use words sometimes out of their proper and natural sense thence he tells us The sufferings of Christ are called chastisements though they have nothing of the nature of chastisements in them And from this liberty of interpreting they make words without any other reason than that they serve for their purpose be taken in several senses in the same verse For Socinus in one verse of St. Iohns Gospel makes the World be taken in three several senses He was in the World there it is taken saith he for the men of the world in general The world was made by him there it must be understood only of the reformation of things by the Gospel and the world knew him not there it must be taken in neither of the former senses but for the wicked of the world What may not one make of the Scripture by such a way of interpreting it But by this we have the less reason to wonder that Socinus should put such an Interpretation upon Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree In which he doth acknowledge by the curse in the first clause to be meant the punishment of sin but not in the second And the reason he gives for it is amavit enim Paulus in execrationis verbo argutus esse St. Paul affected playing with the word curse understanding it first in a proper and then a Metaphorical sense But it is plain that the design of S. Paul and Socinus are very different in these words Socinus thinks he speaks only Metaphorically when he saith that Christ was made a curse for us i. e. by a bare allusion of the name without a correspondency in the thing it self and so that the death of Christ might be called a curse but was not so but St. Paul speaks of this not by way of extenuation but to set forth the greatness and weight of the punishment he underwent for us He therefore tells us what it was which Christ did redeem us from The curse of the Law and how he did it by being not only made a curse but a curse for us i. e. not by being hateful to God or undergoing the very same curse which we should have done which are the two things objected by Crellius against our sense but that the death of Christ was to be considered not as a bare separation of soul and body but as properly poenal being such a kind of death which none but Malefactors by the Law were to suffer by the undergoing of which punishment in our stead he redeemed us from that curse which we were liable to by the violation of the Law of God And there can be no reason to appropriate this only to the Iews unless the death of Christ did extend only to the deliverance of them from the punishment of their sins or because the curse of the Law did make that death poenal therefore the intention of the punishment could reach no further than the Law did but the Apostle in the very next words speaks of the farther extension of the great blessing promised to Abraham That it should come upon the Gentils also and withall those whom the Apostle speaks to were not Iews but such as thought they ought to joyn the Law and Gospel together that St. Paul doth not mean as Crellius would have it that Christ by his death did confirm the New Covenant and so take away the obligation of the Law for to what end was the curse mentioned for that What did the accursedness of his death add to the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and when was ever the curse taken for the continuance of the Law of Moses but that Christ by the efficacy of his death as a punishment for sin hath redeemed all that believe and obey him from the curse deserved by their sins whether inforced by the Law of Moses or the Law written in their hearts which tells the consciences of sinners that such who violate the Laws of God are worthy of death and therefore under the curse of the Law We come now to the force of the particles which being joyned with our sins as referring to the death of Christ do imply that his death is to be considered as a punishment of sin Not that we insist on the force of those particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as though of themselves they did imply this for we know they are of various significations according to the nature of the matter they are joyned with but that these being joyned with sins and sufferings together do signifie that those sufferings are the punishment of those sins Thus it is said of Christ that he dyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he suffered once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he gave himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he offered a Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which Crellius replies That if the force of these particles not being joyned with sufferings may be taken for the final and not for the impulsive cause they may retain the same sense when joyned with sufferings if those sufferings may be designed in order to an end but if it should be granted that those phrases being joyned with sufferings do always imply a meritorious cause yet it doth not follow it should be here so understood because the matter will not bear it To this a short answer will at present serve for It is not possible a meritorious cause can be expressed more emphatically than by these words being joyned to sufferings so that we have as clear a testimony from these expressions as words can give and by the same arts by which these may be avoided any other might so that it had not been possible for our Doctrine to have been expressed in such a manner but such kind of answers might have been given as our Adversaries now give If it had been said in the plainest terms that Christs death was a punishment for our sins they would as easily have avoided the force of them as they do of these they would have told us the Apostles delighted in an Antanaclasis and had expressed things different from the natural use of the words by them and though punishment were sometimes used properly yet here it must be used only metaphorically because the matter would bear no other sense And therefore I commend the ingenuity of Socinus after all the pains he had taken to enervate the force of those places which are brought against his Doctrine he tells us plainly That if our Doctrine were not only once but frequently mentioned in Scripture yet he would not therefore believe the thing to be so as we suppose For saith he seeing the thing it self cannot be I take the least inconvenient
