they would have done with it for the benefit of their Country and therefore express the greatest malice against him because he would not imploy it as they would have him From thence they condemn his Miracles as only some effects of a Magical skill and say he dispossessed the lesser Devils by the power of him that was the Prince among them So unworthy a requital did they make for all the mighty works which had been done among them Which as our Saviour saith if they had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in sack cloth and ashes 3. But although all this argued a strange spirit of contradiction in them to all the designs for their own good yet the malice from whence that rose would not stop here for as they had long contrived his ruine so they watched only an opportunity to effect it Which his frequent presence at Ierusalem seemed to put into their hands but his reputation with the people made them fearful of embracing it Therefore they imploy their Agents to deal privately with one of his Disciples who might be fittest for their design and to work upon his covetous humour by the promise of a reward to bring him to betray his Master with the greatest privacy into their hands This Iudas undertakes knowing the place and season of his Masters retirements not far from the City where they might with the greatest secrecy and safety seize upon his person Which contrivance of theirs our Saviour was not at all ignorant of but prepares himself and his Disciples for this great encounter He institutes his solemn Supper to be perpetually observed in remembrance of his death and sufferings after which he discourses admirably with his Disciples to arm them against their future sufferings and prays that most divine Prayer St. Iohn 17. which he had no sooner finished but he goes with his Disciples to the usual place of his retirement in a Garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives And now begins the blackest Scene of sufferings that ever was acted upon humane Nature Which was so great that the Son of God himself expresseth a more than usual apprehension of it which he discovered by the Agony he was in in which he sweat drops of blood by the earnestness of his Prayer falling upon his knees and praying thrice saying O my Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt Surely this Cup must needs have a great deal of bitterness in it which the Son of God was so earnest to be freed from If there had been nothing in it but what is commonly incident to humane Nature as to the apprehensions of death or pain it seems strange that he who had the greatest innocency the most perfect charity the freest resignation of himself the fullest assurance of the reward to come should express a greater sense of the horror of his sufferings than thousands did who suffer'd for his sake But now was the hour come wherein the Son of God was to be made a Sacrifice for the sins of men wherein he was to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows when he was to be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities now his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death for now the hour of his enemies was come and the power of darkness And accordingly they improve it they come out against him as a Malefactor with swords and staves and having seized his Person being betray'd into their hands by one of his Disciples they carry him to the High Priests house where his professed enemies presently condemn him of Blasphemy and not content with this they express the greatest contempt of him for they spit in his face they buffet him and smite him with the Palms of their hands they mock him and bid him prophesie who it was that smote him so insolent was their malice grown and so spightful was their indignation against him And so fearful were they lest he should escape their hands that the very next morning early they send him bound to the Roman Governour to have the sentence pronounced against him to whom they accuse him of Sedition and Treason but Pilate upon examination of him declares he found no fault in him which made them heap more unreasonable calumnies upon him being resolved by what means soever to take away his life Nay the price of the blood of the Son of God was fallen so low with them that they preferred the life of a known seditious person and a Murtherer before him And when Pilate being unsatisfied asked still what evil he had done they continue their importunity without any other answer but Crucifie him and making up what wanted in Justice and Reason in the loudness of their clamors And at last seeing the sury and madness of the people with the protestation of his own innocency as to his blood he delivers him up to the people and now he is stripped and scourged and mock'd with a Crown of Thorns a Scarlet Robe and a Reed in his hand all the indignities they could think of they put upon him But though it pleased them to have him exposed to all the ignominies imaginable yet nothing would satisfie them but his blood and therefore he is led forth to be crucified and though so lately scourged and weakened by his sorrows yet he is made to carry his own Cross at least through the City for no other death could satisfie them but the most ignominious and painful And when he was brought to the place of Crucifixion they nail his hands and feet to the Cross and while he was hanging there they deride and mock him still they devide his garments before his face give him Gall and Vinegar to drink and the last act of violence committed upon him was the piercing of his side so that out of his Pericardium issued both water and blood Thus did the Son of God suffer at the hands of unreasonable men thus was the blood of that immaculate Lamb split by the hands of violence and he who left the bosom of his Father to bring us to glory was here treated as if he had been unworthy to live upon the Earth 2. But that which yet heightens these sufferings of Christ is to consider from whom he suffer'd these things it was from sinners which is as much as to say from men if the word were taken in the largest sense of it for all have sinned but being taken by us in opposition to othermen so it implies a greater height of wickedness in these than in other persons But this is not here to be consider'd absolutely as denoting what kind of persons he suffer'd from but with a particular respect to the nature of their
proceedings with him and the obligations that lay upon them to the contrary So that the first shews the injustice and unreasonableness of them the second their great ingratitude considering the kindness and good will which he expressed towards them 1. The Injustice and unreasonableness of their proceedings against him It is true indeed what Socrates said to his wife when she complained that he suffer'd unjustly What saith he and would you have me suffer justly it is much greater comfort to the person who does suffer when he does it unjustly but it is a far greater reflection on those who were the causes of it And that our Blessed Saviour did suffer with the greatest injustice from these men is apparent from the falseness and weakness of all the accusations which were brought against him To accuse the Son of God for Blaphemy in saying he was so is as unjust as to condemn a King for treason because he saith he is a King they ought to have examined the grounds on which he call'd himself so and if he had not given pregnant evidences of it then to have passed sentence upon him as an Impostor and Blasphemer If the thing were true that he was what he said the Son of God what horrible guilt was it in them to imbrue their hands in his blood and they found he always attested it and now was willing to lay down his life to confirm the truth of what he said This surely ought at least to have made them more inquisitive into what he had affirmed but they allow him not the liberty of a fair tryal they hasten and precipitate the sentence that they might do so the execution If he were condemned as a false Prophet for that seems to be the occasion of the Sanhedrim meeting to do it to whom the cognisance of that did particularly belong why do they not mention what it was he had foretold which had not come to pass or what reason do they give why he had usurped such an Office to himself If no liberty were allowed under pain of death for any to say that they were sent from God how was it possible for the Messias ever to appear and not be condemned for the expectation of him was that he should be a great person immediately sent from God for the delivery of his people And should he be sent from God and not say that he was so for how then could men know that he was So that their way of proceeding with him discovers it self to be manifestly unjust and contrary to their own avowed expectations Neither were they more successful in the accusation of him before Pilate why did not the witnesses appear to make good the charge of sedition and treason against him where were the proofs of any thing tending that way Nay that which abundantly testified the innocency of our Saviour as to all the matters he was accused of was that the Roman Governour after a full examination of the cause declares him innocent and that not only once but several times and was fully satisfied in the Vindication he made of himself so that nothing but the fear of what the Iews threatned viz. accusing him to Caesar a thing he had cause enough otherwise to be afraid of which made him at last yield to their importunity But there was one circumstance more which did highly discover the innocency of Christ and the injustice of his sufferings which was Iuda's confession and end the man who had betray'd his Lord and had receiv'd the wages of his iniquity but was so unquiet with it that in the time when his other Disciples durst not own him he with a great impetus returns to them with his Money throws it among them with that sad farewel to them all I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood What could have been said more for his Vindication at this time than this was by such a person as Iudas one who had known our Saviour long and had been the fittest instrument if any guilt could have been fasten'd upon him to have managed the accusation against him but the anxiety of his mind was too great for what he had done already to live to do them any longer service for either his grief suffocated him or his guilt made him hang himself for the words will signifie either Neither can it be said by any modern Iews that all the testimony we have of these things is from his own Disciples but that certainly they had some greater matter to accuse him of which we now have lost For how is it possible to conceive that a matter so important as that was should be lost by those of their own Nation who were so highly concerned to vindicate themselves in all places as soon as the Gospel was spread abroad in the World For the guilt of this blood was every where by the Christians charged upon them and their prodigious sufferings afterwards were imputed wholly by them to the shedding of that blood of Christ which by a most solemn imprecation they had said should be upon them and their Children Besides how comes Celsus who personates a Iew opposing Christianity to mention no other accusations against him but those recorded in the Gospel and Origen challenges him or any other person to charge him with any action which might deserve punishment And which is very observable Porphyrie one of the most inveterate enemies of Christianity and that took as much pains to write against it as any and had more learning to do it with yet in his Book of the Philosophy of Oracles as St. Augustin tells us quotes an Oracle wherein were these words concerning Christ And what became of him after his death it saith that his Soul was immortal Viri pietate praestantissimi est illa anima and that it was the soul of a most excellent person for piety and being then asked why he was condemned the answer only is that the body of the best is exposed to weakning torments but the Soul rests in heavenly habitations So that on no account can this contradiction appear to be otherwise than an act of great injustice and cruelty and therefore must needs be the contradiction of sinners 2. This contradiction of theirs to Christ was an act of high Ingratitude It was a sharp but very just rebuke which the Iews received from our Saviour when they were once ready to stone him Many good works have I shewed you from my Father for which of those works do you stone me The very same might have been applyed to his Judges and accusers when they were about to crucifie him For what was his whole Life after he appeared publickly but a constant design of doing good His presence had far more vertue for the curing all bodily distempers than the Pool of Bethesda among the Iews or the Temples of Aesculapius among the Gentiles What wonders
that and cryed haec vera est patientia there is the true pattern of Patience For notwithstanding that Agony he was in immediately before his being betray'd when he sees the Officers coming towards him he asks them whom they seek for and tells them I am he which words so astonished them that they went back and fell upon the ground thereby letting them understand how easie a matter it was for him to have escaped their hands and that it was his own free consent that he went to suffer for he knew certainly before hand the utmost that he was to undergo and therefore it was no unreasonable impetus but a settled resolution of his mind to endure all the contradictions of sinners When he was spit upon mocked reproached and scourged none of all these could draw one impatient expression from him The malice and rage of his enemies did not at all provoke him unless it were to pity and pray for them And that he did with great earnestness in the midst of all his pains and though he would not plead for himself to them yet he pleads for them to God Father forgive them for they know not what they do How much more divine was this than the admired Theramenes among the Greeks who being condemned to dye by the thirty Tyrants when he was drinking off his cup of Poyson said he drank that to Critias one of his most bitter enemies and hoped he would pledge it shortly Socrates seemed not to express seriousness enough at least when he bid one of his friends when he was dying offer up a Cock to Aesculapius for his deliverance Aristides and Phocion among the Greeks came the nearest to our Saviours temper when one pray'd that his Country might have no cause to remember him when he was gone and the other charged his Son to forget the injuries they had done him but yet by how much the greater the person and office was of our Blessed Saviour than of either of them by how much the cruelty and ignominy as well as pain was greater which they exposed him to by how much greater concernment there is to have such an offence pardon'd by one that can punish it with eternal misery than not revenged by those who though they may have will have not always power to execute so much greater was the kindness of our Saviour to his enemies in his Prayer upon the Cross than of either of the other in their concernment for that ungrateful City that had so ill requited their services to it Thus when the Son of God was oppressed and afflicted he opened not his mouth but only in Prayer for them who were his bitter enemies and though nothing had been more easie than for him to have cleared himself from all their accusations who had so often baffled them before yet he would not now give them that suspicion of his innocency as to make any Apology for himself but committed himself to God that judges righteously and was brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers was dumb so he opened not his mouth And the reason thereof was he knew what further design for the good of mankind was carrying on by the bitterness of his passion and that all the cruel usage he underwent was that he might be a sacrifice of atonement so the sins of the World Which leads to the last thing propounded to our consideration 4. Which is the causes why God was pleased to suffer his Son to endure such contradiction of sinners against