expiate its own Sin both which we have already shewed to be impossible Therefore it was necessary that as our Saviour in order to his undertaking the Expiation of Sin should be a real Man a Creature so that he should be more than a Creature in order to the accomplishing of such his Undertaking For tho' by becoming Man he did accommodate his Condition to his Design of undertaking an Expiation as we have just now seen yet for all that his Humanity had sunk under but but had not taken away the Burden had it not been supported by his Divinity For that that crushes both Angels and Men and that too while they cope against it only with their own Strength beyond the possibility of a Recovery must for the same Reason have crushed him also when once he had put himself in Man's stead and by consequence into Man's Condition had he not been endowed with a Power superiour to both to enable him to subdue and conquer it And what Power but that of God can we think sufficient to conquer Sin and Death and that too when they had got to such an heighth as to have infected and over-run the whole Race of Mankind Can we think that when the Contagion and Mischief had spread it self so wide that even the best of Men and those whose Graces are chiefly celebrated by the Spirit of God himself could not preserve themselves from the overflowing Inundation I say can we think that in such a Case any one single Man were he no more than a Man could have saved himself from the universal Mischief by the Strength of his own Resolution or Vertue And if in Reason we must think that he could not then how can we in Reason think that his Strength should be sufficient to rescue and save all the Rest No! Such Salvation belongs only to the Arm of God and He who can save from Sin Death and Hell and can over and above extend such Salvation over all the Earth and that too through all the successive Generations of Mankind that ever did or ever shall live upon the Earth must be God and God alone The Extensive Merit therefore of the Death and Sufferings of the Man Christ Jesus derives it self from the Infinite Dignity of Jesus the Son of God For had not this Jesus been the Son of God as well as the Son of Man he had never been the Saviour of Man And if there be not Salvation in any other as in effect the whole Book of God does tell us it may seem inconceivable how this Seed of the Woman should extend this Salvation and so break the Serpent's Head from the Days of Adam to the Consummation of all Things unless all Things were in his Disposal that is unless he were God No! He who considers the Thing seriously and wisely may be satisfied not only by the Scriptures but by his own Reason also that there is the same Mercy and the same Power required to redeem sinful Man that was required to make Man and that He only who did the first can do the last And therefore as we are taught by God that all Things were made by his Word so are we also that this Word was made Flesh and that by being so made he became to us after we were dead in Trespasses and Sins the Word of Life From all which and a great deal more that might be offered both from Reason and from Revelation some of which Things we have already spoken to and some of which we shall have occasion to speak to hereafter we may be not only informed but assured That the great Merit of our Saviour's Expiation made for Sin by his Death and Passion did arise from hence that his Divinity was personally united to that Body which underwent such Death or that nothing less than the Death of the Son of God could expiate that Death which the Law had denounced against the Sin of Man But because these Thing will appear in a more full and clear Light in the farther Prosecution of our Design therefore we here leave them for a while and proceed For it having appeared as to Matter of Fact and that too by most express Declarations of Scripture that our Saviour was made an Expiatory Sacrifice for Sin and it having also appeared that he did by his Incarnation accommodate his Condition to the making good of such Expiation and that too in a Way very agreeable to our Natural Sense and Reason The next Thing to be spoken to is the Matter of Right or whether or no he could make such Expiation in Justice But before we proceed to speak to That it will be proper that we make some Inferences of weight and moment from what has been already spoken And 1. By what has been said it appears plainly That tho' our Saviour made good the Purchase of our Redemption by his Death and Resurrection yet that such his Purchase shall not be fully made over to us till our own Resurrection That he made good the Purchase his Resurrection is a Demonstration For because the Wages of Sin is Death and because he died for our Sins and not for his own and because after such his Death he rose again and because such his Resurrection was a Discharge from the Penalty of those Sins for which he died I say from all these Things it is evident that he accomplished his designed Purchase that is he made good his Expiation by his Death and Resurrection But then on the other side because it is most certain that we are not redeemed from the Curse or Penalty of the Law till we are redeemed from Death and because we are not redeemed from Death till we rise from the Dead that is till our own Resurrection therefore it is as evident that till such our Resurrection we are not put into the Possession of such his Purchase And therefore strictly speaking no Man be he who he will is â—actually justified in this Life For because every Man that lives shall certainly die and because Death is the Penalty threatned to Sin by the Law it therefore grates too hard upon our common Sense to tell us that any Man is then justified when he is not only liable to the Vengeance of the Law but when he is also sure in a little time to undergo such Vengeance If therefore any Man be according to a Gospel-estimate of Righteousness a righteous or good Man we may upon that Account say and we shall say true that he is in a justifiable Condition but we cannot truly say that he is a justified Person Justification then in the Execution belongs to a future Life and not to this And when we shall come to discourse on the second Thing contained in a Gospel-Salvation which is a Restitution to Holiness and the Consequent of it the Gift of Eternal Life we shall then be more fully satisfied that Justification cannot belong to any Man in this World because no Man in this
our Saviour who as we have shewed had an absolute and uncontroulable Power to dispose of his own Life as he himself pleased did put himself in our stead became a Sacrifice for us and so in his own Person suffered that Death which we by our Sins had deserved But then to the making good of our present Proposition we add That as he suffered Death for the Expiation of our Sins so if he had not finished and compleated such Expiation he had not rose again For so long as the Guilt remained so long the Punishment was and that too in Justice to be continued For in such Case there had been the same Reason for the Continuation of the Punishment that there was for its first Infliction And therefore as it was first inflicted for a Guilt so it must have been continued for the Continuation of such Guilt From which we do infer That if he was justly acquitted from the Continuation of the Punishment then he was also acquitted from the Guilt and if he was justly acquitted from the Guilt that then he had by his Punishment made a sufficient Expiation for it And that he was acquitted from the Punishment due to the Guilt and that he was justly acquitted too the Resurrection singly and by it self will make out an undoubted and uncontroulable Argument For our natural and common Sense does assure us that a Resurrection to Life is an Acquittance and Discharge from Death And Reason will tell us that because a Discharge from Death can only come from God and because God cannot but be just therefore that Acquittance and Discharge that is made by a Resurrection must needs be just too And therefore from the Whole we may infer That the Resurrection of our Saviour from that Death which he suffered as the Punishment of our Sins was a demonstrative Argument and Proof that by his Death he had paid a sufficient Ransom and had made a sufficient Expiation for such Sins So that strictly speaking in his Death consisted the Punishment of our Sins in the Infinite Value of his Death consisted the Expiation of our Sins and in the Resurrection appears the full Proof and Evidence of such his Expiation Before we part with this Head it may not be improper to take notice that because his Death was of infinite Value that therefore there was a sufficient Ransom paid for our Sins by that Death so soon as it was suffered For it must be confessed that the Ransom was then made when the Debt was paid And because that is Truth and Justice we do from thence infer That our Saviour might and that justly too have resumed his Life so soon as he had laid it down And so he might for any thing that Justice can offer to the contrary have descended alive from the Cross after he had once died upon it Nor needed his Resurrection in point of Justice to have been deferred to the third Day but might had God so pleased have been caused on the first But tho' it might justly have been done so yet we do not find that it was actually so done for the Scriptures tell us that he did not rise till the third Day From whence we observe That as he died to save Man from Sin so he did for some time continue in a State of Death to satisfie and assure us that he did so die And so as his Death had a regard to God's Justice so his Continuance so long under the Power of Death had a regard to our Faith The first was the Purchase of our Salvation The last was our Assurance of and therefore also our Comfort in such a Purchase By which we may understand that his Love was expressed to us even in the Grave and tho' as the Psalmist speaks no Man remembreth God in the Pit yet we may hence learn that even in the Pit our God both can and has remembred us We may also under this Head take notice That as our Saviour had never died at all as we observed before because he himself was perfectly Innocent if he had not by his own Choice put himself in the stead and so exposed himself to the Punishment of the Guilty so we may be confident that he whose Innocence was so singular and illustrious as not to be in the least tarnished whilst he inhabited in mortal Flesh and Blood must now that Flesh and Blood is spiritualized see the First to the Corinthians chap. 15. ver 44. be rather the more free if that were possible from all possibility of Stain or Guilt And we may be secure that if his glorified Body shall ever live free from Sin it shall for that single Reason if yet there were no other live free from Death too So true is that of the Apostle in the Sixth to the Romans ver 9. that Christ being raised from the Dead dieth no more Death hath no more Dominion over him and that in the Revelations I am he that was dead and am alive and live for evermore So that the Victory which our Saviour obtained over Death by his Resurrection cannot so well be looked upon as a single Conquest since it is to extend it self to all Successions of Ages and Time and is to last when Time shall be no more that is for ever and ever 3. As our Saviour by his Resurrection did so far subdue Death as to obtain to himself a future and secure Immortality so also he did by the same Resurrection so far subdue Death as to secure a future and glorious Resurrection to all those who are so far planted into the likeness of his Death as to be dead to Sin and alive to God For if we live to him while we live here we may from his Resurrection have a comfortable Assurance that notwithstanding we die for a time as he did yet we shall be raised again and live with him for evermore To this purpose we must recollect that when he died he did not die for his own Sins but for ours And then if in his Death he laid down his Life in our stead we may be easily satisfied that it was in our stead that he took it up again at his Resurrection For if our Guilt had not been cancelled and so our Debt discharged by his Death then his Death as we observed under the last Head had been continued still And as then we did conclude that he had therefore satisfied the Debt because he was released from the Penalty so now we do conclude that because the Debt so discharged was ours and not his own therefore the Benefit of the Release must redound to us as well as to him For it must needs be unjust in the Creditor to detain us in Prison for that Debt which our Surety has paid And because we know that the Creditor in the present Case is God himself and because we know also that such a Creditor can do no Injustice therefore we know that as when our Saviour laid down his
that know that they all came from one single Fountain that is from one single Man and so that they are all but so many Rivulets from that Fountain And when moreover we are assured that our Saviour is One of those Rivulets For tho' our Saviour was only to be made of the Woman yet because the Woman was made out of the Man therefore our Saviour did by the Woman derive from the same one single Person with the rest of Mankind I say when we consider all this methinks it is no hard matter to conceive that God himself does in his Word lay the Ground-work of Man's Redemption by a Saviour if I may be allowed so to word my self in that near and intimate Relation which our Saviour by becoming Man has to all Mankind besides and that the Intimacy of such Relation consists in this that the Saviour and all Mankind do derive from one single and common Fountain And hence we are told in one Place that as by Man came Death there is the Sin of Adam and the Wages of such Sin by Man came also the Resurrection of the Dead there is the Redemption of our Saviour and his Purchase And more expresly still to our present Purpose speaks the same Apostle in the same Chapter the Fifteenth of the First to the Corinthians For as in Adam all died so in Christ shall all be made alive And to the same purpose again in the Fifth to the Romans and the Eighteenth Verse Therefore as by the Offence of one Judgment came upon all Men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of one the Free-gift came upon all Men unto Justification of Life In all which Texts and several others that might be named it is notorious that the Redemption of Mankind is so ascribed to the second Adam the Man Christ Jesus as the Sin and Death of Mankind is ascribed to the first Man Adam And I do not at all question but that those Hints which the Scriptures do frequently offer to us of our Saviour's taking the Humane Nature in order to our Redemption of his taking Part of the same Flesh and Blood with us of his being our Brother and the like I say I do not at all question but that when seriously considered they may mightily assist and facilitate both our Conceptions and Belief of the Wisdom Justice Reasonableness and Congruity of our Saviour's Incarnation Death Resurrection in one Word of that Redemption which he by being made one with Mankind by taking their Nature upon himself has purchased form them And may mightily conduce to the Removing of those Difficulties which the Enemies of the Cross of Christ have thrown as so many Stumbling-blocks in the Way of plain and honest Christians 4. The Wisdom Justice Reasonableness and Congruity of our Saviour's Incarnation in order to his Purchase of Man's