SERMONS Preached on several Occasions To which a DISCOURSE IS ANNEXED Concerning the TRUE REASON OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST WHEREIN CRELLIUS his Answer to GROTIUS IS CONSIDERED By EDWARD STILLINGFLEET D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty LONDON Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in S t. Paul's Church-Yard and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall 1673. THE CONTENTS PART I. Six SERMONS upon AMOS IV. XI I Have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. pag. 1 PROV XIV IX Fools make a mock at Sin pag. 23 LUKE VII XXXV But Wisdom is justified of all her Children pag. 42 ROMANS I. XVI For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the Power of God unto salvation to every one that believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek pag. 62 HEBREWS II. III. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation pag. 79 HEBREWS XII III. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds pag. 97 JUDE V. II. And perished in the gainsaying of Corah pag. 120 MATTHEW XXI XLIII Therefore say I unto you the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruit thereof pag. 141 JOHN VII XX XIX But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Iesus was not yet glorified pag. 162 ISAIAH LVII XXI There is no peace saith my God to the Wicked pag. 178 II CORINTH V. II. Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men pag. 198 MATTHEW XVI XXVI For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall he give in exchange for his soul pag. 217 PART II. A Discourse concerning the true Reason of the Sufferings of CHRIST CHAP. I. OF the Socinian way of interpreting Scripture Of the uncertainty it leaves us in as to the main articles of Faith manifested by an Exposition of Gen. 1. suitable to that way The state of the Controversie in general concerning the sufferings of Christ for us He did not suffer the same we should have done The grand mistake in making punishments of the nature of Debts the difference between them at large discovered from the different reason and ends of them The right of punishments in God proved against Crellius not to arise from meer dominion The end of punishment not bare Compensation as it is in debts what punishment due to an injured person by the right of Nature proper punishment a result of Laws Crellius his great mistake about the end of Punishments Not designed for satisfaction of Anger as it is a desire of Revenge Seneca and Lactantius vindicated against Crellius The Magistrates interest in Punishment distinct from that of private persons Of the Nature of Anger in God and the satisfaction to be made to it Crellius his great arguments against satisfaction depend on a false Notion of Gods anger Of the ends of divine Punishments and the different nature of them in this and and the future state pag. 239 CHAP. II. The particular state of the Controversie concerning the sufferings of Christ. The Concessions of our Adversaries The debate reduced to two heads The first concerning Christs sufferings being a punishment for sin entred upon In what sense Crellius acknowledgeth the sins of men to have been the impulsive cause of the death of Christ. The sufferings of Christ proved to be a punishment from Scripture The importance of the phrase of bearing sins Of the Scape-Goats bearing the sins of the people into the Wilderness Grotius his sense of 1 Pet. 2. 24. vindicated against Crellius and himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never used for the taking away a thing by the destruction of it Crellius his sense examined Isa. 53. 11. vindicated The argument from Matth. 8. 17. answered Grotius constant to himself in his notes on that place Isa. 53. 5 6 7. cleared Whether Christs death be a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether that doth imply that it was a punishment of sin How far the punishment of Children for their Fathers faults are exemplary among men The distinction of calamities and punishments holds not here That Gods hatred of sin could not be seen in the sufferings of Christ unless they were a punishment of sin proved against Crellius Grotius his Arguments from Christ being made sin and a curse for us defended The liberty our Adversaries take in Changing the sense of words The particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned to sins and relating to sufferings do imply those sufferings to be a punishment for sin According to their way of interpreting Scripture it had been impossible for our doctrine to be clearly expressed therein pag. 265 CHAP. III. The words of Scripture being at last acknowledged by our Adversaries to make for us the only pretence remaining is that our Doctrine is repugnant to reason The debate managed upon point of reason The grand difficulty enquired into and manifested by our Adversaries concessions not to lye in the greatness of Christs sufferings or that our sins were the impulsive cause of them or that it is impossible that one should be punished for anothers faults or in all cases unjust the cases wherein Crellius allows it instanced From whence it is proved that he yields the main cause The arguments propounded whereby he attempts to prove it unjust for Christ to be punished for our sins Crellius his principles of the justice of punishments examined Of the relation between desert and punishment That a person by his own consent may be punished beyond the desert of his own actions An answer to Crellius his Objections What it is to suffer undeservedly Crellius his mistake in the state of the question The instances of Scripture considered In what sense Children are punished for their Parents sins Ezec. 18. 20. explained at large Whether the guilty being freed from the sufferings of an innocent person makes that punishment unjust or no Crellius his shifts and evasions in this matter discovered Why among men the offenders are not freed in criminal matters though the sureties be punished The release of the party depends on the terms of the sureties suffering therefore deliverance not ipso facto No necessity of such a translation in criminal as is in pecuniary matters pag. 295 CHAP. IV. The Death of Christ considered as an Expiatory Sacrifice for sin What the expiation of sin was by the Sacrifices under the Law twofold Civil and Ritual The Promises made to the Iews under the Law of Moses respected them as a People and therefore must be temporal The typical nature of Sacrifices asserted A substitution in the Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law proved