himself I know it is an easie answer to say that God had determin'd it should be so and that we ought to enquire no further but sure such an answer can satisfie none who consider how much our salvation depends upon the knowledge of it and how clear and express the Scripture is in assigning the causes of the sufferings of Christ. Which though as far as the instruments were concerned in it we have given an account of already yet considering the particular management of this grand affair by the care of divine Providence a higher account must be given of it why so divine and excellent a person should be exposed to all the contempt and reproach imaginable and after being made a sacrifice to the tongues and rods of the people then to dye a painful and ignominious death So that allowing but that common care of divine Providence which all sober Heathens acknowledged so transcendent sufferings as these were of so holy and innocent a person ought to be accounted for in a more than ordinary manner when they thought themselves concerned to vindicate the Justice of Gods providence in the common calamities of those who are reputed to be better than the generality of Mankind But the reasons assigned in that common case will not hold here since this was a person immediately sent from God upon a particular message to the World and therefore might plead an exemption by vertue of his Ambassage from the common Arrests and troubles of humane nature But it was so far otherwise as though God had designed him on purpose to let us see how much misery humane nature can undergo Some think themselves to go as far as their reason will permit them when they tell us that he suffer'd all these things to confirm the truth of what he had said and particularly the Promise of Remission of sins and that he might be an example to others who should go to Heaven by suffering afterwards and that he might being touched with the feeling of our infirmities here have the greater pity upon us now he is in Heaven All these I grant to have been true and weighty reasons of the sufferings of Christ in subordination to greater ends but if there had been nothing beyond all this I can neither understand why he should suffer so deeply as he did nor why the Scripture should insist upon a far greater reason more than upon any of these I grant the death of Christ did confirm the truth of his Doctrine as far as it is unreasonble to believe that any one who knew his Doctrine to be false would make himself miserable to make others believe it but if this had been all intended why would not an easier and less ignominious death have served since he who would be willing to die to confirm a falshood would not be thought to confirm a truth by his death because it was painful and shameful Why if all his sufferings were designed as a testimony to others of the truth of what he spake were the greatest of his sufferings such as none could know the anguish of them but himself I mean his Agony in the Garden and that which made him cry out upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Why were not his Miracles enough to confirm the truth of his Doctrine since the Law of Moses was received without his
death by the evidence his Miracles gave that he was sent from God since the Doctrine of remission of sins had been already deliver'd by the Prophets and received by the People of the Iews since those who would not believe for his Miracles sake neither would they believe though they should have seen him rise from the Grave and therefore not surely because they saw him put into it But of all things the manner of our Saviours sufferings seems least designed to bring the World to the belief of his Doctrine which was the main obstacle to the entertainment of it among the men of greatest reputation for wisdom and knowledge For it was Christ crucified which was to the Iews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness Had the Apostles only preached that the Son of God had appeared from Heaven and discovered the only way to bring men thither that he assumed our Nature for a time to render himself capable of conversing with us and therein had wrought many strange and stupendious miracles but after he had sufficiently acquainted the World with the nature of his doctrine he was again assumed up into Heaven in all probability the doctrine might have been so easily received by the world as might have saved the lives of many thousand persons who dyed as Martyrs for it And if it had been necessary that some must have dyed to confirm it why must the Son of God himself do it when he had so many Disciples who willingly sacrificed their lives for him and whose death would on that account have been as great a confirmation of the truth of it as his own But if it be alledged further that God now entring into a Covenant with man for the pardon of sin the shedding of the blood of Christ was necessary as a federal rite to confirm it I answer if only as a federal rite why no cheaper blood would serve to confirm it but that of the Son of God We never read that any Covenant was confirmed by the death of one of the contracting parties and we cannot think that God was so prodigal of the blood of his Son to have it shed only in allusion to some ancient customs But if there were such a necessity of alluding to them why might not the blood of any other person have done it when yet all that custom was no more but that a sacrifice should be offer'd and upon the parts of the sacrifice devided they did solemnly swear and ratifie their Covenant And if this be yielded them it then follows from this custom that Christ must be consider'd as a sacrifice in his death and so the ratification of the Covenant must be consequent to that oblation which he made of himself upon the Cross. Besides how incongruous must this needs be that the death of Christ the most innocent person in the World without any respect to the guilt of sin should suffer so much on purpose to assure us that God will pardon those who are guilty of it May we not much rather infer the contrary considering the holiness and justice of Gods nature if he dealt so severely with the green tree how much more will he with the dry If one so innocent suffer'd so much what then may the guilty expect If a Prince should suffer the best subject he hath to be severely punished could ever any imagine that it was with a design to assure them that he would pardon the most rebellious No but would it not rather make men afraid of being too innocent for fear of suffering too much for it And those who seem very careful to preâ—erve the honour of Gods Justice in not punishing one for anothers faults ought likewise to maintain it in the punishing of one who had no fault at all to answer for And to think to escape this by saying that to such a person such things are calamities but no punishments is to revive the ancient exploded Stoicism which thought to reform the diseases of Mankind by meer changeing the names of things though never so contrary to the common sense of humane nature which judges of the nature of punishments by the evils men undergo and the ends they are designed for And by the very same reason that God might exercise his dominion on so innocent a person as our Saviour was without any respect to sin as the moving cause to it he might lay eternal torments on a most innocent Creature for degrees and continuance do not alter the reason of things and then escape with the same evasion that this was no act of injustice in God because it was a meer exercise of Dominion And when once a sinner comes to be perswaded by this that God will pardon him it must be by the hopes that God will shew kindness to the guilty because he shews so little to the innocent and if this be agreeable to the Justice and Holiness of Gods nature it is hard to say what is repugnant to it If to this it be said that Christs consent made it no unjust exercise of Dominion in God towards him it is easily answered that the same consent will make it less injustice in God to lay the punishment of our sins upon Christ upon his undertaking to satisfie for as for then the consent supposes a meritorious cause of punishment but in this case the consent implyeth none at all And we are now enquiring into the reasons of such sufferings and consequently of such a consent which cannot be imagined but upon very weighty motives such as might make it just in him to consent as well as in God to inflict Neither can it be thought that all the design of the sufferings of Christ was to give us an example and an incouragement to suffer our selves though it does so in a very great measure as appears by the Text it self For the hopes of an eternal reward for these short and light afflictions ought to be encouragement enough to go through the miseries of this life in expectation of a better to come And the Cloud of Witnesses both under the Law and the Gospel of those who have suffer'd for righteousness sake ought to make no one think it strange if he must endure that which so many have done before him and been crowned for it And lastly to question whether Christ could have pity enough upon us in our sufferings unless he had suffer'd so deeply himself will lead men to distrust the pity and compassion of Almighty God because he was never capable of suffering as we do But the Scripture is very plain and full to all those who rack not their minds to pervert it in assigning a higher reason than all these of the sufferings of Christ viz. That Christ suffered for sins the just for the unjust that his soul was made an offering for sin and that the Lord therefore as on a sacrifice of atonement
our lives and by our hearty supplications to God that he would preserve the person of our Soveraign from all the attempts of violence that he would so direct his counsels and prosper his affairs that His Government may be a long and publick Blessing to these Nations SERMON VIII Preached at GUILD-HALL Chappel JUNE 9. 1671. MATTHEW XXI XLIII Therefore say I unto you the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof THE time was now very near approaching wherein the Son of God was to suffer an accursed death by the hands of ungrateful men and to let them see that he laid no impossible command upon men when he bid them love their enemies he expresses the truest kindness himself towards those who designed his destruction For what can be imagined greater towards such whose malice was like to end in nothing short of their own ruine than by representing to them the evils they must suffer to disswade them from that which they intended to do But if neither the sense of their future miseries nor their present sins will at all abate their fury or asswage their malice nothing is then left for kindness to shew it self by but by lamenting their folly bemoaning their obstinacy and praying God to have pity upon them who have so little upon themselves And all these were very remarkable in the carriage of our Blessed Saviour towards his most implacable enemies he had taken care to instruct them by his doctrine to convince them by his miracles to oblige them by the first offers of the greatest mercy but all these things had no other effect upon them than to heighten their malice increase their rage and make them more impatient till they had destroyed him But their stupidity made him more sensible of their folly and their obstinacy stirred up his compassion towards them in so much that the nearer he approached to his own sufferings the greater sense he expressed of theirs For he was no sooner come within view of that bloody City wherein he was within few days to suffer by as well as for the sins of men but his compassion breaks forth not only by his weeping over it but by that passionate expression which is abrupt only by the force of his grief If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are bid from thine eyes And when he was within the City he could not mention the desolation which was to come upon it for all the righteous blood which had been spilt there but he presently subjoyns O Hierusalem Hierusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy Children together as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings and ye would not what words could more emphatically express the love and tenderness of Christ towards his greatest enemies than these do especially considering that he knew how busie they were in contriving his sufferings while he was so passionately lamenting theirs And when their malice had done its utmost upon him and they saw him hanging upon the Cross and ready to yield up his last breath he imploys the remainder of it in begging pardon for them in those pathetical words Father forgive them for they know not what they do By all which we see that what punishments soever the Jewish nation underwent afterwards for the great sin of crucifying the Lord of life were no effect of meer revenge from him upon them but the just judgement of God which they had drawn upon themselves by their own obstinacy and wilful blindness And that they might not think themselves surprised when the dreadful effects of Gods anger should seize upon them our Saviour as he drew nearer to the time of his sufferings gives them more frequent and serious warnings of the sad consequence of their incorrigibleness under all the means of cure which had been used among them For they were so far from being amended by them that they not only despised the remedy but the Physitians too as though that were a small thing they beat they wound they kill those who came to cure them but as if it had not been enough to have done these things to servants to let the world see how dangerous it is to attempt the cure of incorrigible sinners when God sent his own Son to them expecting they should reverence him they find a peculiar reason for taking him out of the way for then the inheritance would be their own But so miserably do sinners miscarry in their designs for their advantage that those things which they build their hopes the most upon prove the most fatal and pernicious to them When these persons thought themselves sure of the inheritance by killing the Son that very sin of theirs not only put them out of possession but out of the hopes of recovering what interest they had in it before For upon this it is that our Saviour here saith in the words of the Text Therefore say I unto you that the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof Which words are the application which our Saviour makes of the foregoing parable concerning the vineyard which it seems the Chief Priests and Pharisees did not apprehend themselves to be concerned in till he brought the application of it so close to them so that then they find they had condemned themselves when they so readily passed so severe a sentence upon those husbandmen who had so ill requited the Lord of the Vineyard for all the care he had taken about it that instead of sending him the fruits of it they abuse his messengers and at last murther his Son When therefore Christ asks them When the Lord therefore of the Vineyard cometh what will he do unto those husbandmen They thought the case so plain that they never take time to consider or go forth to advise upon it but bring in a present answer upon the evidence of the fact They say unto him he will miserably destroy those wicked men and will let out his Vineyard to other husbandmen which shall render him the fruits in their seasons Little did they think what a dreadful sentence they passed upon themselves and their own nation in these words little did they think that hereby they condemned their Temple to be burned their City to be destroyed their Country to be ruined their Nation to be Vagabonds over the face of the earth little did they think that herein they justified God in all the miseries which they suffered afterwards for in these words they vindicate God and condemn themselves they acknowledge Gods Justice in the severest punishments he should inflict upon such obstinate wretches Our Saviour having gained this confession from