Redemption does yet farther appear in that by becoming Man he put himself into a Capacity of suffering Death that is of suffering that Punishment which the Law had denounced against those that should transgress it For it is a gross Mistake and does indeed bring a Scandal upon God's Veracity to affirm That he threatens greater Vengeance in any Law before the Transgression of it than he will execute after the Transgression that so he may the more effectually prevent such Transgression For God never yet threatned any peremptory and unconditional Punishment in any Law which he has not or when the Time comes he will not as certainly execute In the Day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die says God The Threatning we see is peremptory and the Execution we find is so too and therefore all Sinners die And I cannot in the least doubt but that for the same Reason an eternal Punishment will be the certain Vengeance upon a final Impenitence But that is not so direct to my present purpose and therefore here I pass it by But to confirm what I am now upon I say that God does not pardon the Death threatned in his Law against Sin no not in Consideration of the Death of our Saviour and therefore notwithstanding his Death and that too in our stead we see that all Men and even those who hope for Salvation by such his Death do yet die What therefore our Saviour in this Case has puchased for us is not a Freedom but a Release from Death And therefore that Redemption from Death which is the Purchase of his Blood is to be accomplished after we have been dead by a Resurrection A Resurrection then is to make good the Purchase of his Death and therefore his Death purchased for us not a Freedom but a Release from our Death by such Resurrection Now as his Death was necessary for such a Purchase so his Incarnation was necessary in order to such his Death And he was therefore made of the same Blood with all Mankind that by shedding that Blood for Mankind he might after his own Resurrection restore the Lives of all Men which had been forfeited by Adam's Transgression So that as his Death was the meritorious Expiation of Sin and as a Resurrection is the Fruit and Effect of such his Expiation So his Incarnation was a necessary Forerunner of such his Death and therefore before he could possibly die for Man and so purchase a Redemption of Man from Death it was agreeable to the Laws of Wisdom Justice and Reason that he should become Man himself But then how his Death came to be of so valuable a Price as to make so glorious a Purchase we must leave to farther Enquiry For by that it will appear that as it was necessary that he should die the Death of a Man so it was necessary that such his Humanity should be united to the Divinity And by both it will appear that God was manifested in the Flesh to destroy the Works of the Devil and that therefore when the Scriptures tell us so much they tell us no more than what is agreeable to Wisdom Justice and Reason CHAP. VI. The Divinity of the Son of God necessary for the Expitation of Man's Sin as well as his Humanity Some Doctrinal Inferences A general Proof That as our Saviour did actually die so that he might justly die for the Expiation of Sin HAving therefore seen that our Lord Jesus Christ was qualified by his Incarnation to make an Expiation for Sin by the Sacrifice of himself and that such his Qualification is agreeable to the Laws of Justice and to the Rules of Reason and Wisdom Our next Enquiry must be How such his Sacrifice came to be of such a Value as to be justly sufficient to make good such an Expiation For because the Death of an Innocent Man if he be no more than a mere Man is but the Death of a Creature and because no Creature can by its Punishment in another Creature 's stead expiate the Sin of that other Creature for if it could then a Creature might by its own Punishment
general that it is founded in our Saviour all the Debate at present is Whether the Promise of the Gospel-Reward be founded in that Saviour's Obedience or in his Death or in other Words Whether the Promise of the Reward be not so grounded upon our Saviour's Obedience as the Promise of Pardon is upon his Expiatory Sacrifice And if those Reasons which we have already or shall hereafter offer do prove that in Justice and Reason it is so then the Objection vanishes I may add That the Objection only speaks to the Matter of Fact that there is a Promise made in the Gospel to an Imperfect Obedience which no one so far as I know denies But it does not speak as to the Matter of Right and Justice how such a Promise can be justly and reasonably made without any Violence offered to the Law of Works which is God's Law as well as the Gospel is so And we may be sure that God's Laws do not either contradict each other or controul any the Laws or Rules of true Justice or Reason That then which is the only Thing which is at present maintained is That the Promise of the Reward in the Gospel to an Imperfect Obedience had never been made to Man at all because it could not have been made justly if the Law of Works given to Man had never been fulfilled by Man and that the Gospel-Promise was granted in Consideration that our Saviour fulfilled that Law And to this the Objection so called is really no Objection at all It is confessed indeed that the Eternal Life promised to Believers in the Gospel will be attended with an Happiness inconceivably greater than the Eternal Life promised in the Law to Adam and it may be thereupon surmised that the Reward promised in the Gospel has no Eye to the Obedience required in the Law and if it has not that then the Eternal Happiness of Believers cannot be the Purchase of our Saviour's Obedience to the Law To which I shall say no more at present than this viz. That it is agreed that our Saviour by his Death took away Death the Curse of the Law and made good such his Atchievement by a Resurrection Now the Life after the Resurrection is a Life in a Spiritual Body not in a Natural I speak the Apostle's Words And our Natural Reason tells us that a Life in a Spiritual Body is a more refined and exalted Life than a Life in a Natural Body and that in multitudes of Circumstances it must needs differ from it perhaps in so many that it may be as inconceivable to us now as the future Happiness of the Saints And yet this refined and exalted Life is no good Argument that it was not purchased by our Saviour's Death nor that such his Death had no Eye to the Law of Works in such Purchase And so say we Tho' the Happiness of the Blessed be greater vastly greater than what was by the Law of Works promised to Adam upon his Obedience yet that can never make it out that such Happiness is not the Purchase of our Saviour's Obedience or that such his Obedience was not an Obedience to the Law of Works It may indeed convince us of the super-eminent Dignity of his Person and of the inconceivable Value of that Reward which by being purchased by him derives such its Value from such his Dignity as we observed before and which is directly to our present purpose it may furthermore convince us that the Reward of Believers is the Reward of their Saviour's Obedience made over to them but not a Reward that does or can belong to their own at the very best Imperfect Righteousness I know very well that this Doctrine is denied by many Divines and other Learned Men and those too not only such who do utterly deny that God bestows Salvation upon Men in consideration of their Saviour's Merit and Purchase but even by the generality of those who yet do ascribe the Salvation of Man to such Purchase and Merits What Reasons they offer for such their Denial we shall speak to hereafter But in the mean time we shall go on to make good the Imputation against each Party that denies it and after that shall shew that the Reasons of such their Denial have not that weight which they seem to have 1. And first we shall speak to them who do not barely acknowledge but even contend that the Salvation of Man is obtained in Consideration of the Merits that is in Consideration of the Death of our Saviour And the Men of whom we now speak do maintain That in order to Man's Redemption our Saviour died for Man's Sin and that by such his Death he puchased for Man a Freedom from that Vengeance which is the just Wages of such Sin Now what they so maintain we believe to be true and are ready to join Hands with them to make it good against all the Adversaries of the Cross of Christ So far therefore we are agreed But then it may be demanded How our Saviour can possibly suffer for Man's Sin if the Sin of Man be not imputed to him For in order to his suffering for Man's Sin he must take upon him such Sin and the taking upon him Man's Sin is the having Man's Sin accounted as his own that is in effect and in other Words the having Man's Sin imputed to him And then on the other Side how can Man have any Pretence of Benefit from his Saviour's Sufferings if the Merit of such Sufferings be not imputed to Man For without such Imputation the Merit be it what it will can only belong to the Saviour himself It is evident therefore by what has been said in short but might be made out in more Words that they who assert the Expiation of Sin by our Saviour's suffering in Man's stead do therefore entitle Man to the Benefit of such Expiation because Man's Sin was imputed to his Saviour and the Merit of his Saviour's Sufferings at least imputed to Man Things therefore standing thus in the Case of the Expiation it may be reasonably and further demanded Why our Saviour's Righteousness or Obedience may not as warrantably be imputed to Man as Man's Sin may be imputed to his Saviour or Why the Eternal Happiness which is assigned as the Reward of Obedience by the Law may not be bestowed upon Man in Consideration that the Merit of his Saviour's Obedience is imputed to Man as well as a Release from Punishment may be granted to Man in Consideration that the Merits of his Saviour's Punishment are imputed to Man For there is the very self-same Reason why the Obedience of our Saviour should be imputed to Man in order to Man's Salvation that there is that the Sin of Man should be imputed to our Saviour in order to such Saviour's Condemnation And there is the self-same Reason why the Merit of our Saviour's Obedience should be imputed to Man in order to Man's obtaining Eternal Life as there is
that so he may be entitled to Eternal Happiness And because no Man can warrantably say how he shall not be unless he do assign some Way how he shall be so entitled therefore they who in this Case deny all Imputation whatsoever do tell us that a perfect Holiness shall be bestowed by God upon Believers by Infusion that is for so they must mean God shall by his Mercy and Free-Grace bestow such a Stock of Holiness upon Believers as shall cleanse and fill all their Capacities and so make them perfectly holy and by consequence capable of Eternal Happiness 1. Now tho' it be freely granted that God will in the next World bestow such an holy God-like and eternally-durable Frame of Spirit upon all those who shall be saved as we shall discourse more fully hereafter yet it is not in Consideration of such Holiness that Believers do obtain that Eternal Happiness which is the promised Reward of the Gospel For by what is to follow it will we presume appear that Salvation obtained in Consideration of our Saviour's Obedience imputed is First Better accommodated to the Rules of Reason and the Laws of Justice than Salvation obtained in Consideration of an Holiness infused after a Resurrection And Secondly That as it is better accommodated to the Rules of Reason and to the Laws of Justice so that it is so also to that Account which the Scripture gives us of this Matter 1. For the Obedience by which Believers are to be judged at the last Day is that Obedience which was required of them in this World And accordingly as Men have behaved themself here so they shall receive the Reward of such their Behaviour there So St. Paul in the Second to the Corinthians chap. 5. ver 10. We shall all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ that every one may receive the Things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad By which we may understand that the Distributions to be made by Justice upon a Resurrection have an Eye to the Lives of Men before their Death And from thence we may infer that they are not to be guided by an infused Holiness which does even by those who plead for it not take place till after the Resurrection For it is agreed on all Hands that no Man's Holiness is perfect in this Life Now it does not look altogether so rational nor so agreeable to the Measures of Justice or the Revelations of Scripture that a Man should be judged according to what he has done in the Body before his Death and yet that he shall by the last Judicial Sentence be everlastingly rewarded for an Holiness infused by God after his Resurrection And therefore if we will adhere to Reason Justice and Revelation we must conclude that Believers do not after this Life obtain an everlasting Happiness in consideration of such an infused Holiness 2. And secondly we may do well to take notice that the Obedience of our Saviour to the Law was the Obedience which was required of Man and which was also paid by Man in this Life and that because such his Obedience was perfect therefore the Reward assigned by the Law to Obedience was in strictness of Law and Justice due to such his Obedience If therefore his Obedience while he was in the Flesh may by any Means be so made over to Believers as to be justly accounted theirs then there can be no doubt but that their Right to the Reward appointed to such Obedience will be just and good too And that it may be justly accounted theirs we have as we believe made it good already But an Holiness infused by God after a Resurrection can in no Sense nor in any Congruity be accounted and much less can it be an Obedience paid by Man while in the Body to the Law and therefore it cannot in any Sense or in any Congruity be such an Holiness to which the Reward allotted only to Obedience can belong And therefore neither can Eternal Happiness be bestowed upon Believers in consideration of such an infused Holiness In one Word Infused Holiness in order to Man's Salvation does in no wise agree to that Account which the Scriptures give us of the Last Judgment and tho' it pretends to magnifie God's Mercy yet it takes no care in the mean while to assert and vindicate his Justice but makes the whole Process of that great Assize to be arbitrary and illegal whilst it opens a Way to Man's Happiness by an Holiness which has nothing to do with the Cause upon which alone his Trial depends For a Reward conferr'd in another World upon an Holiness infused in another World does in no wise look back to or pass a Judgment upon the Life that was led in this World But because we know assuredly and that by many express Testimonies of Scripture that that will be the Work of the Last Day therefore for that Reason alone if yet there were no other we cannot ascribe a future Happiness the happy just and final Sentence of that Day to such an infused Holiness No! the Holiness for which we are to be rewarded in a future Life must be an Obedience practised in this Life The Duty is laid upon Man by the Law here and the Reward stands engaged to the Performance of such Duty And if the Righteousness of Man at the Resurrection be not an Obedience paid to the Law then when the Law required such Obedience the Reward promised by the Law can in no wise belong to such Righteousness And therefore to fansie a Reward for an Holiness in which the Law is not at all concerned as it is not in an infused Holiness is to have no regard to the Law at all For Happiness bestowed in consideration of an infused Holiness may as well be granted without the Law as with it nay indeed much better Because had there been no Law at all then such a Management had not affronted the Law Whereas the Law having been once setled to bestow the Reward promised by the Law upon an Holiness which has no Eye to the Law as an infused Holiness has not is to slight and overlook the Law for it allows the Law to have nothing to do in the Allotment of such a Reward It may be plausibly objected in this Place That while I vindicate the Cause which I undertake against one Adversary I give it up to another Because while I assert That every Man shall at the last Day be judged according to his Behaviour in this World I do in effect refer the Reward that shall then be adjudged to Believers to such their Behaviour that is in the present Case to their Obedience in this World And that because I do so I therefore pull down with one Hand that which before I had set up with another viz. the Imputation of their Saviour's Righteousness in order to their Salvation 1. But this Objection is grounded upon a Mistake which Mistake is