death by the evidence his Miracles gave that he was sent from God since the Doctrine of remission of sins had been already deliver'd by the Prophets and received by the People of the Iews since those who would not believe for his Miracles sake neither would they believe though they should have seen him rise from the Grave and therefore not surely because they saw him put into it But of all things the manner of our Saviours sufferings seems least designed to bring the World to the belief of his Doctrine which was the main obstacle to the entertainment of it among the men of greatest reputation for wisdom and knowledge For it was Christ crucified which was to the Iews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness Had the Apostles only preached that the Son of God had appeared from Heaven and discovered the only way to bring men thither that he assumed our Nature for a time to render himself capable of conversing with us and therein had wrought many strange and stupendious miracles but after he had sufficiently acquainted the World with the nature of his doctrine he was again assumed up into Heaven in all probability the doctrine might have been so easily received by the world as might have saved the lives of many thousand persons who dyed as Martyrs for it And if it had been necessary that some must have dyed to confirm it why must the Son of God himself do it when he had so many Disciples who willingly sacrificed their lives for him and whose death would on that account have been as great a confirmation of the truth of it as his own But if it be alledged further that God now entring into a Covenant with man for the pardon of sin the shedding of the blood of Christ was necessary as a federal rite to confirm it I answer if only as a federal rite why no cheaper blood would serve to confirm it but that of the Son of God We never read that any Covenant was confirmed by the death of one of the contracting parties and we cannot think that God was so prodigal of the blood of his Son to have it shed only in allusion to some ancient customs But if there were such a necessity of alluding to them why might not the blood of any other person have done it when yet all that custom was no more but that a sacrifice should be offer'd and upon the parts of the sacrifice devided they did solemnly swear and ratifie their Covenant And if this be yielded them it then follows from this custom that Christ must be consider'd as a sacrifice in his death and so the ratification of the Covenant must be consequent to that oblation which he made of himself upon the Cross. Besides how incongruous must this needs be that the death of Christ the most innocent person in the World without any respect to the guilt of sin should suffer so much on purpose to assure us that God will pardon those who are guilty of it May we not much rather infer the contrary considering the holiness and justice of Gods nature if he dealt so severely with the green tree how much more will he with the dry If one so innocent suffer'd so much what then may the guilty expect If a Prince should suffer the best subject he hath to be severely punished could ever any imagine that it was with a design to assure them that he would pardon the most rebellious No but would it not rather make men afraid of being too innocent for fear of suffering too much for it And those who seem very careful to preâ—erve the honour of Gods Justice in not punishing one for anothers faults ought likewise to maintain it in the punishing of one who had no fault at all to answer for And to think to escape this by saying that to such a person such things are calamities but no punishments is to revive the ancient exploded Stoicism which thought to reform the diseases of Mankind by meer changeing the names of things though never so contrary to the common sense of humane nature which judges of the nature of punishments by the evils men undergo and the ends they are designed for And by the very same reason that God might exercise his dominion on so innocent a person as our Saviour was without any respect to sin as the moving cause to it he might lay eternal torments on a most innocent Creature for degrees and continuance do not alter the reason of things and then escape with the same evasion that this was no act of injustice in God because it was a meer exercise of Dominion And when once a sinner comes to be perswaded by this that God will pardon him it must be by the hopes that God will shew kindness to the guilty because he shews so little to the innocent and if this be agreeable to the Justice and Holiness of Gods nature it is hard to say what is repugnant to it If to this it be said that Christs consent made it no unjust exercise of Dominion in God towards him it is easily answered that the same consent will make it less injustice in God to lay the punishment of our sins upon Christ upon his undertaking to satisfie for as for then the consent supposes a meritorious cause of punishment but in this case the consent implyeth none at all And we are now enquiring into the reasons of such sufferings and consequently of such a consent which cannot be imagined but upon very weighty motives such as might make it just in him to consent as well as in God to inflict Neither can it be thought that all the design of the sufferings of Christ was to give us an example and an incouragement to suffer our selves though it does so in a very great measure as appears by the Text it self For the hopes of an eternal reward for these short and light afflictions ought to be encouragement enough to go through the miseries of this life in expectation of a better to come And the Cloud of Witnesses both under the Law and the Gospel of those who have suffer'd for righteousness sake ought to make no one think it strange if he must endure that which so many have done before him and been crowned for it And lastly to question whether Christ could have pity enough upon us in our sufferings unless he had suffer'd so deeply himself will lead men to distrust the pity and compassion of Almighty God because he was never capable of suffering as we do But the Scripture is very plain and full to all those who rack not their minds to pervert it in assigning a higher reason than all these of the sufferings of Christ viz. That Christ suffered for sins the just for the unjust that his soul was made an offering for sin and that the Lord therefore as on a sacrifice of atonement
