and gave gifts unto men and partly by the words immediately following vers 11. And hee gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the worke of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ Now to doe these things was to execute and fulfill the last Will of God Hence the Apostle teacheth the conveniency of Christs death through the meanes whereof hee was fitted and perfected for the executing and doing of those things which according to the last Will of God conduce to our finall salvation For hence is our Expiation whereby wee are absolved and acquitted from our sinnes for Christ through his death was made a mercifull and faithfull high Priest to performe this gracious Office unto us Heb. 2.17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to bee made like unto his brethren that hee might bee a mercifull and faithfull high Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sinnes of the people for in that hee himselfe hath suffered being tempted hee is able to succour them that are tempted And whereas at the Legall Expiation the Priest entred the Tabernacle after hee had shed the blood of Goates and Calves But Christ first shed his owne blood and thereupon entred the Sanctuary of Heaven once for all to make an eternall Expiation Heb. 9.12 Neither by the blood of Goates and Calves but by his owne blood hee entred in once into the holy place having obtained eternall redemption Hence is our Consolation whereby wee are succoured in all our sufferings and distresses for seeing Christ suffered and was tryed in all poynts as wee are therefore hee hath a sense of our infirmities and thereupon wee may confidently come to him for helpe in time of neede Heb. 4.15 For wee have not an high Priest which cannot bee touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted as wee are yet without sinne let us therefore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace that wee may obtaine mercy and finde grace to helpe in time of neede Hence is our Resurrection whereby wee are raised from death for Christ through his death destroyes the Divell who had the power of death and delivers us from our death whereof though wee feele the pressure yet wee need not feare the bondage that it will bee eternall Heb. 2.14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood hee also himselfe likewise tooke part of the same that through death hee might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Divell and deliver them who through feare of death were all their life time subject to bondage And hence is our Glorification whereby the possession of our eternall inheritance is delivered unto us for Christ was the Executor of the New Testament for this very cause that through the meanes of his death wee might receive the possession of that eternall inheritance to the present right whereof wee are called and justified Heb. 9.15 And for this cause hee is the Mediatour of the New Testament that by meanes of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise the promised possession of eternall inheritance Hence also Christ himselfe before his death taught his Disciples the Expediency of his death that it was expedient for them hee should dye for otherwise the Comforter which was the holy Ghost would not come unto them John 16.7 Neverthelesse I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I goe away for if I goe not away the Comforter will not come unto you But if I depart I will send him unto you By his going away and departing hee meanes his dying for wee commonly expresse dying by the words of going away and departing And after his death hee taught them the Necessity of his death that it behoved him to die and rise again from the dead that thereupon the Gospel might be preached in his name Luk. 24.46 And hee sayd unto them thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sinnes should bee preached in his name among all Nations beginning at Jerusalem Thus the immediate proper finall causes or reasons why Christ dyed are chiefely three namely to Testifie the truth of the New Testament to Confirme the force of it and to Execute the decrees of it for unto a Testament once constituted what acts more do necessarily belong then the Testification the Confirmation and the Execution of it But the remote causes of his death might bee many and various For all the actions done by Christ as Mediatour of the New Testament were causes of his death whether wee respect his Prophetick Office in publishing Gods Will preaching his Doctrine and working Miracles or his Priestly Office in sanctifying Believers and expiating their sinnes or his Kingly Office in governing his people and subduing their enemies And all benefits redounding to Believers as the Legacies and Promises of the New Testament were causes of his death as their Justification the Remission of their sinnes their Resurrection and Glorification And all Duties to bee done by Believers as the conditions without which they are not to enjoy their Legacies are the causes of his death as their sanctity or holynesse their dying to sinne and newnesse of life in all the good workes of love But all these and the like are not opposite or repugnant to the three causes by us assigned but are comprehended and included in them are subordinate and consequent to them are collected and inferred from them For because Christ dyed to testifie confirm and execute the New Testament and my sanctity or holinesse is a Precept thereof and a duty by me to be done therefore Christ dyed for my Sanctification that I might dye unto sin and live unto holinesse and consequently he dyed for my patience temperance mercifulnesse c. because these and the like are branches of holinesse And because Christ dyed to testifie confirme and execute the New Testament wherein Remission of sins the Resurrection from the dead and Glorification were devised and promised as Legacies unto Believers therfore Christ also dyed for the Remission of my sins for my Resurrection and Glorification Yet among the remote Causes of Christs death the Scripture doth most frequently mention the Remission of sins Because my sins have the greatest force upon me to bereave or at least to hinder me from the hope of their forgivenes For according to the evidence of reason if I looke upon my sins to consider the custome and foulenesse of them how can I chuse but feare that I have deserved a fearfull punishment and that God in his Justice will inflict it on me Or if I looke upon my death to consider my dissolution and rottennesse in the Grave how can I hope that God whom I