apparent that in all this long captivity they never have had the heart to repent of the sin of crucifying Christ other sins they confess and say they heartily repent of but why then hath not God accepted of their repentance and brought them back into their own Land according to the promises he long since made unto their Fathers Which is a certain argument it is some sin as yet unrepented of by them which continues them under all their sufferings and what can this be but that horrid sin of putting to death the son of God with that dreadful imprecation which to this day hath its force upon them His blood be upon us and our Children and this sin they are so far from repenting of that they still justify their Fathers in what they did and Blaspheme Christ to this day in their prayers where they think they may do it with safety And to all this we may add that the ensuing calamities were exactly soretold by that Christ whom they crucified and if no other argument would convince them that he was at least a Prophet yet the punctual accomplishment of all his predictions ought to do it as will appear by comparing Matth. 24. With the series of the story And it is observable that the very place where our Saviour foretold these things viz. the Mount of Olives was the first wherein the Roman Army encamped before Hierusalem And as they had crucified the Son of God and put the Lord of glory to open shame mocking and deriding him in his sufferings so when the Romans came to revenge his quarrel upon them they took the captive Jews and crucified them openly in the view of the City 500. oft-times in a day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in different forms for sport sake as Iosephus tells us who was then in the Roman camp and withal adds their numbers were so great that these was no room left for the crosses to stand or wood enough to make crosses of And they who had bought the blood of the Son of God for 30. pieces of silver had this sin of theirs severely punished when such multitudes of the Jews 2000 in one night had their bowels ript up by the Roman Souldiers in hopes to have found the gold and silver there which they were supposed to have swallowed And what greater argument can we have to believe that such judgements fell upon them upon the account of their sin in crucifying Christ than that they were so punctually foretold so long before and had all things so exactly answering in the accomplishment of them For when Christ spake those things the Jews thought their destruction as incredible as that he was the Messias but what greater evidence could there be to them that he was so than that God did so severely avenge his blood upon them and continues to do it for their unbelief and impenitency to this very day But it may be some will say what are all these things to us we are none of those who crucified Christ or justify the doing it Thanks be to God the Kingdom of God is not taken from us but we enjoy what was taken from them To which I answer If we really were what we pretend to be these things are of great consequence to be considered by us 1. For is it nothing to us to have so great an argument of the truth of our Religion as the sufferings of the Jews to this day is for the sin of crucifying Christ As often as we think of them we ought to consider the danger of infidelity and the heavy judgements which that brings upon a people We may take some estimate of the wrath of God against that sin by the desolation of the Country and the miseries of the inhabitants of it When you think it a small sin to despise the Son of God to revile his doctrine and reproach his miracles consider then what the Jews have suffered for these sins As long as they continue a people in the world they are the living monuments of the Vengeance of God upon an incorrigible and unbelieving nation And it may be one of the ends of Gods dispersing them almost among all nations that as often as they see and despise them they may have a care of those sins which have made them a byword and reproach among men who once were a nation beloved of God and feared by men See what it is to despise the offers of grace to reproach and ill use the Messengers of it who have no other errand but to perswade men to accept that Grace and bring forth the fruits thereof See what it is for men to be slaves to their own lusts which makes them not only neglect their own truest interest but that of their nation too If that had not been the fundamental miscarriage of the rulers of the Jewish nation at the time of our Saviour they would most readily have entertained him and saved their land from ruine See what it is for a people to be high in conceit of themselves and to presume upon Gods favour towards them For there never was a nation more self opinionated as to their wisdom goodness and interest with God than the Jews were when they began their war and the confidence of this made them think it long till they had destroyed themselves See what it is to be once engaged too far in a bad cause how hard it is though they suffer never so much for it afterwards for them to repent of it We might have thought the Jews when they had seen the destruction of Ierusalem would have come off from their obstinacy but how very few in comparison from that time to this have sincerely repented of the sins of their Fore-fathers in the death of Christ. See how hard a matter it is to conquer the prejudices of education and to condemn the most unjust actions of those when we come to understanding whom from our infancy we had in veneration For it is in great measure because they were their Ancestors that the Jews to this day are so hardly convinced they could be guilty of so soul a sin as crucifying the Messias 2. Is it nothing to us what they have suffered who enjoy the greatest blessings we have by their means and upon the same terms which they did For to them at first were committed the Oracles of God we enjoy all the excellent and sacred records of ancient times from them all the prophecies of the men whom God raised up and inspired from time to time among them By their means we converse with those great persons Moses David Solomon and others and understand their wisdom and piety by the writings which at this day we enjoy By them we have conveyed to us all the particular prophesies which relate to the Messias which point out the Tribe the place the time the very person he was to be born of By their means
clemency and the greatest severity the richest mercy and the strictest justice the most glorious rewards and intollerable punishments accordingly we find God therein described as a tender Father and as a terrible Judge as a God of peace and as a God of vengeance as an everlasting happiness and a consuming fire and the Son of God as coming once with great humility and again with Majesty and great glory once with all the infirmities of humane nature and again with all the demonstrations of a Divine power and presence once as the Son of God to take away the sins of the world by his death and passion and again as Judge of the world with flaming fire to execute vengeance on all impenitent sinners The intermixing of these in the doctrine of the Gospel was necessary in order to the benefit of mankind by it that such whom the condescension of his first appearance could not oblige to leave off their sins the terrour of his second may astonish when they foresee the account that will be taken of their ingratitude and disobedience that such who are apt to despise the meanness of his birth the poverty of his life and the shame of his death may be filled with horrour and amazement when they consider the Majesty of his second coming in the clouds to execute judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly not only of their ungodly deeds but of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him And we shall easily see what great reason there is that this second coming of Christ to judgement should be called the terrour of the Lord if we consider 1. The terror of the preparation for it 2. The terror of the appearance in it 3. The terror of the proceedings upon it 4. The terror of the sentence which shall then be passed 1. The terror of the preparation for it which is particularly described by St. Peter in these words But the day of the Lord will come as a Thies in the night in which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with servent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up This day will come as a Thief in the night by way of surprise when it is not looked for and that makes it so much the more dreadful A lesser calamity coming suddenly doth astonish more than a far greater which hath been long expected for surprisals confound mens thoughts daunt their Spirits and betray all the succours which reason offers But when the surprise shall be one of the least astonishing circumstances of the misery men fall into what unconceivable horrour will possess their minds at the appâ—ehension of it What confusion and amazement may we imagine the soul of that man in whom our Saviour speaks of in his parable who being pleased with the fulness of his condition said to his soul soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry but God said to him thou fool this might thy soul shall be required of thee then whose shall those things be that thou hast provided Had God only said this night shall thy burns be burnt and thy substance consumed to ashes which thou hast laid up for so many years that would have caused a strange consternation in him for the present but he might have comforted himself with the hopes of living and getting more But this night shall thy soul be required of thee O dreadful words O the tremblings of body the anguish of mind the pangs and convulsions of conscience which such a one is tormented with at the hearing of them What sad reflections doth he presently make upon his own folly And must all the mirth and ease I promised my self for so many years be at an end now in a very few hours Nay must my mirth be so suddenly turned into bitter howlings and my ease into a bed of flames Must my soul be thus torn away from the things it loved and go where it will hate to live and can never dye O miserable creature to be thus deceived by my own folly to be surprised after so many warnings to betray my self into everlasting misery fear horrour and despair have already taken hold on me and are carrying me where they will never leave me These are the Agonies but of one single person whom death snatches away in the midst of his years his pleasures and his hopes but such as these the greatest part of the world will fall into when that terrible day of the Lord shall come For as it was in the days of Noe so shall it be also in the day of the Son of Man they did eat they drank they married wives they were given in marriage until the day that Noe entred into the Ark and the flood came and destroyed them all Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot they did eat they drank they bought they sold they planted they builded but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstome from Heaven and destroyed them all even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth If some of the è expressions seem to relate to the unexpected coming of Christ to judgement upon Hierusalem we are to consider that was not only a fore-runner but a figure of Christs coming to judge the world And that may be the great reason why our Saviour mixeth his discourses of both these so much together as he doth for not only the judgement upon that nation was a draught as it were in little of the great day but the symptoms and fore-runners of the one were to bear a proportion with the other among which the strange security of that people before their destruction was none of the least And the surprise shall be so much the more astonishing when the day of the Lord shall come upon the whole world as the terâ—or and consequents of that univerial judgement shall exceed the overthrow of the Jewish Polity But supposing men were aware of its approach and prepared for it the burning of the Temple and City of Hierusalem though so frightful a spectacle to the beholders of it was but a mean representation of the terror that shall be at the conflagration of the whole world When the Heavens shall pass away with a great â—oise or with a mighty force as some interpret it and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat i. e. when all the fiery bodies in the upper regions of this world which have been kept so long in an even and regular course within their several limits shall then be let loose again and by a more rapid and violent motion shall put the world into confusion and
govern those who were yet under the night of Ignorance Why may not the Firmament being in the midst of the Waters imply the erection of the Jeâ—…ish State in the midst of a great deal of trouble since it is confeâ—â—ed that Waters are often taken in Scripture in a Metaphorical sense for troubles and afflictions and the Earth appearing out of the Waters be no more but the settlement of that state aftâ—â—â—tâ— troubles and particularly with great elegancy aâ—ter 〈◊〉 pâ—…age through the Red Sea And the production of Herbs and living Creatures be the great encrease of the People of all sorts as well those of a meaner rank and therefore called herbs as those of a higher that were to live upon the other and sometimes trample upon them and therefore by way of excellency called the Living Creatures And when these were multiplied and brought into order which being done by steps and degrees is said to be finished in several days then the State and the Church flourished and enjoyed a great deal of pleasure which was the production of Man and Woman and their being placed in Paradise for a perfect Man notes a high degree of perfection and a Woman is taken for the Church in the Revelations But when they followed the Customs of other Nations which were as a forbidden tree to them then they lost all their happiness and pleasure and were expelled out of their own Country and lived in great slavery and misery which was the Curse pronounced against them for violating the rules of Policy established among them Thus you see how small a measure of wit by the advantage of those ways of interpreting Scripture which the subtilest of our adversaries make use of will serve to pervert the clearest expressions of Scripture to quite another sense than was ever intended by the Writer of them And I assure you if that rule of interpreting Scripture be once allowed that where words are ever used in a Metaphorical sense there can be no necessity of understanding them in a proper there is scarce any thing which you look on as the most necessary to be believed in Scripture but it may be made appear not to be so upon those terms for by reason of the paucity and therefore the ambiguity of the Original words of the Hebrew language the strange Idioms of it the different senses of the same word in several Conjugations the want of several modes of expression which are used in other Languages and above all the lofty and Metaphorical way of speaking used in all Eastern Countries and the imitation of the Hebrew Idioms in the Greek translation of the Old Testament and Original of the New you can hardly affix a sense upon any words used therein but a man who will be at the pains to search all possible significations and uses of those words will put you hard to it to make good that which you took to be the proper meaning of them Wherefore although I will not deny to our adversaries the praise of subtilty and diligence I cannot give them that which is much more praise worthy viz. of discretion and sound judgement For while they use their utmost industry to search all the most remote and Metaphorical senses of words with a design to take off the genuine and proper meaning of them they do not attend to the ill consequence that may be made of this to the overthrowing those things the belief of which themselves make necessary to salvation For by this way the whole Gospel may be made an Allegory and the Resurrection of Christ be thought as metaphorical as the Redemption by his Death and the sorce of all the Precepts of the Gospel avoided by some unusual signification of the words wherein they are delivered So that nothing can be more unreasonable than such a