punishments of the future state So that the ends of punishment here are quite of another kind from those of another life for those are inflicted because persons have been unreclaimable by either the mercies or punishments of this life but these are intended that men should so far take notice of this severity of God as to avoid the sins which will expose them to the wrath to come And from hence it follows That whatsoever sufferings do answer all these ends of Divine punishments and are inflicted on the account of sin have the proper notion of punishments in them and God may accept of the undergoing them as a full satisfaction to his Law if they be such as tend to break men off from sin and assert Gods right and vindicate his honor to the world which are the ends assigned by Crellius and will be of great consequence to us in the following Discourse CHAP. II. The particular state of the Controversie concerning the sufferings of Christ. The Concessions of our Adversaries The debate reduced to two heads The first concerning Christs sufferings being a punishment for sin entred upon In what sense Crellius acknowledgeth the sins of men to have been the impulsive cause of the death of Christ. The sufferings of Christ proved to be a punishment from Scripture The importance of the phrase of bearing sins Of the Scape-Goats bearing the sins of the people into the Wilderness Grotius his sense of 1 Pet. 2. 24. vindicated against Crellius and himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never used for the taking away a thing by the destruction of it Crellius his sense examined Isa. 53. 11. vindicated The argument from Mat. 8. 17. answered Grotius constant to himself in his notes on that place Isa. 53. 5 6 7. cleared Whether Christs death be a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether that doth imply that it was a punishment of sin How far the punishments of Children for their Fathers faults are exemplary among men The distinction of calamities and punishments holds not here That Gods hatred of sin could not be seen in the sufferings of Christ unless they were a punishment of sin proved against Crellius Grotius his Arguments from Christ being made sin and a curse for us defended The liberty our Adversaries take in Changing the sense of words The particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned to sins and relating to sufferings do imply those sufferings to be a punishment for sin According to their way of interpreting Scripture it had been impossible for our doctrine to be clearly expressed therein THese things being thus far cleared concerning the nature and ends of punishments and how far they are of the nature of debts and consequently what kind of satisfaction is due for them the resolution of the grand Question concerning the sufferings of Christ will appear much more easie but that we may proceed with all possible clearness in a debate of this consequence we must yet a little more narrowly examine the difference between our Adversaries and us in this matter for their concessions are in teâ—ms sometimes so fair as though the difference were meerly about words without any considerable difference in the thing it self If we charge them with denying satisfaction Crellius answers in the name of them that we do it unjustly for they do acknowledge a satisfaction worthy of God and agreeable to the Scriptures If we charge them with denying that our salvation is obtained by the death of Christ they assert the contrary as appears by the same Author Nay Ruarus attributes merit to the death of Christ too They acknowledge that Christ dyed for us nay that there was a commutation between Christ and us both of one person for another and of a price for a person and that the death of Christ may be said to move God to redeem us they acknowledge reconciliation and expiation of sins to be by the death of Christ. Nay they assert that Christs death was by reason of our sins and that God designed by that to shew his severity against sin And what could we desire more if they meant the same thing by these words which we do They assert a satisfaction but it is such a one as is meerly fulfilling the desire of another in which sense all that obey God may be said to satisfie him They attribute our salvation to the death of Christ but only as a condition intervening upon the performance of which the Covenant was confirmed and himself taken into Glory that he might free men from the punishment of their sins They attribute merit to Christs death but in the same sense that we may merit too when we do what is pleasing to God They acknowledge that Christ died for us but not in our stead but for our advantage that there was a commutation but not such a one as that the Son of God did lay down his blood as a proper price in order to our redemption as the purchase of it when they speak of a moving cause they tell us they mean no more than the performance of any condition may be said to move or as our prayers and repentance do The reconciliation they speak of doth not at all respect God but us they assert an expiation of sins consequent upon the death of Christ but not depending upon it any otherwise than as a condition necessary for his admission to the office of a High Priest in Heaven there to expiate our sins by his power and not by his blood but they utterly deny that the death of Christ is to be considered as a pròper expiatory sacrifice for sin or that it hath any further influence upon it than as it is considered as a means of the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and particularly the promise of remission of sins on which and not on the death of Christ they say our remission depends but so far as the death of Christ may be an argument to us to believe his Doctrine and that faith may incline us to obedience and that obedience being the condition in order to pardon at so many removes they make the death of Christ to have influence on the remission of our sins They assert that God took occasion by the sins of men to ex ercise an act of dominion upon Christ in his sufferings and that the sufferings of Christ were intended for the taking away the sins of men but they utterly deny that the sufferings of Christ were to be considered as a punishment for sin or that Christ did suffer in our place and stead nay they contend with great vehemency that it is wholly inconsistent with the justice of God to make one mans sins the meritorious cause of anothers punishment especially one wholly innocent and so that the guilty shall be freed on the account of his sufferings Thus I have endeavoured to give the true state of the