Certainly not to this that thereupon we should imagine Repentance or holinesse to be a thing impossible or should esteeme good works not necessary or should differ from the evill men of this present world in nothing but in our faith taking liberty to live licentiously without feare of punishment that grace may abound and God may have all the glory of it as the false teachers among the Galatians who besides the faith of the Gospel urged the works of the Law conceived of Pauls doctrine and in the next Chapter ver 17. will object it against him But the end or effect which the remission of our sinnes should have upon us is to move and draw us to Repentance or holinesse of life For Christ died or gave himselfe for the remission of our sinnes that hee might deliver us from that servitude of sin wherin the men of this present world are enthralled Now this deliverance is done only by Repentance because Repentance only doth separate and withdraw us from the service of sin and wickednes And the Reasons why the forgivenesse of our sinnes should cause our Repentance are two 1. Because the forgivenesse of our sinnes is granted us in relation to our repentance It hath been the businesse of Gods spirit in all ages to struggle with man and to draw him from wickednesse Under the Law God ordayned severall punishments by violent death for it but this was a base and servile way for Gods people to be kept in aw only through feare and it was a defective faulty or weak way because those penalties by death could not doe the deed to deliver or withdraw men from wickednesse Under the Gospel therefore God proceeds in a contrary course by reversing all penalties and granting a generall pardon for all sinnes to the end that what the Law could not doe by way of feare that the Gospel might effect by reasons of Gods love that wee in thankfulnesse for so great a blessing might answer his love with our love and therupon for his sake might forsake the wayes of wickednesse And God sealed this Pardon with the bloud of Christ that his love in not sparing his own Son and the love of Christ in laying downe his life for us might the more endeare and engage us to the works of Repentance and holinesse Unto which effect what further means are there conducent besides the feare of God in punishing sin and the love of God in forgiving it 2. Because our Repentance or holinesse is the condition wherupon the forgivenesse of our sinnes is to take effect Every Beleever by vertue of his beliefe or faith hath a present right to the future forgivenesse of his sinnes and his present right to that forgivenesse is absolute or simple without any condition For his beliefe or faith is not the condition thereof but the nomination whereby the Right of forgivenesse and the rest of the Legacies devised in Gods Will are assigned unto him for that and the rest are setled upon all the faithfull by their name of Beleevers But the future fruition of that forgivenesse is conditionall for it is limited or restrayned unto the condition of Repentance or holinesse for though all Beleevers have a present right to the forgivenesse of their sins yet only those Beleevers who are penitent or holy shall enjoy the future benefit of that Right By reason of which limitation the benefit or effect of actuall forgivenesse is suspended untill the condition of holinesse bee accomplished Which condition being never performed God stands no way engaged for the future to forgive actually those sinnes unto the forgivenesse whereof the Beleever had once a present Right Hence Christ makes our Forgiving of one another an adequate condition of Gods forgiving us that if we forgive one another which act in us is a good degree of our repentance or holinesse then will God forgive us but if we forgive not God will not forgive us what former promise soever he hath made or what present right soever we have thereto Matt. 6.14 If yee forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you but if yee forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses If Gods forgivenesse heere mentioned be not conditionall then must wee needs averre that either there is no such thing as a condition or that hitherto the thing is not rightly understood what it meaneth Likewise every time wee pray to God for forgivenesse as Christ taught us to pray for it we aske it upon this condition of forgiving others Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespasse against us Or if on our part this condition be not expressed yet on Gods part it is alwayes implied and understood But if in this life our sinnes bee absolutely and actually forgiven there can bee no cause why wee should dayly pray for their forgivenes because no man prayes for what he already hath and enjoyeth But because Gods promise to forgive us is conditionall therefore we dayly pray that God would finally performe his promise upon our performance of the condition Heerupon it is that Christ makes the forgivenes of sinnes a Motive unto Repentance in saying to the Cripple whom he had healed John 5.14 Thou art now made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee Under the words Thou art made whole Christ comprehendeth the forgivenes of his sinnes because the ordinary forme of words wherewith Christ healed was by saying Thy sinnes are forgiven thee Peter also presseth the same doctrine that the forgivenesse of our sinnes should make us to repent or die to sin 1. Pet. 2.24 Who his own selfe bare or tooke away our sinnes in his owne body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousnesse The word heere in the originall for dead doth properly signifie departed but is elegantly Englished dead because it is opposed to live in the clause following but especially because all the dead are departed and therefore all that are dead to sin are departed from sin which makes the nature of repentance And the woman who had beene a sinner did carefully put this doctrine in practice and shewed us an example of it in her owne person for she upon the forgivenesse of her sinnes was thereby moved unto acts of holinesse in the works of love and because her sinnes were many her love was so much the more in washing and wiping in kissing and anointing the feet of Christ And Christ afterward declared that her motive to this great love was the forgivenesse of her many sinnes adding withall this verity Luke 7.47 To whom little is forgiven the same loveth little From whence it followeth that hee who loveth not to him nothing is forgiven or at least the forgivenesse will come to nothing because if it come to something it must needs come to some love And Christ must bee the Judge of the condition For his office it is to examine the reality of it whether
