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
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
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
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
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
the Law had promised to such Obedience 1. Now in order to our making good our first Proposition we must examine what Qualifications are absolutely necessary in order to fit any one to make such Purchase and then enquire farther Whether such Qualifications either do or can belong to any other besides our Saviour alone 1. Now the first and leading Qualification in him who shall be fitted for the Purchase of a Release from the Penalty of the Law which they have incurred who transgress the Law is that he who makes such a Purchase must be one of the same Kind with them to whom the Law was given that is in the present Case must be a Man For the Law was given to Man was broke by Man and therefore also the Breach of it in the Congruity of Things and by the Laws of Common Sense and Justice is to be punished in Man Now tho' our Saviour was not the only Person in the World who had this Qualification for every Man besides is as real a Man as he was yet he was the only Man among all Mankind who by this Qualification was fitted for the effectual enterprising and bring to pass those other Things which are absolutely necessary for the Purchase of the Release spoken of 2. For secondly The next Qualification of him who is fitted for the Purchase of a Release from the Penalty of the Law is that he must be an Innocent Man He was to be a Lamb without Spot or Blemish and to answer to the Paschal Lamb which in this as in several other Things was a Type of that Lamb of God which should take away the Sins of the World For he who is qualified to suffer for others in order to release those others from the Penalty of Sin must not therefore be a Sinner himself because if he be so then he must by the Laws of Justice and even according to the Tenor of that Law which assigns such Penalty suffer the Penalty for his own Sin And he who suffers the Penalty of the Law for his own Sin cannot therefore suffer the Penalty of the Law for the Sin of others at least in the present Case he cannot because the Penalty of the Law upon the Transgression of it being the loss of Life his own Penalty exhausts the whole Stock or Possibility of his so suffering For he who has but one Life and no Man has more can pay that Life but once And therefore if he lays it down for his own Sin he must for that Reason have nothing remaining to lay down for the Sin of others 3. He who is duely qualified to purchase for Mankind a Release from the Penalty of their Sins must be a Man whose Life is of more value than the Lives of all the rest And the Reason for it is plain and obvious because we know that the Lives of all the rest can make no such Purchase And the Lives of all the rest cannot therefore make any such Purchase because the Death of no single Man can make such a Purchase for himself For what no single Man's Death can do for himself that the Death of all Men cannot do for all For there is just the same Proportion between all Men and the Death of all that there is between one Man and the Death of one Besides supposing a Man to be a Transgressor of the Law it looks very absurd to affirm that the Death of such a Man which is the Punishment of his Transgression can be the Purchase of his Release from such Punishment For then the self-same Thing and that is his Death will bear a quite contrary Character for it will be both the Wages of his Sin and the Purchase of his Ransom that is it will be the Vengeance of the Law and the meritorious Cause of his Freedom from the same Vengeance Every Sinner therefore against the Law must be a Sufferer under the Vengeance of the Law and that Law which adjudges those who transgress it to Death does not by so doing design to return them to Life For if it did then by inflicting its Sentence it must design to revoke that Sentence and by making the Punishment a Release from the Punishment must look like Trifling and not like Justice The Loss of no Sinner's Life then is of Value sufficient to put a Period to the Execution of that Sentence which the Law pronounces against those who do transgress it And every Man's Death in the Course of the Law had been eternal were there nothing else to remove it but his own Strength that is in the present Case but his own Death For if the Death of a dead Man can do nothing for him we are sure that no other of his Powers or Merits can For in the Case before us he can have no other Merits of his own to restore him to Life but the Merits of his Death and the Merits of his Death as we have seen are none at all And to expect any Relief from a dead Man's Powers is to expect Relief from no Powers at all for Death crushes all the Powers of all Men whom it seizes Now this being the Condition of all Men who die because they are Sinners we may from hence safely conclude That if any Man who is not a Sinner shall undertake by his own Death to make good the Ransom of all the rest from Death and after that shall make good his Undertaking I say if any Man shall do this we may be sure that his Death or his Life which you will is therefore of more Value than the Life or Death of all the rest because he does by it make that Purchase which all the rest could not do by theirs For in the present Case the Value of the Thing may be truly and justly estimated by the Possibility of the Purchase it can make because the Possibility of the Purchase depends upon the Allowance of the Great and Just God And then when God is willing to release Man from Death in Consideration of the Death of his Innocent Saviour and when he is not so in Consideration of sinful Man 's own Death and when he does professedly declare such his Will in many Places of his Word and by the repeated Attestations of Matter of Fact whereby several People have been raised from the Dead in the Name and by the professed Power of the Saviour I say when we find all these Things to be so as we do or at least easily may find them so to be we may from the Whole conclude That the Death of our Saviour is of more Value than the Death of all Mankind because it can do that which the Death of all the rest cannot do and that too by the Allowance of God himself Now from these Propositions so laid down we may therefore conclude That there is not Salvation in any other but only in our Saviour set forth in the Gospel 1. Because it was absolutely necessary in Justice that the
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