SALVATION BY JESUS CHRIST ALONE As it is expresly laid down in the SCRIPTURES Agreeable to the Rules of Reason And to the Laws of Justice The Whole intermixed with several Practical Reflections directing and persuading to a Christian Life To which is added A Short Inquiry into the State of Those Men in a Future Life who never heard of Jesus Christ the Saviour in This Life By THO. STAYNOE Minister of the United Parishes of Christ-Church and St. Leonard Foster-lane London LONDON Printed for Benj. Tooke at the Middle-Temple Gate in Fleet-street and sold by John Jones at the Bell in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCC To the Right Reverend FATHER in GOD NICOLAS LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER MY LORD IT was my early and great Happiness that I was then a Member of Trinity-College when You were an Eminent Guide to the Studies of the Youth there For tho' You were not my appointed Tutor yet it so fell out that for Two Years together a Thing perhaps scarce known in the College but at that Time the great and daily Burden of the Philosophy-Lecture was laid upon You And for which I do to this Day bless the Divine Providence those Two Years fell in with that Time in which my Standing in the House obliged me to attend those Lectures And whatever other Influence they had on me This I can with Truth avow That from that Time I always carried in my Breast an Honour and Respect for Your Person This I therefore tell Your Lordship because I believe You could not have known it without my Information For the beneficial Influence of very useful Men diffuses it self farther than their own Observation reaches And some Few chuse that it should do so And I am not so much a Stranger to Your Lordship as not to know that You have a chief Place among those Few But then withal I beg leave to add That tho' it be a Noble Temper in Your Lordship to overlook Your Good Deeds to others yet that will not excuse those others if they should do so too For Ingratitude is not the less but the more Criminal where there is no Expectation of Requital For which Reason I have rather adventured to trespass upon Your Lordships Goodness than to forfeit all Title to Goodness my self by offering to You some of those Fruits which do very much owe themselves to Your early Watering and Cultivation But tho' these Your early Benefits were I believe unknown to Your Self yet I am sure that some later ones are not Tho' withal I know that You would have them be so to others You cannot but remember I am sure I cannot how affectionately You did desire my advantageous Settlement in this City and how zealously You did prosecute such Your Desire both with Your Interest and Assiduity till You made it appear that You did more than barely desire it And I own it to the World that my First Preferment in London I obtained by Your Means And these Your Kindnesses You still pursued with a condescending Friendship by which I was blessed with the Freedom and Benefit of Your Conversation that is with an Advantageous Assistance in my Studies and with an Advantageous Example of a sincere Piety The Faults therefore of what I here offer to Your Lordship and the World I do with Shame take to my self For they might have been prevented had I carefully followed my Copy But there seems to be a Fatality in Humane Frailty and therefore Imitations always fall short of their Originals But still I reverence what I cannot transcribe and so will every Christian who knows Your Lordship and loves our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity For a good Part of the Nation can bear You witness that You have with an hearty Affection and with an unwearied Diligence imployed Your self in that Work of which he is the Master-Builder that is of building up Christians in their most Holy Faith and of edifying them to Salvation May His Grace make Your Success equal to Your Labours and may Your Example provoke other His Messengers to an Imitation of Your Practices His exalting You to such a Station where Your Example is more visible and its Influence more powerful adds Faith to such my Wishes and Your great Candor and Integrity which are Insinuating and Victorious Virtues do increase such my Faith For I do confess I have my self felt Your Influence and because we are apt to judge other Men by our selves I can the more easily believe that others may do so too God grant that they may do so without my Defects of which so many Instances as the following Discourse may offer to the Severity of Your Judgment so many fresh Occasions it will also afford for the Exercise of Your Candor For what the First may condemn the Last may pardon and tho' You do not allow my Performance yet You may accept my Endeavours However I desire You to believe that what I here offer to Your Lordship is designed as a Publick Testimony of that great Reverence I have for Your Person Piety and Learning and of those Acknowledgments which are due for Your great and past Favours to MY LORD Your Lordships sincere and humble Servant THO. STAYNOE TO THE READERS BEfore I enter upon the Discourse it self I have something to offer to Two sorts of Readers First To those who deny the Doctrine proposed Secondly To those who own it They of the First sort to whom I shall address my self are either the Sober and the Serious or else the Vicious and Profane Now the First of these when they depreciate our Saviour's Person and deny his Purchase do undertake to do so from Grounds of Natural Reason For tho' they pretend to acknowledge Revelation in the Case yet that is but a Pretence because it is notorious that they will not allow such Revelation to speak its own Sense where it does not speak theirs For they do so far make their Natural Reason the Measure of Divine Truth as to believe no such Truth any farther than it falls in with such their Reason And so the Revelation comes to be believed not because it is acknowledged to be Divine but only because it conforms to such their Measure And therefore where their Measure falls short there the Revelation tho' it do expresly dissent from them shall yet by one Artifice or other be brought down to comply with it And to make what I say appear true I shall here offer Two Instances of such their Practice and that too in Two Things which do very much concern our future Discourse which are Death and a Resurrection And first tho' we know by our Natural Reason that Sin deserves Punishment yet we know only by Revelation that Death is a Punishment of Sin And therefore the Heathen who in this Case had no Revelation to instruct them had no other Notion of Death but that it was necessary and natural And Socinus and his Followers have expresly told us and that too in
spite of Revelation That their Notion of it is just the same They tell us indeed moreover That tho' Death be natural yet had Man continued Innocent God would have over-ruled Nature and so have secured him from Death That is the Holy and Wise God had by the ordinary and regular Frame of Things exposed his Innocent Creature to the greatest Natural Mischief But then that such a Disposition of Things might not cast a Blemish upon his Justice he prevented the Effect of it by his Omnipotence In plain English he had ordered Things so that had not his Omnipotence interposed the Consequence of such Order had been Injustice A very honourable Account of God's Justice and Wisdom in his Creation which is so far from mending the Matter that it makes it worse But what better is to be expected when Man shall by his Natural Reason presume to controul the Revelations of God Their Reason then having faultred in giving an Account of the Punishment of Sin it may upon that score the more easily do so in giving us an Account of the Pardon of it For besides that a Resurrection which is a Release from Death the Punishment of Sin is only made known by Revelation and therefore they who say that Death is Natural must if they will agree with themselves disagree from the Scriptures and say That a Resurrection is a Release from a Mischief which is Natural but not that it is so from a Punishment which is Moral But I say besides this when they come by their Reason to tell us how a Release from Death comes to be granted they will not with the Scriptures allow such Release to be granted in Consideration of our Saviour's Merits but will by all Means ascribe it to God's more Mercy Now tho' it be allowed that the Pardon of Sin comes from God's Mercy and that such his Mercy as it relates to us is Free because we can in no wise deserve it yet for all that such Mercy is not in it self what they would have it to be the Effect of God's Free-will alone For God's Mercy as his Word which can best inform us in the Case and as true and sound Reason agreeing with such his Word will tell us is of Two sorts 1. His Mercy is in the Scriptures taken for his Bounty and from this it is that all his Creatures derive all they are and all they have And this his Mercy consists in giving But then 2. His Mercy is taken for the Pardon of sinful Man and this his Mercy consists in forgiving So much Difference then as there is between Giving and Forgiving so much Difference there is between the First Mercy and the Second Now by the First Mercy God may it is confessed give freely and in what Measure he pleases For he may do what he will with his own and that according to the unbounded Liberty of his own good Pleasure which is therefore evident because he may place a Creature in what Station and bestow upon it what Endowments and what Happiness he pleases so far as a Creature as such is capable of either And in this Sense all Creatures have been Partakers of his Mercy But that cannot be truly said of that his Mercy which consists in Forgiving For all those Creatures cannot be forgiven who have not sinned and all those shall not that have Tho' therefore the First sort of Mercy be not bounded or limited by God's Justice yet the Last is And therefore a Resurrection being a Forgiveness must be so limited and bounded too For Vindictive Justice is not as it is but too commonly taken to be and as will appear more fully in the Discourse it self only a Negative Justice that is it is not barely not unjust to punish a Criminal But it is and must be a Positive Justice that is it is unjust not to punish him Or otherwise he who has a just Power of punishing a Criminal may upon no other Motive but his own Will and Pleasure not do it To tell us therefore That God by a Resurrection grants a Release from Death the Punishment of Sin only upon the Account of his mere Mercy and that Jesus Christ came into the World only to bring the joyful Tydings and to ratifie the Truth of such his Message by his Death and Resurrection but that he had nothing to do in the Purchase of such Release as it does confound God's Bounty with his Pardoning Mercy and so is a Deviation from Right Reason so it goes counter to the express Declarations of the Scriptures and so is a Contradiction to Revelation Now the Design of what we have hitherto offered is to engage the Men to whom our present Address is directed to consider 1. Whether it be not more rational to acquiesce in the plain Discoveries which are made to us by Revelation concerning the Punishment and Pardon of Sin than to frame such as they call them rational Surmises of their own concerning either which do very much differ from and in some Cases contradict such plain Discoveries 2. I would desire them likewise seriously to consider Whether what they call Reason can possibly have such a large Prospect and comprehensive Knowledge as to be a competent Judge of the Congruity of all such Things which may possibly be discovered by Divine Revelation For if it have then it must be no longer called Reason but Omniscience And if it have not then it will be an intolerable Presumption to undertake to controul express and acknowledged Revelation by it 3. I would desire them to consider in the Third place Whether they have by their Reason examined the Justice of the Divine Proceedings in the Pardon of Sin as it is expresly laid down in the Divine Revelations as far as Reason will go For Reason is a Thing capable both of Information and Improvement And That may not seem rational to a less careful View which yet may do so to a more strict and critical Examination And therefore such Plausibilities shall sometimes pass for Truths with what at present is thought Reason which when throughly sifted shall be found to be gross Falsities 4. Lastly I would desire them to consider That God in his Revelations concerning Man's Salvation has not only acquainted us that he will save Mankind but has also told us upon what Considerations he will do so For if they be once satisfied that he has revealed the Last as well as the First and by believing the plain and express Revelation they may be so satisfied then they may as reasonably expect to be saved without their own Repentance as they may without their Saviour's Merits that is they may be satisfied that they cannot be saved without both And when they have well weighed and considered these Things it may be hoped that being already supposed sober and serious they will also be found so modest as to permit God to save them in his own Way The next sort of Readers who as is supposed