person and the objection it selfe was made against such And this elegant modesty of Personation in changing the person of his discourse was with Paul so familiar that he would attribute unto himselfe sometime really that person which indeed he was as heere hee doth continuing so to the end of this Chapter and sometime verbally by way of fiction that person which indeed he was not as hee doth Rom. 7.7 through a great part of that Chapter where in his owne person hee speakes of a man under the Law and adhering thereto which then was not his condition But in the last verse of that Chapter and Chap. 8.2 hee changeth againe and in his owne person speakes of himselfe according to that condition wherein he then was The Scope or purpose of this Answer is this that By vertue of my Justification I may and must mortifie and destroy in my selfe the acts and lusts of sin For this worke although it be not the title whereby I acquire and have my Justification or that Divine alliance with God whereto I am Justified yet it is the tenure whereby I preserve and hold it This worke if I neglect I forfeit the state of my Divine alliance and lose the benefit of my Justification For by my continuance in the acts of sin I become a most sinfull sinner in abusing the pardon and grace of God in building againe my state in sin and in binding my selfe over to eternall death And the guilt of this my sinfulnes lyes wholly upon my selfe and not upon Christ who justified mee and therefore Christ cannot be called the minister of my sin or any way the occasion thereof But if upon my relapse into sin and my continuance therein Christ should notwithstanding continue my state of justification keepe up my divine alliance with him and at last give me eternall life then indeed he might be accounted the minister of sin We may hereupon easily collect that in this Answer is comprised and couched in a maner the sum of the whole sixt chapter to the Romans For the very same objection urged here in the former verse is discussed and dissolved there in a discourse more diffusive and ample For in respect of the maine Argument this Epistle to the Galatians is of that to the Romans a kinde of Breviat as by the collation of many passages in both may plainly appeare Comment My justificatiō destroys my state of sinne how far But relapse into sin destroys my Justification how far and makes me a foule sinner Transgressor is opposed to the Justified yet Christ is no cause of it but I my self am the cause of it by two defaults 1 By my unfaithfulnes in not performing my promise 2. By my unthankfulnes in not loveing and honoring God for his kindnes 4 Consequences 1 Jusification is mutable not necessarily but contingently because it is conditional from the very nature of it Yet every sin destroyes it not because it is a state of grace 2. Justification requires a tenure The Nature of a Tenure and the Necessity of it 3. That Tenure is good workes which justifie conservantly as James affirms and Proves by Reasons By Similies and Examples Yet not excluding God nor Faith Works not only declare justification but Conserve it efficiently Why faith is pressed by Paul and why workes by James Both easily reconciled For both teach consequently and both temperately by the rule of Charity 4. Good workes are acts of Love The tenure under the Law That under the Gospel Is works of Grace which are Acts of Love super-legall and super-naturall and Justifie conservātly which is testified and exemplified and justifie finally FOR if I build againe the things which I destroyed The state wherein I stood before my Justification was a state of sinne a base low and terrene state of spirituall bondage whereby I was a stranger to God a slave to sinne and the sonne of death For I was not onely Calamitous or a quasi-sinner tainted by the attainder of Adam But I was a transgressour against the rules of Gods written Law and I was improbous and many wayes peccant against the rules of equity and morality But upon my Justification my state of sinne was destroyed and extinguished For my Justification doth erect and build unto mee a state quite contrary to the former namely a state of Right which makes mee jurally righteous to have a divine right a high noble and heavenly state of divine liberty and allyance whereby I am made a Freeman of Heaven in the best and highest degree to bee the Sonne and Heire of God When a Slave is infranchised his state of slavery is thereby extinguished So when a Sinner is justified his state of sinne is thereby actually destroyed because these two states are so contrary and inconsistent that in one and the same person at one and the same time they cannot both subsist Yet upon my Justification the passions motions or lusts of my sinne are not destroyed in facto esse for I finde in my soule that they still remaine and struggle in mee and by some of them I am sometime worsted And yet againe even these motions and lusts are also destroyed in fieri i. e. They are in a good course and in a ready way to be actuall destroyed for their dominion and power is already destroyed so that they cannot as formerly they did over-master and compell me to the acts of sinne And the worke of their destruction in fieri is designed unto mee as my service to righteousnesse unto holynesse For unto this worke Christ who justified mee by my faith doth thereby oblige mee and unto this worke Christ who sanctified mee by his spirit doth thereto enable me But after my Justification if through the subtilty of Satan or through the pravity of mine owne soule I shall suffer my selfe to bee perswaded that either there is no bond upon mee or no power in mee to performe this worke of mortifying and destroying the passions motions and lusts of my sinne and thereupon shall either neglect this worke or fall to a worke quite contrary in serving the passions motions and lusts of my sinne unto the acts of sinne not acts of ignorance and infirmity but of Malignity or wickednesse for these three kindes or degrees of sinne must alwayes bee noted and discerned Then by my sinfull acts I destroy my state of Justification which although by good works I could never build yet by evil workes I may destroy for by them I dedignifie and make my selfe unworthy of it Yet by them I destroy it not for the seed and root of it for this shall alwayes remaine a truth that I had once a divine liberty and alliance whereby I was a Free-man of Heaven and the Son of God and possibly before I dye I may recover this state againe But by sinfull acts I destroy this state for the fruit benefit and priviledges of it for during that condition I shall never enjoy that future estate