method of proceeding unless it be first sufficiently proved that the matter is not capable of the proper sense and therefore of necessity the improper only is to be allowed And this is that which Socinus seems after all his pains to pervert the meaning of the places in controversie to rely on most viz. That the Doctrine of satisfaction doth imply an impossibility in the thing it self and therefore must needs be false nay he saith the infallibility of the Revealer had not been enough in this Case supposing that Christ had said it and risen from the dead to declare his own Veracity unless he had delivered it by its proper causes and effects and so shewed the possibility of the thing it self And the reason he saith why they believe their Doctrine true is not barely because God hath said it but they believe certainly that God hath said it because they know it to be true by knowing the contrary Doctrine to be impossible The controversie then concerning the meaning of the places in dispute is to be resolved from the nature and reasonableness of the matter contained in them for if Socinus his reason were answerable to his confidence if the account we give of the sufferings of Christ were repugnant not only to the Justice Goodness and Grace of God but to the nature of the thing if it appear impossible that mankind should be redeemed in a proper sense or that God should be propitiated by the Death of his Son as a Sacrifice for sin if it enervate all the Precepts of Obedience and tends rather to justifie sins than those who do repent of them I shall then agree that no industry can be too great in searching Authors comparing places examining Versions to find out such a sense as may be agreeable to the nature of things the Attributes of God and the design of Christian Religion But if on the contrary the Scripture doth plainly assert those things from whence our Doctrine follows and without which no reasonable account can be given either of the expressions used therein or of the sufferings of Christ if Christs death did immediately respect God as a sacrifice and were paid as a price for our Redemption if such a design of his death be so far from being repugnant to the nature of God that it highly manifests his Wisdom Justice and Mercy if it assert nothing but what is so far from being impossible that it is very reconcileable to the common principles of Reason as well as the Free-Grace of God in the pardon of sin if being truly understood it is so far from enervating that it advances highly all the purposes of Christian Religion then it can be no less than a betraying one of the grand Truths of the Christian Doctrine not to believe ours to be the true sense of the places in controversie And this is that which I now take upon me to maintain For our clearer proceeding herein nothing will be more necessary than to understand the true state of the Controversie which hath been rendred more obscure by the mistakes of some who have
controversie with all clearness and brevity And the substance of it will be reduced to these two debates 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion 2. Whether the death of Christ in particular were a proper expiatory sacrifice for sin or only an antecedent condition to his exercise of the Office of Priesthood in Heaven 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion for that it must be one or the other of these two cannot be denyed by our Adversaries for the inflicting those sufferings upon Christ must either proceed from an antecedent meritorious cause or not If they do they are then punishments if not they are meer exercises of power and dominion whatever ends they are intended for and whatever recompence be made for them So Crellius asserts that God as absolute Lord of all had a right of absolute dominion upon the life and body of Christ and therefore might justly deliver him up to death and give his body to the Cross and although Christ by the ordinary force of the Law of Moses had a right to escape so painful and accursed death yet God by the right of dominion had the power of disposal of him because he intended to compensate his torments with a reward infinitely greater than they were but because he saith for great ends the consent of Christ was necessary therefore God did not use his utmost dominion in delivering him up by force as he might have done but he dealt with him by way of command and rewards proposed for obedience and in this sence he did act as a righteous Governor and indulgent Father who encouraged his Son to undergo hard but great things In which we see that he makes the sufferings of Christ an act of meer dominion in God without any antecedent cause as the reason of them only he qualifies this act of dominion with the proposal of a reward for it But we must yet further enquire into their meaning for though here Crellius attributes the sufferings of Christ meerly to Gods dominion without any respect to sin yet elsewhere he will allow a respect that was had to sin antecedently to the sufferings of Christ and that the sins of men were the impulsive cause of them And although Socinus in one place utterly denies any lawful-antecedent cause of the death of Christ besides the will of God and Christ yet Crellius in his Vindication saith by lawful cause he meant meritorius or such upon supposition of which he ought to dye for elsewhere he makes Christ to dye for the cause or by the occasion of our sins which is the same that Crellius means by an impulsive or procatartick cause Which he thus explains we are now to suppose a decree of God not only to give salvation to Mankind but to give us a firm hope of it in this present state now our sins by deserving eternal punishment do hinder the effect of that decree upon us and therefore they were an impulsive cause of the death of Christ by which it was effected that this decree should obtain notwithstanding our sins But we are not to understand as though this were done by any expiation of the guilt of sin by the death of Christ but this effect is hindred by three things by taking away their sins by assuring men that their former sins and present infirmities upon their sincere obedience shall not be imputed to them and that the effect of that decree shall obtain all which saith he is effected morte Christi interveniente the death of Christ intervening but not as the procuring cause So that after all these words he means no more by making our sins an impulsive cause of the death of Christ but that the death of Christ was an argument to confirm to us the truth of his Doctrine which doctrine of his doth give us assurance of these things and that our sins when they are said to be the impulsive cause are not to be considered with a respect to their guilt but to that distrust of God which our sins do raise in us which distrust is in truth according to this sense of Crellius the impulsive cause and not the sins which were the cause or occasion of it For that was it which the doctrine was designed to remove and our sins only as the causes of that But if it be said that he speaks not only of the distrust but of the punishment of sin as an impediment which must be removed too and therefore may be called an impulsive cause we are to consider that the removal of this is not attributed to the death of Christ but to the leaving of our sins by the belief of his Doctrine therefore the punishment of our sins cannot unless in a very remote sense be said to be an impulsive cause of that which for all that we can observe by Crellius might as well have been done without it if any other way could be thought sufficient to confirm his Doctrine and Christ without dying might have had power to save all them that obey him But we understand not an impulsive cause in so remote a sense as though our sins were a meer occasion of Christs dying because the death of Christ was one argument among many others to believe his Doctrine the belief of which would make men leave their sins but we contend for a neerer and more proper sense viz. that the death of Christ was primarily intended for the expiation of our sins with a respect to God and not to us and therefore our sins as an impulsive cause are to be considered as they are so displeasing to God that it was necessary for the Vindication of Gods Honour and the deterring the world from sin that no less a Sacrifice of Attonement should be offered than the blood of the Son of God So that we understand an impulsive cause here in the sense that the sins of the people were under the Law the cause of the offering up those Sacrifices which were appointed for the expiation of them And as in those Sacrifices there were two things to be considered viz. the mactation and the oblation of them the former as a punishment by a substitution of them in place of the persons who had offended the latter as the proper Sacrifice of attonement although the mactation it self considered with the design of it was a Sacrificial act too So we consider the sufferings of Christ with a twofold respect either as to our sins as the impulsive cause of them so they are to be considered as a punishment or as to God with a design to expiate the guilt of them so they are a Sacrifice of Attonement The first consideration is that we are now upon and upon which the present debate
expiation of sins to have been performed there which they utterly deny and say that Christ only took the Cross in his way to his Ascension to Heaven that there he might expiate sins But doth not St. Peter say that what was done by him here was in his body on the tree and they will not say he carryed that with him to Heaven too Well but what then was the taking away of sin which belonged to Christ upon the Cross is it only to perswade men to live vertuously and leave off their sins This Socinus would have and Crellius is contented that it should be understood barely of taking away sins and not of the punishment of them but only by way of accession and consequence but if it be taken which he inclines more to for the punishment then he saith it is to be understood not of the vertue and efficacy of the death of Christ but of the effect and yet a little after he saith those words of Christs bearing our sins are to be understood of the force and efficacy of Christs death to do it not including the effect of it in us not as though Christ did deliver us from sins by his death but that he did that by dying upon which the taking away of sin would follow or which had a great power for the doing it So uncertain are our Adversaries in affixing any sense upon these words which may attribute any effect at all to the death of Christ upon the Cross. For if they be understood of taking away sins then they are only to be meant of the power that was in the death of Christ to perswade men to leave their sins which we must have a care of understanding so as to attribute any effect to the death of Christ in order to it but only that the death of Christ was an argument for us to believe what he said and the believing what he said would incline us to obey him and if we obey him we shall leave off our sins whether Christ had died or no supposing his miracles had the same effect on us which those of Moses had upon the Iews which were sufficient to perswade them to believe and obey without his death But if this be all that was meant by Christs bearing our sins in his body on the tree why might not St. Peter himself be said to bear them upon his cross too for his death was an excellent example of patience and a great argument to perswade men he spake truth and that doctrine which he preached was repentance and remission of sins So that by this sense there is nothing peculiar attributed to the death of Christ But taking the other sense for the taking away the punishment of sins we must see how this belongs to the death of Christ Do they then attribute our delivery from the punishment of sin to the death of Christ on the Cross yes just as we may attribute Coesars subduing Rome to his passing over Rubicon because he took that in his way to the doing of it so they make the death of Christ only as a passage in order to expiation of sins by taking away the punishment of them For that shall not be actually perfected they say till his full deliverance of all those that obey him from hell and the grave which will not be till his second coming So that if we only take the body of Christ for his second coming and the Cross of Christ or the tree for his Throne of Glory then they will acknowledge that Christ may very well be said to take away sins in his own body on the tree but if you take it in any sense that doth imply any peculiar efficacy to the death of Christ for all the plainness of St. Peters words they by no means will admit of it But because Crellius urgeth Grotius with the sense of that place Isa. 53. 11. out of which he contends these words are taken and Crellius conceives he can prove there that bearing is the same with taking away sin We now come to consider what force he can find from thence fâ—r the justifying his assertion That the bearing of sins when attributed to Christ doth not imply the punishment of them but the taking them away The words are for he shall bear their iniquities As to which Grotius observes that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies iniquity is sometimes taken for the punishment of sin 2 Kings 7. 9. and the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to bear and when ever it is joyned with sin or iniquity in all languages and especially the Hebrew it signifies to suffer punishment for although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may sometimes signifie to take away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never does so that this phrase can receive no other interpretation Notwithstanding all which Crellius attempts to prove that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here must be taken in a sense contrary to the natural and perpetual use of the word for which his first argument is very infirm viz. because it is mentioned after the death of Christ and is therefore to be considered as the the reward of the other Whereas it appears 1. By the Prophets discourse that he doth not insist on an exact methodical order but dilates and amplifies things as he sees occasion for Verse 9. he saith He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death and Verse 10. he saith Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief Will Crellius therefore say that this must be consequent to his death and burial 2. The particle 〈◊〉 may be here taken causally as we render it very agreeably to the sense and so it gives an account of the fore-going clause By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many for he shall bear their iniquities And that this is no unusual acception of that particle might be easily cleared from many places of Scripture if it were necessary and from this very Prophet as Isa. 39. 1. where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 King 20. 12. and Isa. 64. 5. Thou art wroth for we have sinned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the same particle is made the causal of what went before But we need not insist upon this to answer Crellius who elsewhere makes use of it himself and says They must be very ignorant of the Hebrew Tongue who do not know that the conjunction copulative is often taken causally and so much is confessed by Socinus also where he explains that particle in one sense in the beginning and causally in the middle of the verse And the Lords anger was kindled against Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he moved c. but if this will not do he attempts to prove That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this very Chapter hath the signification of taking away