unjust in the Magistrate to admit it is it because the thing is in it self unjust if so there can be no obligation to do it and it would be as great a sin to undergo it as in the Magistrate to permit it but if it be just in it self we have obtained what we contend for viz. that it may be just for a man to suffer beyond the desert of his own actions for he that lays down his life for his Brethren doth not deserve by his own actions that very punishment which he undergoes And if the thing be in it self just how comes it to be unjust in him that permits it 5. The reason why among men the offenders themselves are punished is because those were not the terms upon which the persons suffered For if they had suffered upon these terms that the other might be freed and their suffering was admitted of by the Magistrate on that consideration then in all reason and justice the offenders ought to be freed on the account of the others suffering for them But among men the chief reason of the obligation to punishment of one man for another is not that the other might be freed but that there may be security given to the publick that the offenders shall be punished and the reason of the sureties suffering is not to deliver the offender but to satisfie the Law by declaring that all care is taken that the offender should be punished when in case of his escape the surety suffers for him But it is quite another thing when the person suffers purposely that others might be freed by his suffering for then in case the suffering be admitted the release of the other is not only not unjust but becomes due to him that suffered on his own terms Not as though it followed ipso facto as Crellius fancies but the manner of release doth depend upon the terms which he who suffered for them shall make in order to it For upon this suffering of one for another upon such terms the immediate consequent of the suffering is not the actual discharge but the right to it which he hath purchased and which he may dispense upon what tèrms he shall judge most for his honour 6. Although one persons sufferings cannot become anothers so as one mans Money may yet one mans sufferings may be a sufficient consideration on which a benefit may accure to another For to that end a donation or such a transferring right from one to another as is in Money is not necessary but the acceptation which it hath from him who hath the power to pardon If he declare that he is so well pleased with the sufferings of one for another that in consideration of them he will pardon those from whom he suffered where lies the impossibility or unreasonableness of the thing For Crellius grants that rewards may be given to others than the persons who did the actions in consideration of those actions and why may not the sufferings of one for others being purposely undertaken for this end be available for the pardon of those whom he suffered for For a man can no more transfer the right of his good actions than of his sufferings From all which it follows that one person may by his own consent and being admitted thereto by him to whom the right of punishing belongs suffer justly though it be beyond the desert of his own actions and the guilty may be pardoned on the account of his sufferings Which was the first thing we designed to prove from Crellius in order to the overthrowing his own hypothesis For it being confessed by him that such sufferings have all that belongs to the nature of punishments and since God hath justly punished some for the sins which they have not committed since all Nations have allowed it just for one man by his own consent to suffer for another since it cannot be unjust for the offender to be released by anothers sufferings if he were admitted to suffer for that end it evidently follows contrary to Crellius his main Principle that a person may be justly punished beyond the desert of his own actions And so that first argument of Crellius cannot hold that one man cannot by his own consent suffer for another because no man can deserve anothers punishment and no punishment is just but what is deserved His second argument from the nature of anger and revenge hath been already answered in the first Discourse about the nature and ends of punishments and â—…s third argument that one mans punishment cannot become anothers immediately before And so we have finished our first consideration of the sufferings of Christ in general as a punishment of our sins which we have shewed to be agreeable both to Scripture and Reason CHAP. IV. e Death of Christ considered as an Expiatory Sacrifice for sin What the expiation of sin was by the Sacrifices under the Law twofold Civil and Ritual The Promises made to the Iews under the Law of Moses respected them as a People and therefore must be temporal The typical nature of Sacrifices asserted A substitution in the Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law proved from Lev. 17. 11. and the Concession of Crellius about the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lev. 10. 17. explained The expiation of uncertain murther proves a substitution A substitution of Christ in our room proved from Christ being said to dye for us the importance of that phrase considered In what sense a Surrogation of Christ in our room is asserted by us Our Redemption by Christ proves a substitution Of the true notion of Redemption that explained and proved against Socinus and Crellius No necessity of paying the price to him that detains captive where the captivity is not by force but by sentence of Law Christs death a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attributed to it cannot be taken for meer deliverance WE come now to consider the death of Christ as an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of mankind Which is as much denied by our Adversaries as that it was a punishment for our sins For though they do not deny That Christ as a Priest did offer up a Sacrifice of Expiation for the sins of men yet they utterly deny That this was performed on earth or that the Expiation of sins did respect God but only us or that the death of Christ had any proper efficacy towards the expiation of sin any further than as it comprehends in it all the consequences of his death by a strange Catechresis I shall now therefore prove that all things which do belong to a proper Expiatory Sacrifice do agree to the death of Christ. There are three things especially considerable in it 1. A Substitution in the place of the Offenders 2. An Oblation of it to God 3. An Expiation of sin consequent