Reason of Man's Tenure and Subjection Sixthly As we may suppose the Forbidden Tree to have stood in the midst of the Garden from the Ninth Verse of the Second Chapter of Genesis so a Tree so placed was by its very Situation a very fit and proper Thing to be made use of for such a purpose because being in some measure at least equidistant from the Boundaries of the general Grant it must for that Reason be most likely to present it self to Adam's View to whatever Part of the Garden he moved and by so doing must constantly or at least frequently put him in mind of the Nature of his Tenure viz. that he held it of him who had setled him in the Possession and Use of all the rest So that as the Law is Positive if we only look upon the express Words of it so it is Moral if we consider what is implied in it And therefore as the immediate and direct Transgression of the Law was the eating the forbidden Fruit so the couched Immorality of such Transgression was an Usurpation upon God's Prerogative in this lower World and an Encroachment upon the reserved Rights and Demeans of the Supreme Lord. The Transgression of the express Law then was a Sin against God's Command But the Transgression of the implied Law was a Sin against his Natural and Supreme Right The first was a Sin because it did what God had expresly forbid The last was implicitly forbid because it was a Sin and therefore was a Sin tho' God did not expresly forbid it The first was therefore only unlawful because forbidden The last was unlawful in it self To sum up all in a few Words Tho' the Designation of the particular Thing viz. the Tree in the midst of the Garden was Arbitrary and therefore Positive yet the Designation of Something was as Just and Wise so I may add Moral and Necessary too at least so far as it is so that God's Supreme Right ought to be asserted and owned For so far forth the Prohibition given to Man of eating of the Fruit of any Tree marked out or of medling with any Thing else is grounded upon the Antecedent and Eternal Rules of Reason and Justice that is of Morality And therefore tho' the express Prohibition of the Law be only Positive yet the Reason of the Prohibition is at least so far Moral as it is so That Man by some Means or other should acknowledge God to be his Supreme Lord and that he receives from him whatsoever he enjoys and that if God do expresly appoint the Way and Means of his so doing he ought to do it by the Way and Means so appointed And I therefore say expresly because so far as the Words of the Law under our present Consideration do go it is notorious that what is expresly prohibited by it is only Arbitrary and Positive But that the Morality of the Prohibition is not expressed but at the most but couched and implied By what has been spoken we may learn 1. That the Sin expresly prohibited by the Law may therefore truly be esteemed a lesser Sin because it is only a Sin against a Positive Law For such a Sin is a Sin only against God's Authority Whereas a Sin that contains a Natural Immorality in it if I may so speak is a Sin both against God's Authority and against his Purity and Holiness too 2. That the express Penalty of the Law is only a Punishment threatned against the Transgression of the express Prohibition of the Law For it does not look like Justice to assign an express Punishment in the Law for the Transgression of any Thing which is not expresly contained in the Law 3. Such Punishment so threatned against the Transgression of the express Law is express absolute and peremtory Adam then did therefore fatally suffer the Penalty of the Law because he sinned against an express Prohibition which was ratified by an absolute peremptory and express Threat For God may therefore be thought to be obliged by his Truth to punish Adam's Transgression according to the express Threat of the Law because he had passed his more solemn Word that he would do so And as he was obliged by his Truth to punish it as the Law had threatned so he was obliged to punish it because it was a Sin For so undoubtedly is the Transgression of any of God's Laws From hence it may be concluded that we all die a temporal Death for Adam's Sin For as we were in the Loins of him in the day of his Transgression so God has not by any other Law assigned an Universal Mortality as the Punishment of Sin And so speaks the Scripture In Adam all died 4. As the Moral Law couched in the Positive Law is not express so neither is there any express Punishment threatned to the Transgression of such couched Law For while Man was in a State of Innocence as there was no need that God should prescribe him any express Law to guide him in such Things which were in their own Nature good because the dictates of his own reason were of themselves sufficient for such his guidance for Moral Goodness is nothing else but the Dictates of right Reason employed about the Actions of Rational Creatures So for the same Reason there was no occasion to threaten him in that Case with any express Penalty because the threatning of an express Penalty antecedent to the Commission of the Crime can only be proper there where there is an express Law commanding a Duty Whereas Man had never by his Reason known that it had been a Sin to eat of any Fruit which kindly offer'd it self to his View and natural Inclinations if such Fruit had not been forbidden by some express Law And therefore for the same Reason that it was necessary that such Law should be express it was necessary that the Penalty of such Law should be express too 5. As the Sin against the Moral Duty which is only implied in the Law were that Duty supposed to be express Law is greater than the Sin against the express but Positive Law so were there a Punishment to be expresly assigned to such Sin it must in Justice be greater than the Punishment assigned to the less Sin that is to the Transgression of the Positive Law The Punishment therefore assigned by the express Law to the Transgression of it being only Death and that too as appears from the Nineteenth Verse of the Third Chapter of Genesis a temporal Death our Reason and that natural Sense we have of the Proportions of Justice will assure us that the Law which forbids a greater Sin than this Law does must in Reason and Equity assign an heavier Punishment to such greater Sin 6. Such heavier Punishment must suppose a Resurrection For a greater Punishment than Death cannot therefore be inflicted upon a dead Man without a Resurrection because no Punishment at all can be so inflicted upon him For where there is no Sensation
there can be no Punishment and a dead Man can have no Sensation unless we could suppose him to be alive and dead at the same time This Head may meet with Objections but I shall wave them and any Answer to them at present and that too so much the rather because it is notorious that the Scriptures do lay the greater Punishment that is the Punishment greater than Death not only beyond the Resurrection but also beyond the last Judgment it-self 7. Lastly In such Places of Scripture where the greater Punishment is threatned it is not as the Punishment of the Transgression of the Positive Law was absolute and peremptory but only conditional And therefore if we except first the Sin against the Holy Ghost whatever that be for it does not concern us to enquire at present and secondly The Refusing the Conditions of Salvation offered in a Saviour that grand and comprehensive Sin which either neglects or renounces the only Means appointed for Man's Salvation from all his other Sins I say if we except these Two Cases if yet they be Two not only the future Punishment threatned against the Breach of this or that Law but of any or all may as far as the Gospel-discoveries go be remitted Which may teach us to think that the Punishment threatned in the Law given to Adam was not a Punishment after a Resurrection but a Punishment without a Resurrection And that not only because at that Time when the Law was given to him there was not only no Resurrection promised but no Saviour neither by whom alone a Resurrection was to be brought to pass To which we may add That the Death threatned to Adam by the Law given to him was as we have seen upon his Transgression of such Law absolute and peremptory and that the Execution of such Threat is as the Scripture and our Experience tells us absolute and universal Whereas the Threat of an eternal Death as we are well assured is upon the Breach of God's Laws only conditional Now it looks hard to our Reason that when only Death is threatned in the Law and that Death at the very most but indefinite to say that the Death so threatned does imply a double Death that is both a Temporal and Eternal Death And it looks harder yet to say that the Threat and Execution of one of the Deaths is absolute and universal but that the Threat and Execution of the other is only partial and conditional For our Reason tells us that neither any Threat nor Execution of Death can be both Absolute and Conditional both Universal and Particular too From the Whole we take notice That tho God was obliged both by his Truth and Justice to execute the Threatning against the Transgression of the first Law because that Law being given to Man in his Innocence that is before he stood in need of a Saviour and therefore before God had promised one the Threat of Punishment upon the Breach of the Law was as we have seen absolute and peremptory Yet because the Revelation of a future and everlasting Punishment in the New Covenant is rather made by way of Information than by way of peremptory Threat and absolute Denunciation therefore God is obliged to the Execution of such Penalty only by his Justice but not at all by his Veracity If then there be a Means provided to satisfie such his Justice without the rigorous Execution of such declared and without such Means certain Penalty it will well enough follow That such Penalty may be remitted without any Prejudice either to his Justice or to his Truth And therefore in what is to follow we trust to make it good That our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST may and will justly save us from the Punishment peremptorily threatned to Adam viz. the Loss of Life executed upon him and all Mankind by releasing us from it after we have suffer'd it and from a future and eternal Punishment expresly revealed in the New Testament to Christians and probably also after the Fall of Adam and the Promise of the Seed of the Woman believed by the Patriarchs and by God's Church among the Jews by preventing it CHAP. I. The Scriptures do most expresly assert That Mankind are redeemed by the Blood of JESUS CHRIST It is not agreeable to the Divine Wisdom or to the Method of his Proceedings in the like Cases to employ greater Means to bring his Purposes to pass where less may be sufficient Punishment is the necessary Wages of Sin An Objection to this Position answered AND as we have grounded what we have said in the Introduction upon the Revelations of God which have acquainted us how Sin and the Punishment of it Death entred into the World So in what is to follow concerning the Redemption of Mankind both from Sin and Punishment we shall take our Rise from Revelation likewise Not only because we had known nothing of the Matter but by Revelation but also because in the present Case Revelation is undoubtedly the best Guide of our Reason For Reason must of necessity be guided best by that without the Guidance of which Reason it self is confessedly blind And we are very sure that it becomes all those who acknowledge the Scriptures to be the Revelations of God I say it becomes them in modesty and deference to the Author and in prudence for their own more certain Conduct rather to endeavour to bring their Reason to comply with the Revelation than to bring the Revelation to comply with their Reason And therefore that we our selves may practise what we cannot but judge to be best in the Practice of others we shall lay the Ground-work of all that is to follow upon the Words of St. Peter in the Fourth of the Acts and the Twelfth Verse Neither is there Salvation in any other For there is no other Name under Heaven given among Men whereby we must be saved In which Words the Apostle and he too at that time filled with the Holy-Ghost as appears by the Eighth Verse does expresly tell us for the Words do import so much That Men must be saved by JESUS CHRIST of Nazareth consult the Tenth Verse and by no other For it is evident that by Name in the Text is meant Jesus Christ himself because what he calls Name in one Part of the Verse is opposed to any other in the other Part of the Verse As in the Tenth Verse he tells us that the impotent Man was made whole by the Name of Jesus Christ in the beginning and that he was made whole by Him that is by Jesus Christ in the latter end of the Verse Those who professedly and avowedly make it their Business to evacuate the Purchase of Our Saviour's Merits and Blood do to that purpose start if not an impertinent yet a very sawcie Question which is Whether or no God could not have saved sinful Man by some other Means than by the Death of his Son And by that means would alter
obtain for him a Gospel-forgiveness and that for this Reason because there is such a Thing in the Gospel as an eternal Punishment allotted to Sin And as under the last Head we found that Reason did fall in with the Gospel and that they both spake the same thing so also we shall find it here For it is certain that the Punishment of sinful Man can therefore never expiate his Sin because it can never purchase a just Release from Punishment and it is certain that it cannot do that if it may be justly continued to Eternity And that it may be so we may learn from hence because the Law of Grace being God's Law as well as the Law of Works must for that Reason be just And we are assured by this Law as much as Words can assure us that the Punishment which it denounces against those who do not fulâ—â—l the Conditions of it is Eternal And that it shall so prove besides the express Words of the Law we have this farther Reason which is that the suffering the Punishment threatned by the Law to those who neglect to perform the Conditions of the Law can neither in Sense or Reason pass for the Performance of such Conditions so neglected and that the Neglect of this Law shall and that in Reason and Justice be repaid with an additional Vengeance for the refusal of the Mercy offered in it which designs to free us from the Punishment of all our other Sins as well as with that Punishment which is due to such Sins For it is Reason and Justice that a more heinous Sin should be punished with a more grievous Judgment and it is Truth and Reason that a Sinner does then become a more heinous Criminal when to his Desert of Punishment he adds a Neglect or Contempt of the easie Conditions of Pardon And since by the Tenor of the Covenant of Grace such Sinner is to suffer his Punishment after his Resurrection from the Dead that is not only after the Time limited for the Possibility of his Pardon is expired but also after Death it self shall be destroyed as we may from thence conclude the certainty so may we also the eternal Duration of his Punishment For as a Punishment due after the Day of Grace is past will not be remitted so such Punishment when Death is no more cannot be determined By which we may understand that as Death is without a Saviour the just and necessary Wages of Sin as we made it good in our first Chapter so also that when such Death is sure by a Resurrection purchased by a Saviour to be taken away in order to an happy and everlasting Life and that too upon the easie or at worst the very feasible Conditions of the Gospel yet if Men will neglect such Salvation so placed within their reach and so leave the eternal Life purchased for them in order to their Happiness exposed to the Vengeance which is the just and necessary Reward of all their other Sins and of such their Neglect they must impute it to their own Folly if such Vengeance in stead of Happiness be the continued Companion of their eternal Life For in the Case so put the Restoration from Death to Life comes from the Mercy of God the making that Life eternal comes from the Mercy of God the Designing to make that eternal Life happy comes from the Mercy of God The granting Means to Men and those no very hard ones neither of obtaining that Happiness comes from the