of kindness it must be there fore out of enmity and with a design to destroy him and so our sins cannot be understood as Socinus and Crellius would have them as the meer occasions of Christs death but as the proper impulsive cause of it Whether the following word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be taken with a respect to sin and so it properly signifies It is required or with a respect to the person and so it may signifie he was oppressed is not a matter of that consequence which we ought to contend about if it be proved that Christs oppression had only a respect to sin as the punishment of it Which will yet further appear from another expression in the same Chapter vers 5. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed In which Grotius saith the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie any kind of affliction but such as hath the nature of punishment either for example or instruction but since the latter cannot be intended in Christ the former must Crellius thinks to escape from this by acknowledging that the sufferings of Christ have some respect to sin but if it be such a respect to sin which makes what Christ underwent a punishment which is only proper in this case it is as much as we contend for This therefore he is loth to abide by and saith that chastisement imports no more than bare affliction without any respect to sin which he thinks to prove from St. Pauls words 2 Cor. 6. 9. We are chastised but not given over to death but how far this is from proving his purpose will easily appear 1. Because those by whom they were said to be chastened did not think they did it without any respect to a fault but they supposed them to be justly punished and this is that we plead for that the chastisement considered with a respect to him that inflicts it doth suppose some fault as the reason of inflicting it 2. This is far from the present purpose for the chastisement there mentioned is oposed to death as chastened but not killed whereas Grotius expresly speaks of such chastisements as include death that these cannot be supposed to be meerly designed for instruction and therefore must be conceived under the notion of punishment The other place Psal. 73. 14. is yet more remote from the business for though the Psalmist accounts himself innocent in respect of the great enormities of others yet he could not account himself so innocent with a respect to God as not to deserve chastisement from him But Crellius offers further to prove that Christs death must be considered as a bare affliction and not as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or exemplary punishment because in such a punishment the guilty themselves are to be punished and the benefit comes to those who were not guilty but in Christs sufferings it was quite contrary for the innocent was punished and the guilty have the benefit of it and yet he saith if we should grant that Christs sufferings were a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that will not prove that his death was a proper punishment To which I answer That whatever answers to the ends of an exemplary punishment may properly be called so but supposing that Christ suffered the punishment of our sins those sufferings will answer to all the ends of an exemplary punishment For the ends of such a punishment assigned by Crellius himself are That others observing such a punishment may abstain from those sins which have brought it upon the person who suffers Now the question is whether supposing Christ did suffer on the account of our sins these sufferings of his may deter us from the practice of sin or no And therefore in opposition to Crellius I shall prove these two things 1. That supposing Christ suffered for our sins there was a sufficient argument to deter us from the practice of sin 2. Supposing that his sufferings had no respect to our sins they could not have that force to deter men from the practice of it for he after asserts That Christs sufferings might be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to us though they were no punishment of sin 1. That the death of Christ considered as a punishment of sin is a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or hath a great force to deter men from the practice of sin and that because the same reason of punishment is supposed in Christ and in our selves and because the example is much more considerable than if we had suffered our selves 1. The same reason of punishment is supposed For why are men deterred from sin by seeing others punished but because they look upon the sin as the reason of the punishment and therefore where the same reason holds the same ends may be as properly obtained If we said that Christ suffered death meerly as an innocent person out of Gods dominion over his life what imaginable force could this have to deter men from sin which is asserted to have no relation to it as the cause of it But when we say that God laid our iniquities upon him that he suffered not upon his own account but ours that the sins we commit against God were the cause of all those bitter Agonies which the Son of God underwent what argument can be more proper to deter men from sin than this is For hereby they see the great abhorrency of sin which is in God that he will not pardon the sins of men without a compensation made to his Honor and a demonstration to the world of his hatred of it Hereby they see what a value God hath for his Laws which he will not relax as to the punishment of offenders without so valuable a consideration as the blood of his own Son Hereby they see that the punishment of sin is no meer arbitrary thing depending barely upon the will of God but that there is such a connexion between sin and punishment as to the ends of Government that unless the Honor and Majesty of God as to his Laws and Government may be preserved the violation of his Laws must expect a just recompence of reward Hereby they see what those are to expect who neglect or despise these sufferings of the Son of God for them for nothing can then remain but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the Adversaries So that here all the weighty arguments concur which may be most apt to prevail upon men to deter them from their sins For if God did thus by the green tree what will be do by the dry If he who was so innocent in himself so perfectly holy suffered so much on the account of our sins what then may those expect to suffer who have no innocency at all to plead and add wilfulness and impenitency to their sins But if it be replied by Crellius that it is otherwise
among men I answer that we do not pretend in all things to parallel the sufferings of Christ for us with any sufferings of men for one another But yet we add that even among men the punishments inflicted on those who were themselves innocent as to the cause of them may be as exemplary as any other And the greater appearance of severity there is in them the greater terror they strike into all offenders As Childrens losing their estates and honors or being banished for their Parents treasons in which they had no part themselves Which is a proper punishment on them of their Fathers faults whether they be guilty or no and if this may be just in men why not in God If any say that the Parents are only punished in the Children he speaks that which is contradictory to the common sense of mankind for punishment doth suppose sense or feeling of it and in this case the Parents are said to be punished who are supposed to be dead and past feeling of it and the Children who undergo the smart of it must not be said to be punished though all things are so like it that no person can imagine himself in that condition but would think himself punished and severely too If it be said that these are calamities indeed but they are no proper punishments it may easily be shewed that distinction will not hold here Because these punishments were within the design of the Law and were intended for all the ends of punishments and therefore must have the nature of them For therefore the Children are involved in the Fathers punishment on purpose to deter others from the like actions There are some things indeed that Children may fall into by occasion of their Fathers guilt which may be only calamities to them because they are necessary consequents in the nature of the thing and not purposely designed as a punishment to them Thus being deprived of the comfort and assistance of their Parents when the Law hath taken them off by the hand of justice this was designed by the Law as a punishment to the Parents and as to the Children it is only a necessary consequent of their punishment For otherwise the Parents would have been punished for the Childrens faults and not the Children only involved in that which unavoidably follows upon the Parents punishment So that Crellius is very much mistaken either in the present case of our Saviours punishment or in the general reason of exemplary punishments as among men But the case of our Saviour is more exemplary when we consider the excellency of his person though appearing in our nature when no meaner sufferings would satisfie than of so transcendent a nature as he underwent though he were the Eternal Son of God this must make the punishment much more exemplary than if he were considered only as our Adversaries do as a meer man So that the dignity of his person under all his sufferings may justly add a greater consideration to deter us from the practice of sin which was so severely punished in him when he was pleased to be a Sacrifice for our sins From whence we see that the ends of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are very agreeable with the sufferings of Christ considered as a punishment for sin We now consider whether as Crellius asserts supposing Christs death were no punishment it could have these effects upon mens minds or no Yes he saith it might because by his sufferings we might see how severely God would punish wicked and obstinate persons Which being a strange riddle at the first hearing it viz. that by the sufferings of an innocent person without any respect to sin as the cause of them we should discern Gods severity against those who are obstinate in sin we ought the more diligently to attend to what is said for the clearing of it First saith he If God spared not his own most innocent and holy and only Son than whom nothing was more dear to him in Heaven or Earth but exposed him to so cruel and ignominious a death how great and severe sufferings may we think God will inflict on wicked men who are at open defiance with him I confess my self not subtle enough to apprehend the force of this argument viz. If God dealt so severely with him who had no sin either of his own or others to answer for therefore he will deal much more severely with those that have For Gods severity considered without any respect to sin gives rather encouragement to sinners than any argument to deter them from it For the natural consequence of it is that God doth act arbitrarily without any regard to the good or evil of mens actions and therefore it is to no purpose to be sollicitous about them For upon the same account that the most innocent person suffers most severely from him for all that we know the more we strive to be innocent the more severely we may be dealt with and let men sin they can be but dealt severely with all the difference then is one shall be called punishments and the other calamities but the severity may be the same in both And who would leave off his sins meerly to change the name of punishments into that of calamities And from hence it will follow that the differences of good and evil and the respects of them to punishment and reward are but aiery and empty things but that God really in the dispensation of things to men hath no regard to what men are or do but acts therein according to his own Dominion whereby he may dispose of men how or which way he pleases If a Prince had many of his Subjects in open rebellion against him and he should at that time make his most obedient and beloved Son to be publickly exposed to all manner of indignities and be dishonoured and put to death by the hands of those rebels could any one imagine that this was designed as an exemplary punishment to all rebels to let them see the danger of rebellion No but would it not rather make them think him a cruel Prince one that would punish innocency as much as rebellion and that it was rather better to stand at defiance and become desperate for it was more dangerous to be beloved than hated by him to be his Son than his declared Enemy So that insisting on the death of Christ as it is considered as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for of that we speak now there is no comparison between our Adversaries hypothesis and ours but saith Crellius the consequence is not good on our side if Christ suffered the punishment of our sins therefore they shall suffer much more who continue in sin for Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world but they suffer only for their own and what they have deserved themselves To which I answer that the argument is of very good force upon our hypothesis
use words sometimes out of their proper and natural sense thence he tells us The sufferings of Christ are called chastisements though they have nothing of the nature of chastisements in them And from this liberty of interpreting they make words without any other reason than that they serve for their purpose be taken in several senses in the same verse For Socinus in one verse of St. Iohns Gospel makes the World be taken in three several senses He was in the World there it is taken saith he for the men of the world in general The world was made by him there it must be understood only of the reformation of things by the Gospel and the world knew him not there it must be taken in neither of the former senses but for the wicked of the world What may not one make of the Scripture by such a way of interpreting it But by this we have the less reason to wonder that Socinus should put such an Interpretation upon Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree In which he doth acknowledge by the curse in the first clause to be meant the punishment of sin but not in the second And the reason he gives for it is amavit enim Paulus in execrationis verbo argutus esse St. Paul affected playing with the word curse understanding it first in a proper and then a Metaphorical sense But it is plain that the design of S. Paul and Socinus are very different in these words Socinus thinks he speaks only Metaphorically when he saith that Christ was made a curse for us i. e. by a bare allusion of the name without a correspondency in the thing it self and so that the death of Christ might be called a curse but was not so but St. Paul speaks of this not by way of extenuation but to set forth the greatness and weight of the punishment he underwent for us He therefore tells us what it was which Christ did redeem us from The curse of the Law and how he did it by being not only made a curse but a curse for us i. e. not by being hateful to God or undergoing the very same curse which we should have done which are the two things objected by Crellius against our sense but that the death of Christ was to be considered not as a bare separation of soul and body but as properly poenal being such a kind of death which none but Malefactors by the Law were to suffer by the undergoing of which punishment in our stead he redeemed us from that curse which we were liable to by the violation of the Law of God And there can be no reason to appropriate this only to the Iews unless the death of Christ did extend only to the deliverance of them from the punishment of their sins or because the curse of the Law did make that death poenal therefore the intention of the punishment could reach no further than the Law did but the Apostle in the very next words speaks of the farther extension of the great blessing promised to Abraham That it should come upon the Gentils also and withall those whom the Apostle speaks to were not Iews but such as thought they ought to joyn the Law and Gospel together that St. Paul doth not mean as Crellius would have it that Christ by his death did confirm the New Covenant and so take away the obligation of the Law for to what end was the curse mentioned for that What did the accursedness of his death add to the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and when was ever the curse taken for the continuance of the Law of Moses but that Christ by the efficacy of his death as a