person who detains because the reason of his detaining was the expectation of the price to be pald but in the latter the detainer is meerly the instrument for execution of the Law and the price of redemption is not to be paid to him but to those who are most concerned in the honour of the Law But Crellius objects that the price can never be said to be paid to God because our redemption is attributed to God as the author of it and because we are said to be redeemed for his use and service now saith he the price can never be paid to him for whose service the person is redeemed But all this depends upon the former mistake as though we spake all this while of such a redemption as that is of a Captive by force in whom the detainer is no further concerned than for the advantage to be made by him and in that case the price must be paid to him who detains because it would otherwise be unsuccessful for his deliverance but in case of captivity by Law as the effect of disobedience the Magistrate who is concerned in the life of the person and his future obedience may himself take care that satisfaction may be given to the Law for his redemption in order to his future serviceableness From hence we see both that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is proper in this case of our redemption and that it is not a meer commutation of a price for a person but a commutation of one persons suffering for others which suffering being a punishment in order to satisfaction is a valuable consideration and therefore a price for the redemption of others by it Which price in this sense doth imply a proper substitution which was the thing to be proved Which was the first thing to be made good concerning the death of Christ being a sacrifice for sin viz. that there was a substitution of Christ in our stead as of the sacrifices of old under the Law and in this sense the death of Christ was a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or price of redemption for us Nothing then can be more vain than the way of our Adversaries to take away the force of all this because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes taken for a meet deliverance without any price which we deny not but the main force of our argument is from the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is mentioned and then we say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when applied to sins signifies expiation as Heb. 9. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but when applied to persons it signifies the deliverance purchased by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not to be considered as a bare price or a thing given but as a thing undergone in order to that deliverance and is therefore not only called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too which Crellius confesseth doth imply a commutation and we have shewed doth prove a substitution of Christ in our place CHAP. V. The notion of a sacrifice belongs to the death of Christ because of the Oblation made therein to God Crellius his sense of Christs Oblation proposed Against him it is proved that the Priestly office of Christ had a primary respect to God and not to us Expiatory Sacrifices did divert the wrath of God Christ not a bare Metaphorical High-Priest Crellius destroys the Priesthood of Christ by confounding it with the exercise of his Regal Power No proper expiation of sin belongs to Christ in Heaven if Crellius his Doctrine be true Ephes. 5. 2. proves the death of Christ an Expiatory Sacrifice and an Oblation to God The Phrase of a sweet-smelling savour belongs to expiatory Sacrifices Crellius his gross notion of it His mistakes about the kinds of Sacrifices Burnt-offerings were Expiatory Sacrifices both before and under the Law A new distribution of sacrifices proposed What influence the mactation of the Sacrifice had on Expiation The High-Priest only to slay the Sin-offering on the day of Atonement from whence it is proved that Christs Priesthood did not begin from his entrance into Heaven The mactation in Expiatory Sacrifices no bare preparation to a Sacrifice proved by the Iewish Laws and the customs of other Nations Whether Christs Oblation of himself once to God were in Heaven or on Earth Of the proper notion of Oblations under the Levitical Law Several things observed from thence to our purpose All things necessary to a legal Oblation concur in the death of Christ His entrance into Heaven hath no correspondency with it if the blood of Christ were no sacrifice for sin In Sin-offerings for the People the whole was consumed no eating of the Sacrifices allowed the Priests but in those for private Persons Christs exercise of Power in Heaven in no sense an Oblation to God Crellius his sense repugnant to the circumstances of the places in dispute Objections answered THE Second thing to prove the death of Christ a Sacrifice for sin is the Oblation of it to God for that end Grotius towards the conclusion of his book makes a twofold oblation of Christ parallel to that of the Sacrifices under the Law the first of Mactation the second of Representation whereof the first was done in the Temple the second in the Holy of Holies so the first of Christ was on Earth the second in Heaven the first is not a bare preparation to a Sacrifice but a Sacrifice the latter not so much a Sacrifice as the commemoration of one already past Wherefore since appearing and interceding are not properly sacerdotal acts any further than they depend on the efficacy of a sacrifice already offered he that takes away that Sacrifice doth not leave to Christ any proper Priesthood against the plain authority of the Scripture which assigns to Christ the office of a Priest distinct from that of a Prophet and a King To which Crellius replies That the expiation of sin doth properly belong to what Christ doth in Heaven and may be applyed to the death of Christ only as the condition by which he was to enjoy that power in Heaven whereby he doth expiate sins but the Priest was never said to expiate sins when he killed the beast but when the blood was sprinkled or carried into the Holy of Holies to which the Oblation of Christ in Heaven doth answer but mactation saith he was not proper to the Priests but did belong to the Levites also And Christ was not truly a Priest while we was on Earth but only prepared by his sufferings to be one in Heaven where by the perpetual care he takes of his People and exercising his Power for them he is said to offer up himself and intercede for them and by that means he dischargeth the Office of a High-Priest for them For his Priestly Office he saith is