Mercy of God But foolish Man defeats the Counsel of God by an obstinate and unrelenting Perseverance in Sin and does in this Case as he does in most others turn the Blessing of God into a Curse upon himself that is he makes that Life which was designed for his eternal Happiness an Occasion of the eternity of his Misery One thing more may be added to what has been said upon this Head and then we shall apply it to our present Design and that is That at that time when the Punishment we now speak of shall come to be inflicted our Saviour as the Scriptures tell us will have laid down his Mediatorial Office and so Men must stand the Award of their own Deserts and then if such their Deserts be Evil we may be instructed from what was said in the First Chapter that the Justice which will overtake them will be Justice without Mercy and that pure and unmix'd Vengeance will be their Portion even such Vengeance which will only revenge upon them the Breach of the Covenants of their God but will never so much as pretend to make up such Breach To our present purpose then If the Punishment of Men for their own Sins shall without the Interposition of a Saviour be eternal and if this appear to be so by the Testimony of that very Gospel in which however there is a Possibility of Salvation held forth and if Reason do vouch for the Truth of what the Gospel in this Case teaches and lastly if an Eternity of Punishment be absolutely inconsistent with an Expiation of Sin by such Punishment for the last supposes the Sin to be cancelled and the first supposes it to be continued Then we may conclude that the Punishment of Man for his Sin can no more expâ—ate his Sin under this Head than his Repentance as we there made it good could do so under the last Anâ— then because there is no other possible Way for Mankind to expiate their Sin but by their Repentance or by their Punishment wâ— do conclude that there is no possible Way for them to make any Expiation of it at all 3. As Man cannot expiate his Sin by any Punishment of his own neither by his Repentance nor by his Death whether Temporâ— or Eternal So neither can he expiate his Siâ— by the Death of any other Creature This 〈◊〉 therefore add because we may be apt to surmise that what has been done already may be done again And we can hardly be ignorant that the Lives of other Creatures have been offered to God and that too by his own Appointment for the Expiation of the Sinâ— of Men. And which is yet something more they have not only been offered by Man but they have been also accepted by God as aâ— effectual Expiation And that they have beeâ— so the History of the Jewish Religion recorded in the Bible it self may easily convince us But notwithstanding all this yet he who shall look nearer into the Matter and examine it more nicely will be satisfied 1. That all those Sacrifices tho' instituted by God himself were only Types and Shadows of that great Propitiatory Sacrifice that was to expiate the Sins of the whole World And therefore tho' they may serve to inform us that such a Sacrifice ought to be in order to the Expiation of Sins and because they did prefigure such a Sacrifice they might over and above foretell that such a Sacrifice should be yet because they themselves
of Sin Let us first hear what the Spirit saith who in the Fourth to the Ephesians the Fourth and Fifth Verses tells us That when the Fulness of Time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law that is his Son was Incarnate and was under the Law and therefore made so as to be obliged to be obedient to it to redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the Adoption of Sons And when we are told in one place That the Son of God was manifested for this very purpose that he might destroy the Works of the Devil and in another That he was manifest to take away Sin And when to answer to and explain the Meaning of these Places we are assured from other Places that at least one Way of his taking away Sins was by the Sacrifice of himself as in the Twenty sixth Verse of the Ninth to the Hebrews and that he appeared for that very purpose in the same Place And when we add to all this what we find in the Fifth Verse of the following Chapter that God had prepared him a Body and in the Tenth Verse that we are sanctified that is our Sins are put away through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all who as St. Peter speaks his own self bare our Sins in his own Body on a Tree I say when the Spirit of God does all along in the Scriptures expresly and categorically tell us That our Saviour suffered in his Body shed his Blood lost his Humane Life for our Sins for the Remission of Sin for the Redemption of Sinners when it does in several Places compare his Death to the Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law when it calls him the Lamb of God alluding to the Paschal Lamb that taketh away the Sins of the World when it tells us that he is the Propitiation for our Sins and the like It does by these and such like Expressions as much as Words can do it acquaint us at the same time that he suffered in his Body and died to atone for and to expiate our Sins And therefore all the uncouth and forced Interpretations of these and such like Texts which yet are a multitude that attempt to evacuate their plain Meaning may as soon persuade an honest and sincere Man that the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament are a Book full of Collusion and Prevarication as they may that Jesus Christ our Saviour did not die to expiate the Sins of Mankind And were I not assured of God's Providence I should be apt to fear that the Devil might in time so bring Things about that if he could upon Pretences of Reason wipe away that Part of the Bible that concerns our Saviour's Incarnation and the Relation which that has to Man's Redemption that he might at last raise his Hopes of blotting out the whole Christian Religion For to tell us that our Saviour is only such a Man as other Men are but only conceived in a different and therefore more wonderful manner to tell us that he died patiently tho' wrongfully only that he might give us an Example of an exact Patience and of an entire Submission to God's Providence to tell us that he was slain a Sacrifice only to confirm the Covenant of Grace but that there was no such Design in his Death as to suffer for or to expiate our Sins as it is a notorious Contradiction to and not an Exposition of the Scriptures so for that very Reason it will appear to have a direct Tendency towards the overthrowing the Grand Design of the whole Book of God All which to them who shall scan the Scriptures exactly is directed to and does center in the Saviour and that Redemption which he purchased for Mankind by his Death and Merits Having therefore thus in short taken notice of what the Scripture tells us concerning the Expiation of Sin by the Susserings of our Saviour and having already made it out 1. That no Creature can by any means expiate the Sin of Mankind and 2. That our Saviour is God Incarnate or God and Man united in One Person we do in pursuit of our main Design lay it down in the 3. Third place That the Way and Method of Man's Salvation as it is expresly and frequently laid down in the Scriptures which is by the Sufferings and Death of the Son of God manifested in the Flesh is agreeable to right Reason and exactly congruous to the Measures of Truth and to the Rules of Justice And in order to our making this plain and clear we take notice 1. That that Law about the Transgression of which and the Release from the Penalty of such Transgression the Gospel-Forgiveness is only concerned was given to Man For the Scriptures give us no Account of the Forgiveness of the Breach of any other Law but only of that Law which God had prescribed to Mankind And therefore tho' in the Scriptures we have several broad Hints of the Fall of the Angels and tho' our Reason tells us that that which put them under the Displeasure of God must needs be Sin in the general yet we are therefore ignorant what their Sin was because we are ignorant what that Law was against which they sinned 2. We take notice That as that Law about which alone the Gospel-Forgiveness is concerned was the Law given by God to Man so the Gospel takes no other or farther notice of the Transgression of that Law than as that Law is broke by Man From whence we infer in the 3. Third place That that Punishment which the Law threatens against those who transgress it can only in Justice belong to those to whom the Law was given and directed For they can never transgress a Law who have no Law assigned them and they can never be justly punished for the Transgression of the Law who can never transgress the Law The Law therefore about which alone a Gospel-Forgiveness is concerned being the Law given to Man and transgressed by Man Man alone can justly suffer the Penalty of such Transgression From whence we infer in the 4. Fourth place That if any Penalty can ever justly expiate that Guilt which is contracted by the Breach of the Law that Penalty that must make such Expiation must be a Penalty laid upon Man And therefore our Common Sense of Justice will not allow us to think that either Angels which are ranked above Mankind nor Beasts which are ranked below them can by any Sufferings whatsoever expiate or atone for the Breach of such Law which being given by God to Man does so far forth concern Man alone And tho' we have before made it out that neither Angels on the one Hand nor brute Beasts on the other can expiate the Sin of Mankind as both the one and the other are Creatures yet what we now say is that they cannot do it as they are different Creatures For it seems necessary and that
World is restored to that Holiness which was lost by the Transgression of the Law and because no Man shall be compleatly and actually justified till he be so restored 2. Because the Expiation of our Sin by our Saviour and by consequence the Pardon of Sin by God is not Absolute but Conditional and because some of those Conditions upon which such Pardon does depend are to be performed by us such are our Repentance Conversion and the like and because lastly our Condition in this World is such that there will of necessity be required Time for our Performance of such Conditions Therefore we do conclude that as our Saviour has purchased for us such Conditions in order to our Redemption so has he also purchased for us a longer Term in which we may perform such Conditions For it is evident that the Denunciation of the Law upon the Transgression of it is In the Day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die And in strict Justice and Reason the Punishment is then to be inflicted when it becomes due and it then becomes due so soon as the Law is broken For were it not due then it would never become due at all Now because we find and that too by Experience that notwithstanding not only Adam's Sin but our own Sins too we do not presently die but that God waits our Return that he may be gracious to us and because we know that such his Patience and Forbearance is therefore extended to us that we may by our Repentance qualifie our selves to be made Partakers of that Expiation which is made by our Saviour for there is not Salvation in any other therefore we do at last conclude that the Grant of a Space for Repentance is the Purchase of our Saviour For it would have been the same thing for our Saviour to have made no Purchase for us at all if such his Purchase had been clogged with such Conditions on our Part which it was utterly impossible for us to perform And it had been utterly impossible for us to make out our Repentance and Amendment if we had not been allowed a competent Time to make them out in And what we have said concerning God's allowing of a competent Time in which Sinners may perform the Conditions of the Covenant purchased by the Saviour that we say also concerning the Means which are necessary for such their Performance Such are his Word the Succours and Assistance of his Spirit his Sacraments and whatever else does usually come under the Title of Means of Grace For it is not conceivable that our Saviour should purchase for us the End and yet leave us without the Means which are necessary for the bringing about such End But yet because the Means to enable us to perform the Conditions required of us in order to our Salvation are not nor indeed can possibly be that very Salvation for which they are designed or employed as means and because while we live in this World we are required and it is necessary in it self that we always have and also employ such Means to the purpose of our Justification and lastly because it is so far from being necessary that it is neither proper no nor wise to employ any Means for any End already attained therefore what we observed under our last Head will still remain true and that is That no Man is actually justified in this Life 3. From what has been said we take notice That tho' Afflictions in this Life are undoubtedly the Executions of Justice yet which is owing to our Saviour's Purchase there are always couched in such Afflictions Designs of Mercy For tho' as they look backward they have an Eye to our Sins yet as they look forward they have an Eye to our Amendment or at least to our Restraint For had we died for our Sins according to the Law we had been both immediately punished for our Sins past and had by the same Means been prevented from ever sinning for the time to come For a Death without a Resurrection had proved a sure and everlasting Prevention But as we have seen our Life being continued in consideration of our Saviour's Purchase tho' Afflictions are laid upon us during the Reprieve and tho' such Afflictions do confessedly come from the Hand of Justice yet they are never laid on without a Design and Mixture of Mercy And therefore as they are the Punishments of Sins past so they are designed as Means of Grace for the time to come And by the wise Counsel of our merciful and gracious God are employed chiefly indeed for our future Reformation but at least for our future Restraint and so are one and a great Branch too of what we call Restraining Grace As therefore we took notice under our last Head that the Reprieve of Man from the immediate Execution of the Sentence of the Law was the Purchase of our Saviour and that so Man's Life came to be continued notwithstanding his Transgression so under this Head we may observe that tho' Sin during such Continuance of Life cannot be restrained by Death yet the Just Merciful and All-wise God has not even in such Circumstances left it without all Restraint but has by Afflictions fitted such a Curb for it which notwithstanding the Saviour's Purchase is an irrefragable Proof of his Justice But tho' it be so does in no wise encroach upon such Purchase but rather promotes the Design of it For a Life continued in order to the Performance of those Conditions by the Performance of which Man in and through his Saviour may obtain Salvation A Life I say continued to such a Purpose is more likely to answer to such Purpose if its Attempts after sinful Commissions be restrained than it could be were such Attempts left free and at large For which Reason such Restraint tho' it be caused by Afflictions does rather fall in with than controul the Design of our Saviour's Purchase And tho' it be confessed that such Restraint is not so efficacious for the Prevention of future Sins as Death without any Reprieve had been for in the last Case the Prevention had been necessary whereas in the first it is at the most but possible yet it must be confessed also that it is most wisely suited to the Circumstances of those about whom it is employed and that for this Reason Because all Restraint being designed either to keep or to make them Good it is necessary in order to either that it be left to their own Choice whether they will improve it to either or both Designs or no For there can be no Goodness at all without such Freedom By all which we may at last understand that tho' Afflictions as well as Death are the Wages of Sin and tho' God does not let the reprieved Life of a Sinner pass on without the Tokens of his Displeasure that is in the present Case without Afflictions yet that it is owing to our Saviour that all such Afflictions are employed