punishment for sin hath redeemed all that believe and obey him from the curse deserved by their sins whether inforced by the Law of Moses or the Law written in their hearts which tells the consciences of sinners that such who violate the Laws of God are worthy of death and therefore under the curse of the Law We come now to the force of the particles which being joyned with our sins as referring to the death of Christ do imply that his death is to be considered as a punishment of sin Not that we insist on the force of those particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as though of themselves they did imply this for we know they are of various significations according to the nature of the matter they are joyned with but that these being joyned with sins and sufferings together do signifie that those sufferings are the punishment of those sins Thus it is said of Christ that he dyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he suffered once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he gave himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he offered a Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which Crellius replies That if the force of these particles not being joyned with sufferings may be taken for the final and not for the impulsive cause they may retain the same sense when joyned with sufferings if those sufferings may be designed in order to an end but if it should be granted that those phrases being joyned with sufferings do always imply a meritorious cause yet it doth not follow it should be here so understood because the matter will not bear it To this a short answer will at present serve for It is not possible a meritorious cause can be expressed more emphatically than by these words being joyned to sufferings so that we have as clear a testimony from these expressions as words can give and by the same arts by which these may be avoided any other might so that it had not been possible for our Doctrine to have been expressed in such a manner but such kind of answers might have been given as our Adversaries now give If it had been said in the plainest terms that Christs death was a punishment for our sins they would as easily have avoided the force of them as they do of these they would have told us the Apostles delighted in an Antanaclasis and had expressed things different from the natural use of the words by them and though punishment were sometimes used properly yet here it must be used only metaphorically because the matter would bear no other sense And therefore I commend the ingenuity of Socinus after all the pains he had taken to enervate the force of those places which are brought against his Doctrine he tells us plainly That if our Doctrine were not only once but frequently mentioned in Scripture yet he would not therefore believe the thing to be so as we suppose For saith he seeing the thing it self cannot be I take the least inconvenient
the Mosaical Dispensation because now they had a more excellent High-Priest than the Aaronical were and makes use of that character of a High-Priest that he was one taken out from among men in things pertaining to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins Well say the Iews we accept of this character but how do you prove concerning Christ that he was such a one Did he offer up a Sacrifice for sin to God upon earth as our High-Priests do No saith Crellius his sufferings were only a preparation for his Priesthood in Heaven But did he then offer up such a Sacrifice to God in Heaven Yes saith Crellius He made an Oblation there But is that Obligation such a Sacrifice to God for sin as our High-Priests offers Yes saith Crellius it may be called so by way of allusion Well then say they you grant that your Iesus is only a High-Priest by way of allusion which was against your first design to prove viz. That he was a true High-Priest and more excellent than ours But suppose it be by way of allusion doth he make any Oblation to God in Heaven or not No saith Crellius really and truly he doth not for all his Office doth respect us but the benefits we enjoy coming originally from the kindness of God you may call it an Oblation to God if you please But how is it possible then say the Iews you can ever convince us that he is any High-Priest or Priest at all much less that he should ever exceed the Aaronical High-Priests in their Office for we are assured that they do offer Sacrifices for sin and that God is attoned by them but if your High-Priest make no atonement for sin he falls far short of ours and therefore we will still hold to our Levitical Priesthood and not forsake that for one barely Metaphorical and having nothing really answering the name of a High-Priest Thus the force of all the Apostles Arguments is plainly taken away by what Crellius and his Brethren assert concerning the Priesthood of Christ. But Crellius thinks to make it good by saying That things that are improper and figurative may be far more excellent than the things that are proper to which they are opposed so that Christs Priesthood may be far more excellent than the Aaronical although his be only figurative and the other proper But the question is not Whether Christs Priesthood by any other adventitious considerations as of greater Power and Authority than the Aaronical Priests had may be said to be far more excellent than theirs was but Whether in the notion of Priesthood it doth exceed theirs Which it is impossible to make good unless he had some proper oblation to make unto God which in it self did far exceed all the Sacrifices and Offerings under the Law But what that oblation of Christ in Heaven was which had any correspondency with the Sacrifices under the Law our Adversaries can never assign nay when they go about it they speak of it in such a manner as makes it very evident they could heartily have wished the Epistle to the Hebrews had said as little of the Priesthood of Christ as they say any other part of the New Testament doth Thence Smalcius and Crellius insist so much upon the Priesthood of Christ being distinctly mentioned by none but the Author to the Hebrews which say they had surely been done if Christ had been a proper Priest or that Office in him distinct from his Kingly Which sufficiently discovers what they would be at viz. That the Testimony of the Author to the Hebrews is but a single Testimony in this matter and in truth they do as far as is consistent with not doing it in express words wholly take away the Priesthood of Christ For what is there which they say his Priesthood implies which he might not have had supposing he had never been called a Priest His being in Heaven doth not imply that he is a Priest unless it be impossible for any but Priests ever to come there His Power and Authority over the Church doth not imply it for that power is by themselves confessed to be a Regal power his readiness to use that power cannot imply it which is the thing Smalcius insists on for his being a King of the Church doth necessarily imply his readiness to make use of his power for the good of his Church His receiving his power from God doth not imply that he was a Priest although Crellius insists on that unless all the Kings of the Earth are Priests by that means too and Christ could not have had a subordinate power as King as well as Priest But his death is more implied saith Crellius in the name of a Priest than of a King true if his death be considered as a Sacrifice but not otherwise For what is there of a Priest in bare dying do not others so too But this represents greater tenderness and care in Christ than the meer title of a King What kind of King do they imagine Christ the mean while if his being so did not give the greatest encouragement to all his subjects nay it is plain the name of a King must yield greater comfort to his people because that implies his power to desend them which the bare name of a Priest doth not So that there could be no reason at all given why the name of a High-Priest should be at all given to Christ if no more were implied in it than the exercise of his power with respect to us without any proper oblation to God For here is no proper Sacerdotal act at all attributed to him so that upon their hypothesis the name of High-Priest is a meer insignificant title used by the Author to the Hebrews without any foundation at all for it By no means saith Cellius for his expiation of sin is implyed by it which is not implyed in the name of King True if the expiation of sin were done by him in the way of a Priest by an oblation to God which they deny but though they call it Expiation they mean no more than the exercise of his divine power in the delivering his people But what parallel was there to this in the expiation of sins by the Levitical Priesthood that was certainly done by a Sacrifice offered to God by the Priest who was thereby said to expiate the sins of the people how comes it now to be taken quite in another sense and yet still called by the same name But this being the main thing insisted on by them I shall prove from their own Principles that no expiation of sin in their own sense can belong to Christ in Heaven by vertue of his Oblation of himself there and consequently that they must unavoidably overthrow the whole notion of the Priesthood of Christ. For this we are to consider what their notion of the expiation of sins is which
into Heaven and that there is no necessity of making the oblation of Christ consequent to his death there being so great a difference between the Sacrifice of Christ and that of the Sacrifices for sin under the Levitical Law 2. We observe That the oblation as performed by the Priest did not depend upon his presenting himself before God but upon the presenting the blood of a Sacrifice which had been already slain for the expiation of sins If the Priest had gone into the Holy of Holies and there only presented himself before the Mercy-seat and that had been all required in order to the expiation of sins there had been some pretence for our Adversaries making Christs presenting himself in Heaven to be the oblation of himself to God but under the Law the efficacy of the High-Priests entrance into the Holy of Holies did depend upon the blood which he carried in thither which was the blood of the Sin-offering which was already slain for the expiation of sins And in correspondency to this Christs efficacy in his entrance into Heaven as it respects our expiation must have a respect to that Sacrifice which was offered up to God antecedent to it And I wonder our Adversaries do so much insist on the High-Priests entring into the most holy place once a year as though all the expiation had depended upon that whereas all the promise of expiation was not upon his bare entrance into it but upon the blood which he carried along with him and sprinkled there In correspondency to which our Saviour is not barely said to enter into Heaven and present himself to God but that he did this by his own blood having obtained Eternal Redemption for us 3. We observe That there was something correspondent in the death of Christ to somewhat consequent to the oblation under the Law and therefore there can be no reason to suppose that the oblation of Christ must be consequent to his death for that destroys the correspondency between them Now this appears in this particular in the solemn Sacrifices for sin after the sprinkling of the blood which was carried into the Holy place to renconcile withal all the remainder of the Sacrifice was to be burnt without the Camp and this held on the day of Atonement as well as in other Sin-offerings for the Congregation Now the Author to the Hebrews tells us That in correspondency to this Iesus that he might sanctifie the people with his own blood suffered without the gate What force is there in this unless the blood of Christ did answer to the Sin-offerings for the people and his oblation was supposed to be made before and therefore that he might have all things agreeable to those Sin-offerings the last part was to be compleated too viz. That he was to suffer without the gate which after the peoples settlement in Ierusalem answered to the being burnt without the Camp in the Wilderness 4. We observe That the Oblation in Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law by the Priest had always relation to the consumption of what was offered Thus the offering of the blood in token of the destruction of the life of the beast whose blood was offered for no blood was to be offered of a living creature nor of one killed upon any other account but for that end to be a sacrifice for sin and after the sprinkling and pouring out of the blood the inwards of some and all of the other were to be consumed by fire And it is observable that the greater the Sacrifice for sin was always the more was consumed of it as appears plainly by the forementioned difference of the Sin-offerings for private persons and for the people of the former the Priests were allowed to eat but not at all of the latter And so it was observed among the Egyptians in the most solemn Sacrifices for expiation nothing was allowed to be eaten of that part which was designed for that end For Herodotus gives us an account why the Egyptians never eat the head of any living Creature which is That when they offer up a Sacrifice they make a solemn execration upon it that if any evil were to fall upon the persons who Sacrificed or upon all Egypt it might be turned upon the head of that beast And Plutarch adds that after this solemn execration They cut off the head and of old threw it into the River but then gave it to strangers From which custom we observe that in a solemn Sacrifice for expiation the guilt of the offenders was by this rite of execration supposed to be transferred upon the head of the Sacrifice as it was in the Sacrifices among the Jews by the laying on of hands and that nothing was to be eaten of what was supposed to have that guilt transferred upon it From hence all Expiatory Sacrifices were at first whole Burnt-offerings as appears by the Patriarchal Sacrifices and the customs of other Nations and among the Jews themselves as we have already proved in all solemn offerings for the people And although in the sacrifices of private persons some parts were allowed to be eaten by the Priests yet those which were designed for expiation were consumed So that the greater the offering was to God the more it implied the Consumption of the thing which was so offered How strangely improbable then is it That the Oblation of Christ should not as under the Law have respect to his death and sufferings but to his entrance into Heaven wherein nothing is supposed to be consumed but all things given him with far greater power as our Adversaries suppose than ever he had before But we see the Apostle parallels Christs suffering with the burning of the Sacrifices and his blood with the blood of them and consequently his offering up himself must relate not to his entrance into Heaven but to that act of his whereby he suffered for sins and offered up his blood as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world From all which it appears how far more agreeably to the Oblations under the Law Christ is said to offer up himself for the expiation of sins by his death and sufferings than by his entrance into Heaven For it is apparent that the Oblations in expiatory Sacrifices under the Law were such upon which the expiation of sin did chiefly depend but by our Adversaries own confession Christs oblation of himself by his entrance into Heaven hath no immediate respect at all to the expiation of sin only as the way whereby he was to enjoy that power by which he did expiate sins as Crellius saith now let us consider what more propriety there is in making this presenting of Christ in Heaven to have a correspondency with the legal Oblations than the offering up himself upon the Cross. For 1. on the very same reason that his entrance into Heaven is made an Oblation his death is so