into Heaven and that there is no necessity of making the oblation of Christ consequent to his death there being so great a difference between the Sacrifice of Christ and that of the Sacrifices for sin under the Levitical Law 2. We observe That the oblation as performed by the Priest did not depend upon his presenting himself before God but upon the presenting the blood of a Sacrifice which had been already slain for the expiation of sins If the Priest had gone into the Holy of Holies and there only presented himself before the Mercy-seat and that had been all required in order to the expiation of sins there had been some pretence for our Adversaries making Christs presenting himself in Heaven to be the oblation of himself to God but under the Law the efficacy of the High-Priests entrance into the Holy of Holies did depend upon the blood which he carried in thither which was the blood of the Sin-offering which was already slain for the expiation of sins And in correspondency to this Christs efficacy in his entrance into Heaven as it respects our expiation must have a respect to that Sacrifice which was offered up to God antecedent to it And I wonder our Adversaries do so much insist on the High-Priests entring into the most holy place once a year as though all the expiation had depended upon that whereas all the promise of expiation was not upon his bare entrance into it but upon the blood which he carried along with him and sprinkled there In correspondency to which our Saviour is not barely said to enter into Heaven and present himself to God but that he did this by his own blood having obtained Eternal Redemption for us 3. We observe That there was something correspondent in the death of Christ to somewhat consequent to the oblation under the Law and therefore there can be no reason to suppose that the oblation of Christ must be consequent to his death for that destroys the correspondency between them Now this appears in this particular in the solemn Sacrifices for sin after the sprinkling of the blood which was carried into the Holy place to renconcile withal all the remainder of the Sacrifice was to be burnt without the Camp and this held on the day of Atonement as well as in other Sin-offerings for the Congregation Now the Author to the Hebrews tells us That in correspondency to this Iesus that he might sanctifie the people with his own blood suffered without the gate What force is there in this unless the blood of Christ did answer to the Sin-offerings for the people and his oblation was supposed to be made before and therefore that he might have all things agreeable to those Sin-offerings the last part was to be compleated too viz. That he was to suffer without the gate which after the peoples settlement in Ierusalem answered to the being burnt without the Camp in the Wilderness 4. We observe That the Oblation in Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law by the Priest had always relation to the consumption of what was offered Thus the offering of the blood in token of the destruction of the life of the beast whose blood was offered for no blood was to be offered of a living creature nor of one killed upon any other account but for that end to be a sacrifice for sin and after the sprinkling and pouring out of the blood the inwards of some and all of the other were to be consumed by fire And it is observable that the greater the Sacrifice for sin was always the more was consumed of it as appears plainly by the forementioned difference of the Sin-offerings for private persons and for the people of the former the Priests were allowed to eat but not at all of the latter And so it was observed among the Egyptians in the most solemn Sacrifices for expiation nothing was allowed to be eaten of that part which was designed for that end For Herodotus gives us an account why the Egyptians never eat the head of any living Creature which is That when they offer up a Sacrifice they make a solemn execration upon it that if any evil were to fall upon the persons who Sacrificed or upon all Egypt it might be turned upon the head of that beast And Plutarch adds that after this solemn execration They cut off the head and of old threw it into the River but then gave it to strangers From which custom we observe that in a solemn Sacrifice for expiation the guilt of the offenders was by this rite of execration supposed to be transferred upon the head of the Sacrifice as it was in the Sacrifices among the Jews by the laying on of hands and that nothing was to be eaten of what was supposed to have that guilt transferred upon it From hence all Expiatory Sacrifices were at first whole Burnt-offerings as appears by the Patriarchal Sacrifices and the customs of other Nations and among the Jews themselves as we have already proved in all solemn offerings for the people And although in the sacrifices of private persons some parts were allowed to be eaten by the Priests yet those which were designed for expiation were consumed So that the greater the offering was to God the more it implied the Consumption of the thing which was so offered How strangely improbable then is it That the Oblation of Christ should not as under the Law have respect to his death and sufferings but to his entrance into Heaven wherein nothing is supposed to be consumed but all things given him with far greater power as our Adversaries suppose than ever he had before But we see the Apostle parallels Christs suffering with the burning of the Sacrifices and his blood with the blood of them and consequently his offering up himself must relate not to his entrance into Heaven but to that act of his whereby he suffered for sins and offered up his blood as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world From all which it appears how far more agreeably to the Oblations under the Law Christ is said to offer up himself for the expiation of sins by his death and sufferings than by his entrance into Heaven For it is apparent that the Oblations in expiatory Sacrifices under the Law were such upon which the expiation of sin did chiefly depend but by our Adversaries own confession Christs oblation of himself by his entrance into Heaven hath no immediate respect at all to the expiation of sin only as the way whereby he was to enjoy that power by which he did expiate sins as Crellius saith now let us consider what more propriety there is in making this presenting of Christ in Heaven to have a correspondency with the legal Oblations than the offering up himself upon the Cross. For 1. on the very same reason that his entrance into Heaven is made an Oblation his death is so