as Means of Preventing Grace Whereas otherwise the Prevention of Sin by a Death without a Reprieve that is a Death without a Saviour and so without a Resurrection had been no Means of Grace at all but only pure and mere Punishment 4. Lastly From what has been said I take notice that our Saviour by his Expiation of Sin did not purchase for us an Absolute Freedom from Death so that by vertue of such his Expiation we should not die at all but only a Release from Death so that after our Death we should be raised to Life again This I spake to before and the thing is as certain as it is certain that all Men do die and therefore I shall speak no farther to it at present Only one Quaere I would make upon it and that is this Whether because the Law required Death as the Punishment of Sin and because our Saviour for the Purchase of our Redemption and for the fulfilling of the Law was necessitated in his own Person to undergo Death I say Whether upon this Account God by a Mixture of Mercy and Severity might allow his Expiation to extend no farther than only to release us from Death after we had suffered it but not to prevent us from suffering it at all But as I said before I leave this as a Quaere because the Scripture speaks nothing to it and so the Resolution of it lies in the dark Only I thought it not amiss to mention it because it may help to instruct us in the very great Malignity of Sin As most undoubtedly that must be very pernicious to God's Creatures which is downright Enmity to him who made them and which is not wholly expiated by our Saviour himself However the Wisdom and Harmony of God's Truth Justice and Mercy do seem to me from what has been said to shine forth very conspicuously in his Counsel for the Redemption of Mankind For tho' God executes that Death upon Man fatally which upon his Transgression of the Law he threatned peremptorily and so notwithstanding the Death of our Saviour makes good the Truth of his Threat by the Execution of the Penalty Yet for all that he does not so execute such Penalty but that he first allows Man a Reprieve for a time to make himself a fit Subject for his Saviour's Purchase and secondly he grants him a Release from Death by a Resurrection to capacitate him to be put into the actual Possession of such Purchase Again tho' the Life of Man continued in Consideration of his Saviour's Merits be ever and anon overcast with Afflictions and tho' such Afflictions are a Punishment for his Sins and so a Proof of God's Justice Yet still those very Afflictions are in Consideration of his Saviour turned into Means of Grace and so are a merciful Discipline to secure him from those Mischiefs which otherwise might retard or defeat his Pursuit after the purchased Pardon and Inheritance These Remarks being left by the way we proceed to the next thing proposed and that is Whether our Saviour as he did in Fact so also might in Justice and Right die for the Sins of Mankind For because the Scriptures do lay down the Matter of Fact not only in express Terms but also in great variety of Expressions and because those who deny the Doctrine of the Expiation do in this Case as they do in most others oppose Reason to Revelation Therefore as by what has been said already we have made it out that our Saviour did die for our Sins so in what is to follow we shall endeavour to make it out also that he might so die For if the Matter of Fact be found to be the Declaration of God we may be sure that it will have the Approbation of Justice For Justice and Truth can never clash nor interfere But however before we begin I cannot but take notice in the 1. First place That the Redemption of Mankind by our Saviour is one of those Things of God which no Man knoweth but the Spirit of God and that upon that Account it is not so proper a Subject for the Deliberations of Humane that is of short-sighted Reason And my Warrant for so judging I therefore take to be good because it was a Thing as the Scriptures themselves tell us that was hid from Principalities and Powers from Ages and Generations till it was made known by God to his Church that is to those who were chiefly and as to their own Persons only concerned in it And therefore we are very sure that no Man by the Sagacity of his own Reason could ever have made any Discoveries of it 2. I cannot but be satisfied in the second place that any Man of an ordinary or of an extraordinary Understanding who is willing in honesty and sincerity of Heart to receive the Scriptures as the Revelations of God I say I cannot but persuade my self that such a Man and that too by the bare Conduct of his Common Sense would readily acknowledge and accept it for a Truth in those Scriptures revealed that our Saviour suffered and died to expiate the Sins of Mankind For the Texts that assert it are so often repeated and when compared do so mutually not only confirm each others Truth but also explain each others Meaning and the Management of the whole Thing is so exactly accounted for and that through all the Stages and Periods of it till our Saviour comes to offer his Sacrifice to God in the Heavens the Place of his more peculiar Residence and Abode as the High-Priest did typically in the like Case do in the Holy of Holies the more peculiar Discovery of God's Residence among the Jews under the Law I say all these Things are so categorically asserted and explained and so critically accounted for in the Revelations of God that I cannot as yet persuade my self that Common Sense and Common Sincerity will not oblige those to receive and believe them who are willing to receive those Books in which they are so laid down for the Word of God 3. Neither can I persuade my self that Reason if it be not spun too fine and what is so may easily break but I say I cannot persuade my self that Reason upon a sober Examination of the Matter as it is laid down in the Scriptures can in any wise call in question the Justice of it For as it is there laid down there are only three Persons more especially concerned in it and those are God our Saviour and Man Let us therefore take the Sum of the Business in these Three Propositions and then see if our honest and natural Reason can discover any Injustice in it And First God does forgive our Sins in Consideration of our Saviour's Sufferings Secondly Our Saviour did suffer in our stead in order to the obtaining of such Forgiveness Thirdly We do obtain such Forgiveness in Consideration of such his Suffering Now if we set our plain and honest Reason on work to examine
united in our Saviour and so made up but one Christ therefore our Reason will tell us that the Sufferings of such a Man must receive an immense Value from his Personal Union with God Take the Thing in an Instance and it will be much more plain and satisfactory A Man strikes a Prince No one will say that he strikes his Dignity for the thing is impossible but only his Body But yet to think that the Injury and Malignity of the Stroke shall not be rated as well by his Dignity as by his Body would be an Imagination that an ordinary Reason would condemn of Weakness And therefore tho' the Bodies of all Men are made of the same Flesh and Blood and so the wounding of a Prince is no greater a natural Hurt to him than the wounding of a Peasant is to him supposing their Wounds to be equal or alike yet we know that the Difference of their Conditions shall make such a vast Difference in the Value of the Mischiefs done by the several Wounds that in the first Case the Fault of such Mischief shall be esteem'd Capital when perhaps in the last it shall hardly be thought Penal The Sufferings therefore of the Man Christ Jesus might be sufficient for the Expiation of the Sins of Mankind not because his Deity suffer'd with his Humanity but because he being IMMANUEL his Deity gave an Infinite Value to the Sufferings of his Humanity by being Intimately because Personally united to it And therefore as my Reason suggests to me the Certainty of the Union of his Deity with his Humanity from the Expiation made by the Value of the Sufferings of his Humanity so from the Union of his Deity with his Humanity it rather suggests to me that he is One Person of the Deity than that his Deity suffer'd for the accomplishing of such his Expiation And I cannot but think that the Arguments already offered will in a good measure warrant such a Suggestion And therefore to what has been already said I add in the 4. Fourth place That tho' the Expiation of the Sin of Man was one Design both of our Saviour's Incarnation and Sufferings yet that it was not the whole Design of such his Sufferings and of such his Incarnation For he came to destroy the Works of the Devil the Kingdom which the Devil had set up in this lower World to recover sinful Man from that Revolt that he had made from God and so to restore him to his Duty and Allegiance to his Sovereign Lord and King as will appear more fully hereafter And to this purpose as it was necessary that he should purchase to himself a peculiar People zealous of good Works so it was necessary that he should free such People from that State of Sin in which they were in Bondage and by doing both establish a Kingdom of Holiness and Righteousness in lieu of a Kingdom of Sin and Darkness His grand Design then was the enlarging of his Father's Kingdom by restoring to it what the Devil had torn off from him And then if for the accomplishing of such his Design the Expiation of Man's Sin and if for the Expiation of Man's Sin his own Death was necessary it will be no great strain to conceive that the Man Christ Jesus united to the second Person in the Trinity should do and suffer what he did for the fulfilling the Will of God by restoring and so enlarging his Kingdom by subduâ—ng his Arch-enemy and by taking his usurped Dominion out of his Hand and asserting it to himself For all this our Saviour did when by those Methods with which the eternal Wisdom has acquainted us in his Word he builds up a Kingdom of Righteousness out of one of Rebellion and Wickedness Which Kingdom when his Work is fully accomplished he will which was his main and grand Design resign up to God the natural and rightful Lord of all Kingdom and Dominion See 1 Cor. chap. 15. ver 24. Tho' therefore our Apprehensions may be startled when we undertake to conceive that the Son of God the Alpha and Omega the Word of God by whom he made the Worlds should suffer to reconcile Man who had made himself his Enemy by Sin to himself in order to Man's Pardon Yet when we consider that by the same Undertaking he re-settled his Father's Kingdom asserted his Honour and Dignity displayed his Mercy and in Conjunction with that maintained his Justice and that by doing all this he exhibited God to the World not only a faithful Creator but also a gracious and loving Redeemer I say when all these Things are considered our Wonder and our Incredulity may not only abate but cease and we may be rationally satisfied that it was as well worth our Saviour's Sufferings to bring all these Things to pass tho his Enemy Man had his Interest in it as it was for him to make Man at first Now what we have said is a sufficient Answer to the Objection upon supposition that any or every Sin is of so malignant a Nature that the just Punishment of it shall be Eternal But tho' there be such a Thing as Eternal Punishment most expresly asserted by the Scriptures and therefore we do by no means question the Truth of it whatever the Socinians may pretend to the contrary yet perhaps it is not so certain that the Scriptures do allot any such Punishment to any other Sin besides Unbelief or which amounts to much the same Thing tho' in other Words a final Impenitence For it is most certain that all other Sins if they be truly and heartily repented for shall in Consideration of our Saviour's Merits be forgiven and it is as certain that no Man shall undergo an eternal Punishment for those Sins which shall be forgiven If therefore we do assert what is most true that our Saviour did not die to save Unbelievers or Impenitent Sinners and that they are the only Sinners to whom eternal Punishments are assigned in such a Case the Objection that his temporal Punishment could not take away an eternal Punishment would be of no force because in such Case eternal Punishment was not designed to be taken away For every Unbeliever and Impenitent Person shall suffer it notwithstanding our Saviour's Death And there do not want very good Probabilities and those too in no wise disagreeing to Scripture-Revelations that the Sins of those whose Sins shall not be pardoned after the Resurrection shall have just so much Punishment as they do in Justice deserve be that more or less but that such their Punishment shall not therefore be eternal because such their Sins did deserve such eternal Punishment but because they refused and rejected those easie Means which God had provided in a Saviour by a due Use of which they might have escaped all Punishment whatsoever Now because it is absurd to imagine that our Saviour underâ—ent Death to save those who should slight or reject that Salvation which he purchased by his Death