That the effects of a proper Sacrifice for sin are attributed to it Which do either respect the sins committed and are then called Expiation and Remission or the persons who were guilty of them as they stand obnoxious to the displeasure of God and so the effect of them is Atonement and Reconciliation Now these we shall prove do most properly and immediately refer to the death of Christ and are attributed to it as the procuring cause of them and not as a bare condition of Christs entrance into Heaven or as comprehending in it the consequents of it I begin with the Expiation and Remission of sins as to which Socinus doth acknowledge That the great correspondency doth lie between Christs and the Legal Sacrifices We are therefore to enquire 1. What respect the Expiation of sins had to the Sacrifices under the Law 2. In what sense the Expiation of sins in attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ For the due explication of the respect which Expiation of sins had to the Legal Sacrifices we are to consider in what sense Expiation is understood and in what respect it is attributed to them For this we are to enquire into the importance of the several phrases it is set sorth by which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New all which are acknowledged by our Adversaries to have a peculiar respect to the Expiation made by a Sacrifice We shall begin with the former because Crellius objects this against Grotius That he imployed his greatest diligence in the explication of the Greek and Latin words for Expiation of sin and was contented only to say that the Hebrew words would bear the same signification Whereas saith he he ought to have proved that the Hebrew words do require that sense which he takes them in But by Crellius his leave Grotius took the best course was to be taken in words whose signification is so obscure as those are in the Hebrew Language For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being so very rarely used in Scripture in that which Socinus and Crellius contend to be the proper and natural signification of it viz. To hide or cover and so frequently in the sense of Expiation what better way could be taken for determining the sense of it as applied to Sacrifices than by insisting upon those words which are used in the New-Testament to the very same purpose that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in the old For they cannot pretend that which they say is the most proper sense can be applied to this subject viz. To cover with pitch or a bituminous matter which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 6. 14. therefore it must of necessity be taken in another sense here But Socinus contends That it ought to be taken in a sense most agreeable to that which is saith he that the Expiation of sin be nothing else but the covering of it by Gods grace and benignity Thence saith he David saith Blessed is the man whose iniquity is covered But how can this prove that the proper signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to sin is covering by Gods Grace when neither the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here used nor is there any respect at all mentioned of an Expiation by Sacrifice which is the thing we are discoursing of And is the covering of sin such an easie and intelligible phrase that this should be made choice of to explain the difficulty of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by What is it that they would have us understand by the covering sin surely not to make it stronger and more lasting as the Ark was covered with that bituminous matter for that end and yet this would come the nearest to the proper sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that from their own interpretation it appears that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to the expiation of sin by Sacrifices cannot be taken so much as in allusion to that other sense for their sense of Expiation is either by the destruction of sin or deliverance of the sinner from the punishment of it but what resemblance is there between the covering of a thing in order to its preservation and the making it not to be or at least destroying all the power of it But supposing we should grant that it hath some allusion to the sense of covering why must it necessarily be supposed to be done by the meer Grace of God as excluding all antecedent causes which should move to it would not the propriety of the sense remain as well supposing a moving cause as excluding it What should hinder but that God may be said as well to cover sin upon a Sacrifice as to forgive it and this is very frequently used upon a Sacrifice That the sin shall be forgiven But yet themselves acknowledge that the Sacrifices were conditions required in order to expiation if then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath an immediate respect to Gods immediate favour and benignity how comes it to be used where a condition is necessarily supposed in order to it Had it not been more agreeable to this benignity of God to have pardon'd sin without requiring any sacrifice for it than so strictly insisting upon the offering up Sacrifice in order to it and then declaring that the sin is expiated and it should be forgiven from hence we see that there is no necessity why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be used as applyed to sacrifices in a sense most agreeable to that of covering with pitch nor that it is not possible it should have such a sense when applyed to sins and withal that it is very consistent with an antecedent condition to it and therefore can by no means destroy satisfaction Yes saith Crellius it doth for expiation is explained in the Law by non-imputation Deut. 21. 8. Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whâ—m thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israels charge and the blood shall be forgiven them But not to impute saith he and to receive true and full satisfaction overthrow each other and so expiation being the same with that will overthrow it too To this I answer 1. I grant that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here used both as applyed to God and to the sin and that the sense of it is used as to the people when the prayer is that God would not lay it to their charge which is the same with expiating of it 2. We are to consider what the foundation of this Prayer was viz. the slaying of the Heifer for expiation of the uncertain murder and when the Elders had washed their hands over the head of the Heifer then they were to protest their own innocency and to use this prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expiate thy people Israel c. i. e.
in the New Testament between the Sacrifice of Christ and those Levitical Sacrifices Can any one I say imagine upon these considerations that the Sacrifices had no other respect to the expiation of sin than as they were a slight testimony of their obedience to God Why were not an inward sorrow for sin and tears and prayers rather made the only conditions of Expiation than such a burthensome and chargeable service imposed upon them which at last signified nothing but that a command being supposed they would have sinned if they had broken it But upon our supposition a reasonable account is given of all the expiatory Sacrifices viz. That God would have them see how highly he esteemed his Laws because an expiation was not to be made for the breach of them but by the sacrificing of the life of some Creature which he should appoint in stead of the death of the Offender and if the breach of those Laws which he had given them must require such an expiation what might they then think would the sins of the whole world do which must be expiated by a Sacrifice infinitely greater than all those put together were viz. The death and sufferings of the Son of God for the sins of men But if the offering Sacrifice had been a bare condition required of the person who committed the fault in order to expiation Why is it never said That the person who offered it did expiate his own fault thereby For that had been the most proper sense for if the expiation did depend on the offering the Sacrifice as on the condition of it then the performing the condition gave him an immediate right to the benefit of the promise If it be said That his own act was not only necessary in bringing the Sacrifice but the Priests also in offering up the blood This will not make it at all the more reasonable because the pardon of sin should not only depend upon a mans own act but upon the act of another which he could not in reason be accountable for if he miscarried in it If the Priest should refuse to do his part or be unfit to do it or break some Law in the doing of it how hard would it seem that a mans sins could not be expiated when he had done all that lay in his own power in order to the expiation of them but that another person whose actions he had no command over neglected the doing his duty So that if the Sacrifice had no other influence on expiation but as a part of obedience in all reason the expiation should have depended on no other conditions but such as were under the power of him whose sins were to be expiated by it But Crellius urgeth against our sense of Expiation That if it were by Substitution then the Expiation would be most properly attributed to the Sacrifices themselves whereas it is only said that by the Sacrifices the Expiation is obtained but that God or the Priest do expiate and to God it belongs properly because he takes away the guilt and punishment of sin which is saith he all meant by expiation to the Priest only consequently as doing what God requires in order to it and to the Sacrifices only as the conditions by which it was obtained But if the Expiation doth properly belong to God and implies no more than bare pardon it is hard to conceive that it should have any necessary relation to the blood of the Sacrifice but the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us that Remission had a necessary respect to the shedding of blood so that without that there was no remission How improperly doth the Apostle discourse throughout that Chapter wherein he speaks so much concerning the blood of the Sacrifices purisying and in correspondency to that the blood of Christ purging our Consciences and that all things under the Law were purified with blood Had all this no other significatiâ—n but that this was a bare condition that had no other importance but as a meer act of obedience when God had required it why doth not the Apostle rather say without Gods favour there is no remission than without the shedding of blood if all the expiation did prâ—perly belong to that and only very remotely to the blood of the Sacrifice What imaginable necessity was there that Christ must shed his blood in order to the expiation of our sins if all that bloâ—d of the Legal Sacrifices did signifie no more than a bare condition of pardon though a slight part of obedience in it self Why must Christ lay down his life in correspondency to these Levitical Sacrifices for that was surely no slight part of his obedience Why might not this condition have been dispensed with in him since our Adversaries say that in it self it hath no proper efficacy on the expiation of sin And doth not this speak the greatest repugnancy to the kindness and Grace of God in the Gospel that he would not dispense with the ignominious death of his Son although he knew it could have no influence of it self on the expiation of the sins of the world But upon this supposition that the blood of Sacrifices under the Law had no proper influence upon Expiation the Apostles discourse proceeds upon weak and insufficient grounds For what necessity in the thing was there because the blood of the Sacrifices was made a condition of pardon under the Law therefore the blood of Christ must be so now although in it self it hath no proper efficacy for that end But the Apostles words and way of Argumentation doth imply that there was a peculiar efficacy both in the one and the other in order to Expiation although a far greater in the blood of Christ than could be in the other as the thing typified ought to exceed that which was the representation of it From hence we see that the Apostle attributes what Expiation there was under the Law not immediately to God as belonging properly to him but to the blood of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean Which he had very great reason to do since God expresly saith to the Iews that the blood was given them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad expiandum to expiate for their souls for the blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall expiate the soul. Than which words nothing could have been more plainly said to overthrow Crellius his assertion that Expiation is not properly or chiefly attributed to the Sacrifices but primarily to God and consequentially to the Priest who is never said to expiate but by the Sacrifice which he offered so that his Office was barely Ministerial in it But from this we may easily understand in what sense God is said to expiate sins where it hath respect to a Sacrifice which is that we are now discoursing of and not in any larger or more improper use of the word for since God himself
procuring it And in that sense we acknowledge That the death of Christ was a declaration of Gods will and decree to pardon but not meerly as it gave testimony to the truth of his Doctrine for in that sense the blood of the Apostles and Martyrs might be said to purge us from sin as well as the blood of Christ but because it was the consideration upon which God had decreed to pardon And so as the acceptance of the condition required or the price paid may be â—aid to declare or manifest the intention of a person to release or deliver a Captive So Gods acceptance of what Christ did suffer for our sakes may be said to declare his readiness to pardon us upon his account But then this declaration doth not belong properly to the act of Christ in suffering but to the act of God in accepting and it can be no other ways known than Gods acceptance is known which was not by the Sufferings but by the Resurrection of Christ. And therefâ—re the declaring Gods will and decree to pardon doth properly belong to that and if that had been all which the Scripture had meant by purging of sin by the blood of Christ it had been very incongruously applied to that but most properly to his Resurrection But these phrases being never attributed to that which most properly might be said to declare the will of God and being peculiarly attributed to the death of Christ which cannot be said properly to do it nothing can be more plain than that these expressions ought to be taken in that which is confessed to be their proper sense viz. That Expiation of sin which doth belong to the death of Christ as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world But yet Socinus and Crellius have another subterfuge For therein lies their great art in seeking rather by any means to escape their enemies than to overcome them For being sensible that the main scope and design of the Scripture is against them they seldom and but very weakly assault but shew all their subtilty in avoiding by all imaginable arts the force of what is brought against them And the Scripture being so plain in attributing such great effects to the death of Christ when no other answer will serve turn then they tell us That the death of Christ is taken Metonymically for all the consequents of his death viz. His Resurrection Exaltation and the Power and Authority which he hath at the right hand of his Father But how is it possible to convince those who by death can understand life by sufferings can mean glory and by the shedding of blood sitting at the right hand of God And that the Scripture is very far from giving any countenance to these bold Interpretations will appear by these considerations 1. because the effect of Expiation of our sins is attributed to the death of Christ as distinct from his Resurrection viz. Our reconciliation with God Rom. 5. 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life To which Crellius answers That the Apostle doth not speak of the death of Christ alone or as it is considered distinct from the consequences of it but only that our Reconciliation was effected by the death of Christ intervening But nothing can be more evident to any one who considers the design of the Apostles discourse than that he speaks of what was peculiar to the death of Christ for therefore it is said that Christ dyed for the ungodly For scarcely for a righteous man will one dye but God commâ—ndeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved through him upon which those words follow For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son c. The Reconciliation here mentioned is attributed to the death of Christ in the same sense that it is mentioned before but there it is not mentioned as a bare condition intervening in order to something farther but as the great instance of the love both of God and Christ of God in sending his Son of Christ in laying down his life for sinners in order to their being justified by his blood But where is it that St. Paul saith that the death of Christ had no other influence on the expiation of our sins but as a bare condition intervening in order to that power and authority whereby he should expiate sins what makes him attribute so much to the death of Christ if all the benefits we enjoy depend upon the consequences of it and no otherwise upon that than meerly as a preparation for it what peculiar emphasis were there in Christs dying for sinners and for the ungodly unless his death had a particular relation to the expiation of their sins Why are men said to be justified by his blood and not much rather by his glorious Resurrection if the blood of Christ be only considered as antecedent to the other And that would have been the great demonstration of the love of God which had the most immediate influence upon our advantage which could not have been the death in this sense but the life and glory of Christ. But nothing can be more absurd than what Crellius would have to be the meaning of this place viz. that the Apostle doth not speak of the proper force of the death of Christ distinct from his life but that two things are opposed to each other for the effecting of one of which the death of Christ did intervene but it should not intervene for the other viz. it did intervene for our reconciliation but it should not for our life For did not the death of Christ equally intervene for our life as for our reconciliation was not our eternal deliverance the great thing designed by Christ and our reconciliation in order to that end what opposition then can be imagined that it should be necessary for the death of Christ to intervene in order to the one than in order to the other But he means that the death of Christ should not intervene anymore what need that when it is acknowledged by themselves that Christ dyed only for this end before that he might have power to bestow eternal life on them that obey him But the main force of the Apostles argument lies in the comparison between the death of Christ having respect to us as enemies in order to reconciliation and the life of Christ to us considered as reconciled so that if he had so much kindness for enemies to dye for their reconciliation we may much more presume that he now living in Heaven will accomplish the end of that reconciliation in the eternal salvation of them that obey him By which it is apparent that he
speaks of the death of Christ in a notion proper to it self having influence upon our reconciliation and doth not consider it metonymically as comprehending in it the consequents of it 2. Because the expiation of sins is attributed to Christ antecedently to the great consequents of his death viz. his sitting at the right hand of God Heb. 1. 3. When he had by himself purged our sins sate down on the right hand of his Majesty on high Heb. 9. 12. But by his own blood he entred in once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal redemption for us To these places Crellius gives a double answer 1. That indefinite particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned with Verbs of the praeterperfect tense do not always require that the action expressed by them should precede that which is designed in the Verbs to which they are joyned but they have sometimes the force of particles of the present or imperfect tense which sometimes happens in particles of the praeterperfect tense as Matth. 10. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and several other instances produced by him according to which manner of interpretation the sense he puts upon those words Heb. 9. 12. is Christ by the shedding of his blood entred into the Holy of Holies and in so doing he found eternal redemption or the expiation of sins But not to dispute with Crellius concerning the importance of the Aorist being joyned with a Verb of the praeterperfect tense which in all reason and common acceptation doth imply the action past by him who writes the words antecedent to his writing of it as is plain in the instances produced by Crellius but according to his sense of Christs expiation of sin it was yet to come after Christs entrance into Heaven and so it should have been more properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not I say to insist upon that the Apostle manifests that he had a respect to the death of Christ in the obtaining this eternal redemption by his following discourse for v. 14. he compares the blood of Christ in point of efficacy for expiation of sin with the blood of the Legal Sacrifices whereas if the expiation meant by him had been sound by Christs Oblation of himself in Heaven he would have compared Christs entrance into Heaven in order to it with the entrance of the High-Priest into the Holy of Holies and his argument had run thus For if the High-Priest under the Law did expiate sins by entring into the Holy of Holies How much more shall the Son of God entring into Heaven expiate the sins of Mankind but we see the Apostle had no sooner mention'd the redemption obtained for us but he presently speaks of the efficacy of the blood of Christ in order to it and as plainly asserts the same v. 15. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Why doth the Apostle here speak of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the expiation of sins by the means of death if he had so lately asserted before that the redemption or expiation was found not by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and withal the Apostle here doth not speak of such a kind of expiation as wholly respects the future but of sins that were under the first Testament not barely such as could not be expiated by vertue of it but such as were committed during the time of it although the Levitical Law allowed no expiation for them And to confirm this sense the Apostle doth not go on to prove the necessity of Christs entrance into Heaven but of his dying v. 16 17 18. But granting that he doth allude to the High-Priests entring into the Holy of Holies yet that was but the representation of a Sacrifice already offer'd and he could not be said to find expiation by his entrance but that was already found by the blood of the Sacrifice and his entrance was only to accomplish the end for which the blood was offer'd up in sácrifice And the benefit which came to men is attributed to the Sacrifice and not to the sprinkling of blood before the Mercy-seat and whatever effect was consequent upon his entrance into the Sanctuary was by vertue of the blood which he carried in with him and was before shed at the Altar Neither can it with any reason be said that if the redemption were obtained by the blood of Christ there could be no need of his entrance into Heaven since we do not make the Priesthood of Christ to expire at his death but that he is in Heaven a merciful High-Priest in negotiating the affairs of his People with God and there ever lives to make intercession for them Crellius answers That granting the Aorist being put before the Ver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should imply such an action which was antecedent to Christs sitting at the right hand of God yet it is not there said that the expiation of sins was made before Christs entrance into Heaven for those saith he are to be considered as two different things for a Prince first enters into his Palace before he sits upon his throne And therefore saith he Christ may be said to have made expiation of sins before he sate down at the right hand of his Father not that it was done by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and offering himself to God there by which means he obtained his sitting on the right hand of the Majesty on high and thereby the full Power of remission of sins and giving eternal life To which I answer 1. That the Sripture never makes such a distinction between Christs entrance into Heaven and sitting at the right hand of God which latter implying no more but the glorious state of Christ in Heaven his entrance into Heaven doth imply it For therefore God exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour and the reason of the power and authority given him in Heaven is no where attributed to his entrance into it as the means of it but our Saviour before that tells us that all power and authority was committed to him and his very entrance into Heaven was a part of his glory and given him in consideration of his sufferings as the Apostle plainly asserts and he became obedient to death even the death of the Cross wherefore God hath highly exalted him c. There can be then no imaginable reason to make the entrance of Christ into Heaven and presenting himself to God there a condition or means of obtaining that power and authority which is implyed in his sitting at the right hand of God 2. Supposing we should look on these as distinct there is
e. as the Iews expound it at the entrance of the Court of the Priests and there he was to lay his hands upon the head of it and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him This Offering was made before the Beast was slain after the killing the beast then the Priests were to make an Offering of the blood by sprinkling it round about the Altar of Burnt-offerings the rest of the blood say the Iews was poured out by the Priests at the South-side of the Altar upon the foundation where the two holes were for the passage into the Channel which conveyed the blood into the valley of Kidron thus the blood being offered the parts of the beast were by the Priests to be laid upon the Altar and there they were all to be consumed by fire and then it was called an Offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord. The same rites were used in the Peace-offerings and Trespass-offerings as to the laying on of hands and the sprinkling the blood and consuming some part by fire and in the sin-offerings there was to be the same imposition of hands but concerning the sprinkling of the blood and the way of consuming the remainders of the Sacrifice there was this considerable difference that in the common sin-offerings for particular persons the blood was sprinkled upon the horns of the Altar of Burnt-offerings but in the sin-offerings for the High-Priest and the Congregation or all the People he was to carry the blood within the Sanctuary and to sprinkle of it seven times before the Vail of the Sanctuary and some of the blood was to be put upon the horns of the Altar of Incense but the remainder of the blood and the same things which were offered by fire in Peace-Offerings were to be disposed of accordingly on the Altar of Burnt-offerings And withal there was this great difference that in other sin-offerings the Priests were to eat the remainder of the sacrifice in the Holy place but in these there was nothing to be eaten by them for the whole Bullock was to be carried forth without the Camp and there he was to be burned till all were consumed For it was an express Law That no sin-offering whereof any of the blood is brought into the Tabernacle of the Congregation to reconcile withal in the Holy-place shall be eaten it shall be burnt in the fire All the difference that was on the great day of Atonement was this that the High Priest himself was to slay the Sin-offerings and then to carry the blood of them into the Holy of Holies and there was to sprinkle the blood with his finger towards the Mercy-seat seven times after which and the sending away the scape-goat the ceremonies were the same for the Atonement of the people which were at other solemn sin-offerings for the Priest or the people From all which being thus laid together we shall observe several things which are very material to our purpose 1. That in the oblations which were made for expiation of sins the difference between the mactation and the oblation did arise from the difference between the Priest and the Sacrifice For the Priests Office was to atone but he was to atone by the Sacrifice on which account although the Priest were to offer the Sacrifice for himself yet the oblation did not lie in the bare presenting himself before God but in the presenting the blood of that Sacrifice which was shed in order to expiation If we could have supposed that the High-Priest under the Law instead of offering a Goat for a Sin-offering for the people on the day of Atonement should have made an oblation of himself to God by dying for the expiation of their sins In this case his death being the Sacrifice and himself the Priest the mactation as it relates to his own act and his oblation had been one and the same thing For his death had been nothing else but the offering up himself to God in order to the expiation of the sins of the people and there can be no reason why the oblation must be of necessity something consequent to his death since all things necessary to a perfect oblation do concur in it For where there is something solemnly devoted to God and in order to the expiation of sins and by the hand of a Priest there are all things concurring to a legal oblation but in this case all these things do concur and therefore there can be no imaginable necessity of making the oblation of Christ only consequent to his Ascension since in his death all things concur to a proper oblation In the Law we grant that the oblation made by the Priest was consequent to the death of the beast for Sacrifice but the reason of that was because the beast could not offer up it self to God and God had made it necessary that the Priest should expiate sins not by himself but by those Sacrifices and therefore the oblation of the blood was after the Sacrifice was slain neither could this have been solved barely by the Priests slaying of the Sacrifices for this being an act of violence towards the beasts that were thus killed could not be a proper oblation which must suppose a consent antecedent to it All which shewed the great imperfection of the Levitical Law in which so many several things were to concur to make up a sacrifice for sin viz. The first offering made by the party concerned of what was under his dominion viz. The beast to be sacrificed at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation but the beast not being able to offer up it self it was necessary for the offering up its blood that it must be slain by others and for the better understanding not only of the efficacy of the blood but the concurrence of the Priest for expiation he was to take the blood and sprinkle some of it on the Altar and pour out the rest at the foundation of it But since we assert a far more noble and excellent Sacrifice by the Son of God freely offering up himself to be made a Sacrifice for the sins of the world why may not this be as proper an oblation made unto God as any was under the Law and far more excellent both in regard of the Priest and the Sacrifice why should his oblation of himself then be made only consequent to his death and resurrection Which â—latter being by our Adversaries made not his own act but Gods upon him and his entrance into Heaven being given him as they assert as a reward of his sufferings in what tolerable sense can that be called an oblation of himself which was conferâ—ed upon him as a reward of his former sufferings From whence it follows that upon our Adversaries own grounds the death of Christ may far more properly be called the oblation of himself than his entrance