reasonable Let us try the Matter in a sew Instances which will direct our Meditations to a great many more and see whether the Business be so or no. The Merits of our Saviour's Death we say and so do the Scriptures are made over to us We may add but we need not that they are so made over by his last Will and Testament And if we do add it the Scriptures will bear us out in it The Merits of his Obedience also are as we with the Scriptures say made over to us By the first we obtain Redemption from the Curse of the Law By the last an Inheritance with the Saints in Light Now what says the Light of Nature when it discovers it self in the Practices of Mankind in the like Cases 1. Why in the first place The Father has served and obliged his Prince by a due Regard to his Laws and to himself and by a Defence of both from the disobedient Attempts and rebellious or hostile Outrages of all others In such Defence he has been a great Sufferer has lost his Estate his Limb perhaps his Life The Son of this very Man guided more by his own vicious Inclinations than by his Father's Example dips his Hand in Treason and thereby forfeits his Life to the Law and to his Prince Suppose we now that the Prince grants this Son his Life in Consideration of the Father's Services and Merits and so cancels the Demerits of the Son by putting the Deserts of the Father in the Scale against them which especially if the Father died in the Prince's Cause is the ascribing or imputing which you will the good Deserts of one Man to another who is utterly destitute of such Deserts Now such a Case as this being supposed will any Man accuse the Prince of Injustice for the Grant of such a Pardon Was not the Injury done to himself And may he not remit such an Injury by esteeming the great Services of the Father and the Benefits that he himself received and the Mischiefs which the Father sustained by such his Services a sufficient Counterpoise to the Injury of the Son And may he not be satisfied that the near Relation and dear Affection of the Father to the Son may make the Son's Pardon a Gratification and Requital to him for all his own Services and Sufferings Surely these Things may be allowed among Men And I do not at all question but that these or such like Things have been practised in all Governments and yet that their Justice has not been taxed for such their Practice And yet I do assert and maintain That the Pardon of Man's Sin in Consideration of his Saviour's Sufferings does much more critically and nicely come up to the Rules of an exact Justice than the Pardon of the Rebel in the present Instance does and I am well enough satisfied that what has been already offered will abundantly make good such an Assertion But sawcie Man will not allow what his God says or does to be true and just tho' at the same time he will allow and approve the same or the like Practices in his Fellow-Creature 2. But to proceed Secondly The Father by his Labour and Toil of his Body or by that of his Brains purchases to himself an Estate His Son enjoys his Share in it while the Father lives and the whole of it after his Death How comes the Father's Purchase to derive to the Son You will answer By the Law But the Question returns By what Act does the Law make the Father's Purchase to become the Son's Why it may be replied that as the Son descended from the Father so it is but fit that his Estate should do so too Well! be it so or any thing else for more may be said in the Case But still in the Case the Father's Right being extinct by his Death moves that is is transferr'd upon another So that he comes rightfully to possess the Estate who yet did not purchase it nor earn it nor perhaps do any one Act for the obtaining the Possession of it Not only the Estate then but the Right and Title to the Estate which is undoubtedly lodged in the Purchase and must be made good by it is transferr'd from one Man to another and that too not by or for any Action of Desert in the Man who enters but by an Act of Law call it Imputation Translation or what you please And which is more such a Translation both of Estate and Title is accounted just by all Mankind generally speaking For it is not material in the Case that some arbitrary and despotical Governments do in some few Instances vary from it because not only the rest of Mankind but even they themselves do by their contrary Practice in other and more Cases condemn their own Practice in this Now to our Purpose Shall the transferring not only of one Man's Estate to another but even of the Right and Title in that Estate be thought just between Men among themselves and that too by that Light of Reason which is confessedly given them by God And shall it at the same time be unlawful and unjust for God so to make over his Purchase his Right and Title to any Thing as he thinks fit to Mankind as one Man may do to another Certainly he has as good a Right and as full Power of disposing of what is his own as any Man or any Law of Man whatsoever And therefore when he tells us that he does so in the Case under our present Consideration it would become us in Modesty in Reason and because the Case does very much import our Welfare in Interest likewise to believe his Word and to approve his Doings And that too more especially because in those very Writings in which the Conveyance is contained he seems all along to word such his Conveyance in Law-Terms thereby giving us at least an Hint that in the Transaction of Man's Salvation by our Saviour he did in a great measure condescend to those Methods and Ways of Judicial Proceedings that Men by that Light of Reason which they received from him had instituted among themselves And therefore when we had forsaken his Family by revolting from that Duty which we owed him as his Natural Children as he calls himself our Father in Christ Jesus so he calls us his Adopted Sons upon his restoring us to such his Family and in order to the Renovation of our lost Title he does esteem us to be Regenerate that so by becoming again the Children of God we may inherit the Kingdom of him our Father So he calls us the Heirs of Salvation and makes us a Title to the Purchase of our Saviour by calling us his Brethren He reckons us as Joint-Heirs with him and discourses in several Places of our Inheritance Now when we are assured by Multitudes of other Places of Scripture that all these Appellations and Titles are given to us not only in Terms in the like Cases made
Life he laid it down in our stead so also that when he took it up again he took up with it the Lives of all those who by the Conditions of the New Covenant shall have an Interest in such his Death And therefore as our Christianity does acquaint us that they who live to Christ do live by the Spirit so St. Paul to our present purpose does tell us in the Eighth to the Romans ver 11. that if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead do dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you In a Word Christ is our Head and we are his Members and because he and we do make up one Body and because as Members of such his Body we are quickned by his Spirit therefore we may confirm our own Resurrection by his And therefore as he is called the First-born from the Dead in the First to the Colossians ver 18. so we are called the Children of the Resurrection in the Twentieth of St. Luke ver 36. So that a good Man from the Certainty of his Saviour's Resurrection from Death to Glory and Immortality may safely conclude his own may lie down in his Grave as securely as in his Bed and when the Morning of the Great Day shall down forth may be more secure of rising again and putting on his Body than he can be that he shall rise on the Morrow-morning and put on his Clothes For for the first he has the Security of Truth and Omnipotence but for the last he has only the Promises of his own Presumption or at the very best but of his Hope 4. As the Faithful shall in Consideration of our Saviour's Death and Resurrection obtain their own Resurrection from Death to Life so the Life which by such their Resurrection they shall obtain shall be Life Eternal This is express Scripture and a Christian may therefore be satisfied in and assured of its Truth For our Saviour himself tells us as much when giving an Account of the Last Judgment he closes such Account in the Last Verse of the Twenty fifth Chapter of St. Matthew with these Words And these shall go into everlasting Punishment and then follows that which is directly to our present Purpose But the Righteous into Life Eternal And Reason tells us that so it must needs be because where the Cause of all Death whatsoever is taken away there the Possibility of Death must be taken away too unless we should imagine that Death should be brought upon a Rational Creature subject to Law without any meritorious Cause of Death at all But as we have often laid it down and proved it already that cannot be supposed in the present Case because the Death we now speak of is supposed to come from God's Justice and the Justice of God cannot either truly or rationally be supposed to inflict Death there where there is no Desert of it Now we therefore know that the meritorious Cause of Death is Sin because we know that the Wages of Sin is Death If therefore as we have already seen the Sin of the Faithful be taken away by the Expiation and if upon their Resurrection they obtain an indefectible Holiness the Inference will be That the Cause of Death Sin will upon the first Account be cancelled and blotted out and that upon the last Account it cannot be renewed or restored and that therefore upon both Accounts in conjunction Death the Wages of Sin can never more return And then when a Life restored is secured from all possible return of Death we may be sure that such Life so restored must be Eternal And agreeable to what we now say St. Paul tells us in the Third to the Philippians the last Verse that our Saviour whom we look for from Heaven shall change our vile Body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious Body according to the mighty working whereby he is able even to subdue all Things unto himself Now we know that when our Saviour appeared to St. Paul that is to that very Apostle who tells us these Things he does expresly affirm to King Agrippa in the Twenty sixth of the Acts that the Light of the Appearance was above the Brightness of the Sun and yet the Context will tell us that the Appearance was made about Mid-day And perhaps our Saviour's Transfiguration on the Mount was a Proleptick Discovery of that Glory with which his Body was to be cloathed upon his Ascent into Heaven the Mount of God But be that as it will yet to our Purpose If the Bodies of the Saints shall be fashioned like unto his glorious Body then it will be no improbable Conclusion That they shall with that Glory put on an Immortal Frame and Constitution And this Conclusion will then advance from Probable to Certain when we know that the same Apostle does acquaint us not only that our Body which is sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory but over and above that this Corruptible must put on Incorruption and that this Mortal must put on Immortality Much more might be offered on this Subject but from what has been glanced at we may now perceive that our Body in imitation of our Saviour's Body shall after its Resurrection be indued with a glorious Frame and an immortal Constitution that it shall be done by his Power as it shall in Consideration of his Merit that the Power that shall do it is able to subdue all Things to it self that is is Omnipotent And then where we have the Promise of Truth and the Power of Omnipotence to secure to us an Eternal Life there we can have no Reason to doubt the Eternity of such Life The Second Thing should now in Order follow which is to shew wherein the Happiness of such Eternal Life does consist But before we speak to that I shall lay down two or three Practical Considerations which as they look back to what has been spoken already so will be no improper Introduction to those Things which are to follow 1. And first We should be sensible of and grateful for that blessed Provision that our Lord and Saviour has made for our Everlasting Happiness and Security And this we should so much the rather be because by what has been said we may now understand that such Provision does fully answer to our highest natural Desires and Inclinations For our Anxiety for our own Welfare will tell us that among all the several Appetites by which we pursue after our own Happiness our Desire of Life does hold the first and chief Place with us And the Reason is plain because the Loss of Life must needs be followed by the Loss of all other Enjoyments whatsoever that can in any wise conduce to our Happiness And as we are told by our Common Sense that our grand and topping Appetite is that of Life so we are told by the same
their Souls at peace with themselves because they have then been satisfied that God has been at peace with their Souls Now such Comforts and smaller Happinesses as these because they have always accompanied and been proportionate to their fainter Love of Holiness have given in sufficient Evidence that their Happiness shall then be perfect and compleat when their Holiness shall be so And by having so done may inforce our present Exhortation which is That by growing in Grace and by improving in the Love of God and Goodness they should fit themselves for an eternal Happiness For by what has been said they may now begin to be satisfied that when their Saviour requires of them to love the Lord their God with all their Hearts with all their Souls with all their Strength and with all their Minds he does in effect require of them to love their own Souls since it is by this time notorious that what in this Case is their Duty will prove not only their true Way to Happiness but that it will also put them into the actual Possession of such Happiness 2. I would add in the second place That if we do not sincerely love Holiness and by consequence desire it we shall never attain to the Perfection of it And if we fall short of a perfect Holiness we shall by consequence fall short of Eternal Happiness For our Saviour will not bestow a perfect Holiness there where it is not desired and it cannot be desired there where it is not loved We must therefore fit our selves to be made perfectly holy as well as he is willing to make us so For as we have seen already that those only who hunger and thirst after Righteousness shall be satisfied so we shall here add That those only who are so satisfied shall be blessed A SHORT INQUIRY Whether it does not appear from The Scriptures THAT THE GOSPEL OF OUR Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST Shall be made known to those Men After their Resurrection to whom it had never been made known Before their Death LONDON Printed for Benjamin Tooke at the Middle-Temple Gate in Fleet-street 1700. THE PREFACE IT may be perceived by the very Title that I would be thought however I have all along worded my self to propose the following Essay for so I would chuse to call it only Problematically For which Reason I have separated it from the foregoing Discourse and have cast it here by it self If it be found true it cannot for that Reason be condemned of Novelty because it is wholly grounded upon the Scripture and goes no farther than those Consequences which That affords will warrant And if it be found true it may perhaps be found useful also for the Resolving of more Difficulties in Religion than what it expresly pretends to But I was unwilling to adventure too far and therefore desire the Reader to take it in good Part such as it at present offers it self to him T. S. A SHORT INQUIRY c. IT has been our professed Business in the foregoing Discourse to make it out That there is no other Name under Heaven but that of Jesus Christ given to Men whereby they must be saved Which because it is a Truth only made known by Revelation and because it is attended with some Difficulties which our Natural Reason cannot easily surmount has therefore of late especially been slighted to say no worse by some Men who call themselves Christians but who for all that will allow nothing to be necessary to Salvation but the Belief of a God and that Natural Religion which is consequent to such Belief and therefore who are desirous at least to lay aside all Revelation whatsoever Now tho' others who have looked farther into the Matter cannot persuade themselves to renounce God's Revelations concerning a Saviour made to Man in the Old and New Testaments which do indeed carry sufficient Evidence in themselves of their Divine Authority the main Drift and Design of the First being to foretell and prefigure the Coming of our Lord Jesus the Messiah with other Things relating to his Birth Life Death Resurrection c. And the main Drift and Design of the Last being to exhibit to us the Accomplishment of what had been so foretold and prefigured For the Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy and the Spirit of Prophecy is the Spirit of God Yet even some of these Men do so treat the acknowledged Revelations as to employ their Reason rather to expound away those Difficulties than to resolve them by that means rejecting the most express Meaning of a great Part of the New Testament and so cutting those Knots which they perhaps therefore only cannot because they will not try to untie Now tho' we have attempted to resolve several such Difficulties and some of them in such a way which we hope may persuade thinking Men that provided they hold fast the Foundation they are not always obliged to tread in beaten Paths Yet one grand Difficulty still remains and that is That if Men are to obtain Salvation by Jesus Christ alone and if such a Doctrine can only be known by Revelation then it may seem strange at least that the Revelation is not made known to all Men. And it may seem the more strange that it is not so because in those very Revelations which we have of it we find expresly that the Salvation designed in Christ Jesus was intended for all Men And it is natural to think that that which is designed for the Benefit of all should be exhibited to all and that especially when such Design is the Counsel of Wisdom and Omnipotence Besides if the Revelation of a Saviour was necessary for any then either immediately or mediately it must be necessary for All because if any of those Men to whom it is not made may be saved without it then so might those to whom it was made and so the Revelation as to its necessity to Salvation might have been wholly spared For which Reason we cannot think it sufficient to say that the Saviour knows all Men and so can save them tho' all Men do not know the Saviour and so cannot believe on him And therefore the Scriptures of the New Testament do expresly assign our Salvation on our Part to our Belief and they do as expresly make our Saviour the Saving Object of such our Belief And therefore tho' the Author of The Reasonableness of Christianity has shewed himself no great Friend to Articles of Christian Faith and therefore does at least pretend to wipe away the Necessity of all other Articles in our Creed but this That Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah yet he does not adventure so far as to exclude the Necessity of that Article My Business is not with that Author at present and therefore having taken notice that he does so far agree with me I shall proceed Only I would by the bye remark That tho' that be the first and leading Article of
afterwards shall go from hence with him and be with him where he is For they shall ever be with the Lord but the Earth shall fly away before his Face Rev. 20. ver 11. 7. That tho' the Righteous shall be Witnesses of because present at least at the Judgment passed upon the Reprobate yet that the Reprobate shall not be present at that Sentence by which the Righteous shall have their Reward assigned them For they shall not be raised till after such Sentence be passed and over Rev. 20. compare the Fourth Verse with the Eleventh and following Verses 8. Neither shall the Devil be present at the blessed Sentence and therefore shall not then be permitted to accuse the Righteous because he is bound and cast into the bottomless Pit before the Thrones are set in the Fourth Verse and is not loosed till the thousand Years are expired One Thing more we must remark upon this First Resurrection and that is that it shall not be brought to pass till the Last Day by which I understand the last Day of the Oeconomy of this World or the Day of our Saviour's first Coming to Judgment Consult St. John chap. 6. ver 39 40. At which Day as the Faithful whether dead and then raised or remaining or not yet dead shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the Air 1 Thess 4. ver 16. so in that Day the Earth and the Works that are therein shall be burnt up 2 Pet. chap. 3. ver 7 10 12. compared From whence we conclude That as the Faithful shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the Air so the Wicked and Unbelievers that remain in the Earth shall be destroyed by that general Conflagration From whence we have a plausible Argument for that which we have called the Second Resurrection which is the Resurrection of some Men whoever they be at present after the Resurrection of the Righteous Because after the Resurrection of the Faithful and the Destruction of all the rest by Fire as aforesaid and not only so but also a thousand Years after that Satan is let loose to deceive the Nations Now after the general Conflagration there could be no Nations to be deceived if there were no Resurrection They therefore whom he is to deceive are those who were raised in the Fifth Verse as was before said For he cannot deceive those of the First Resurrection for many obvious Reasons But farther to assert this Second Resurrection and to clear such Doubts as may arise concerning it we shall enquire into these following Particulars 1. Who those Men are that shall be raised by it 2. Why the Devil is let loose to deceive them 3. Why they are called the Nations 4. Who is Gog and Magog For as we shall see by and by Gog and Magog must come under this Second Resurrection 1. And for an Answer to the first Question viz. Who those are who shall be raised by the second Resurrection We must take notice that the Scriptures do tell us what it has been our Business in the foregoing Discourse to prove 1. That there is not Salvation in any other but in Jesus Christ alone 2. The same Scriptures do tell us That those Men who shall be saved by Jesus Christ must believe in him that is they must receive him for their Saviour and admit the Conditions of that Covenant which he established in order to their Salvation 3. The same Scriptures and our natural Reason do tell us That Men cannot believe in him of whom they have not heard 4. And we are assured by Experience not only that many Men but that many Nations of Men and that too through most if not all Ages of the World have not heard of Jesus Christ 5. And yet we know by the Scriptures that Jesus Christ came to save all Men that he died for all that God wills not that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and be saved with much more to the same purpose 6. And we are assured That where God wills the Salvation of all Men and where he has provided Means sufficient for the Salvation of all Men that there he will not we may perhaps say cannot in Truth Equity and Justice so order Things by his Providence that many nay the most part of those Men for whom as well as for the rest he provided and therefore designed Salvation should be put in such Circumstances and that without their own Fault as that it should be utterly impossible for them to come to the Knowledge of their Saviour and his Gospel and by consequence to a Possibility of obtaining Salvation Now from these Propositions so laid down we do infer 1. That at some time or other Jesus Christ shall be made known to all Men before they shall by him be called to Judgment to give an Account whether they have received and believed in him or not 2. That all those Men to whom Jesus Christ and his Gospel was never made known before their Death shall yet be made acquainted with them after their Resurrection And in order to our more full Satisfaction in these Conclusions we take notice farther 1. That all upon whom a final Judgment shall pass that is all Men are by the Scriptures ranged into Two Sorts Those who shall be saved and those who shall be damned 2. That those with whose Resurrection we are made acquainted from the Fifth to the Ninth Verse of the Twentieth of Revelations inclusive were raised after the Resurrection in the Fourth Verse is over and were raised and gone before the Resurrection in the Eleventh Twelfth and following Verses does commence which are expresly Resurrections of Remuneration whereas those of this second Resurrection are not during the Time that their Resurrection lasts called to any final Judgment for any Thing that they had done in this Life but are all that while treated much after the same manner as Men in this Life are And this will yet farther appear if we consider that Satan was let loose to tempt them For 1. They that are raised to Happiness and Glory and so are all they who have in this Life heard of and believed in the Saviour shall not after their Resurrection be tempted by him They have fought the good Fight they have kept the Faith they have finished their Course and from thenceforth are to obtain the Crown of Glory laid up for them 2. And all those who have in this Life been made acquainted with the Saviour and have rejected him have by that Means put away Salvation from themselves and therefore shall at their Resurrection be raised to Condemnation and so there will be no Occasion for the Devil to tempt them 3. To which we may add That when we are told that Satan is let loose to tempt the Nations it is implied that he will tempt them from something that is good to something that is evil for we know to what End his Temptations do drive and that he
is that roaring Lion who goes about seeking whom he may devour that is that the Business and Design of his Temptations is the Destruction of Souls And for that Reason we may also know that the main Design of his Temptation or Deceit in the Text must be to seduce the People there mentioned from believing in and receiving the Saviour and by consequence from obtaining Salvation From all which we do conclude That to qualifie these People for the farther Mercies of the Saviour over and beyond the Resurrection which I shall in this Place adventure to call his general and unconditional Purchase we may suppose 1. That the Saviour shall be then tendred to them For not having heard of him in this Life they had no Possibility either of receiving or rejecting him here as the rest of Mankind had 2. That after they are upon their Resurrection made acquainted with the Saviour they shall be put upon the same Probation whether they will receive him upon the Conditions of the Gospel as those were who had heard of him and the Gospel-Conditions in this Life 3. That if upon such their Probation they do receive him they shall then be in the same happy Condition in which they now are who did receive him in this Life and who do therefore enjoy the Happiness of the first Resurrection For we may reasonably judge that if upon their Resurrection they did receive him that then they should die no more as they who were alive at his first Coming which Coming does still continue did not die but were caught up to him And perhaps for this Reason the Text does only account for the Death of those of this Second Resurrection who opposed the Saviour and besieged the beloved City And if we suppose such a Process in this Affair as indeed the Circumstances seem to allow us more than barely to suppose it it will upon such Supposition be found exactly to answer and agree with the Proceedings at the first Coming of our Saviour to raise the Righteous For as then they who believed in him and were alive in the Earth did not die at all but were caught up to meet the Lord in the Air so here those who upon their Resurrection received and believed in the Saviour then made known to them shall not die but shall be taken to the Lord and so shall escape that Fire from Heaven which will destroy all the rest who besiege the beloved City Just as the Righteous at the beginning of this our Saviour's Coming were caught up to meet the Lord in the Air and so escaped the general Conflagration which ensued 1. Now from all that has been said the Answer to the first Question will be That they who shall be raised by that which we have called the Second Resurrection are all those who never had had the Offer of a Saviour made to them in this Life 2. From which we may gain an easie Answer to the second Question which is Why the Devil is let loose to deceive them The Reason of which is Because they are to undergo the same Probation upon the Offer of the Saviour to them which those underwent who in this Life had the same Offer For it is just and equitable that they should undergo the same Trial with those of the first Resurrection for this Reason Because all Mankind having by Sin become voluntary Subjects to Satan it is neither agreeable to the Divine Justice nor indeed to the Rules of Reason in general to rescue any of them from such Subjection without their own voluntary Consent For in order to their Return to their Original Subjection to God it is necessary that they become good and holy And in order to their becoming so it is necessary and that too in the Nature of the Thing that they be willing to become so As therefore the Devil first brought them off from their Subjection to God to that of himself by persuading them to consent that is to be willing to the Revolt so God brings them back again only by persuading them to be willing to return For if on one side or the other either God or the Devil should force or compel them to their respective Subjection they could by such Force neither be made good nor bad that is they could not become Subjects to either because there can be no moral Goodness or Badness without the Consent of his Will who is good or bad Since therefore God having made Man a Free Agent and so capable of Moral Goodness did not force them to continue good when the Devil first tempted them to be bad and so did not hinder the Devil from tempting them to be bad at first neither will he for the same Reason hinder the Devil from tempting them to continue so no not when he himself does offer to them a Saviour So that the Offer of a Saviour by God and his Invitations and Persuasions of Men to receive such Saviour on the one Hand and the Devil's Dissuasions and Temptations of them from receiving such Saviour on the other Hand being in some measure a Counterpoise to each other the Receiving or Refusing of the Saviour becomes the Act and Deed of him to whom he is tendred and so in Right and Justice the consequential Benefits of such Receiving and the consequential Mischiefs of such Refusal shall become his just Portion Tho' therefore the Devil shall not be suffered to tempt those of the First Resurrection any more because they had already baffled and overcome his Temptations in this Life and so notwithstanding such his Temptations had received the Saviour on the Gospel-Conditions Yet because the Case of those of the Second Resurrection is upon such their Resurrection and the Offer of the Saviour then to them just the same as was the Case of the First in this Life therefore Satan shall be let loose to tempt them after their Resurrection as he was to tempt the others in this Life God therefore by raising them from the Dead did in a Saviour do that for them which it was utterly impossible for them to do for themselves but still leaves them to do for themselves what they can do tho' as we may suppose not without such Assistance as may be sufficient if they be not wanting to themselves to enable them to conquer the Devil's Temptations 3. The Third Question is Why the Devil is said to be let loose to deceive the Nations In order to the Resolution of which we must take notice that upon the Second Resurrection there was now Two Sorts of People upon the Face of the Earth whereof the first are the Inhabitants of the New Jerusalem the beloved City Now as under Moses's Law the Israelites who were the People of God whose chief City was Jerusalem the Place where God had setled his more Solemn Worship and his more Especial Abode I say as the Israelites are opposed to the Gentiles that is to the rest of the World in