in the New Testament between the Sacrifice of Christ and those Levitical Sacrifices Can any one I say imagine upon these considerations that the Sacrifices had no other respect to the expiation of sin than as they were a slight testimony of their obedience to God Why were not an inward sorrow for sin and tears and prayers rather made the only conditions of Expiation than such a burthensome and chargeable service imposed upon them which at last signified nothing but that a command being supposed they would have sinned if they had broken it But upon our supposition a reasonable account is given of all the expiatory Sacrifices viz. That God would have them see how highly he esteemed his Laws because an expiation was not to be made for the breach of them but by the sacrificing of the life of some Creature which he should appoint in stead of the death of the Offender and if the breach of those Laws which he had given them must require such an expiation what might they then think would the sins of the whole world do which must be expiated by a Sacrifice infinitely greater than all those put together were viz. The death and sufferings of the Son of God for the sins of men But if the offering Sacrifice had been a bare condition required of the person who committed the fault in order to expiation Why is it never said That the person who offered it did expiate his own fault thereby For that had been the most proper sense for if the expiation did depend on the offering the Sacrifice as on the condition of it then the performing the condition gave him an immediate right to the benefit of the promise If it be said That his own act was not only necessary in bringing the Sacrifice but the Priests also in offering up the blood This will not make it at all the more reasonable because the pardon of sin should not only depend upon a mans own act but upon the act of another which he could not in reason be accountable for if he miscarried in it If the Priest should refuse to do his part or be unfit to do it or break some Law in the doing of it how hard would it seem that a mans sins could not be expiated when he had done all that lay in his own power in order to the expiation of them but that another person whose actions he had no command over neglected the doing his duty So that if the Sacrifice had no other influence on expiation but as a part of obedience in all reason the expiation should have depended on no other conditions but such as were under the power of him whose sins were to be expiated by it But Crellius urgeth against our sense of Expiation That if it were by Substitution then the Expiation would be most properly attributed to the Sacrifices themselves whereas it is only said that by the Sacrifices the Expiation is obtained but that God or the Priest do expiate and to God it belongs properly because he takes away the guilt and punishment of sin which is saith he all meant by expiation to the Priest only consequently as doing what God requires in order to it and to the Sacrifices only as the conditions by which it was obtained But if the Expiation doth properly belong to God and implies no more than bare pardon it is hard to conceive that it should have any necessary relation to the blood of the Sacrifice but the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us that Remission had a necessary respect to the shedding of blood so that without that there was no remission How improperly doth the Apostle discourse throughout that Chapter wherein he speaks so much concerning the blood of the Sacrifices purisying and in correspondency to that the blood of Christ purging our Consciences and that all things under the Law were purified with blood Had all this no other significatiâ—n but that this was a bare condition that had no other importance but as a meer act of obedience when God had required it why doth not the Apostle rather say without Gods favour there is no remission than without the shedding of blood if all the expiation did prâ—perly belong to that and only very remotely to the blood of the Sacrifice What imaginable necessity was there that Christ must shed his blood in order to the expiation of our sins if all that bloâ—d of the Legal Sacrifices did signifie no more than a bare condition of pardon though a slight part of obedience in it self Why must Christ lay down his life in correspondency to these Levitical Sacrifices for that was surely no slight part of his obedience Why might not this condition have been dispensed with in him since our Adversaries say that in it self it hath no proper efficacy on the expiation of sin And doth not this speak the greatest repugnancy to the kindness and Grace of God in the Gospel that he would not dispense with the ignominious death of his Son although he knew it could have no influence of it self on the expiation of the sins of the world But upon this supposition that the blood of Sacrifices under the Law had no proper influence upon Expiation the Apostles discourse proceeds upon weak and insufficient grounds For what necessity in the thing was there because the blood of the Sacrifices was made a condition of pardon under the Law therefore the blood of Christ must be so now although in it self it hath no proper efficacy for that end But the Apostles words and way of Argumentation doth imply that there was a peculiar efficacy both in the one and the other in order to Expiation although a far greater in the blood of Christ than could be in the other as the thing typified ought to exceed that which was the representation of it From hence we see that the Apostle attributes what Expiation there was under the Law not immediately to God as belonging properly to him but to the blood of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean Which he had very great reason to do since God expresly saith to the Iews that the blood was given them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad expiandum to expiate for their souls for the blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall expiate the soul. Than which words nothing could have been more plainly said to overthrow Crellius his assertion that Expiation is not properly or chiefly attributed to the Sacrifices but primarily to God and consequentially to the Priest who is never said to expiate but by the Sacrifice which he offered so that his Office was barely Ministerial in it But from this we may easily understand in what sense God is said to expiate sins where it hath respect to a Sacrifice which is that we are now discoursing of and not in any larger or more improper use of the word for since God himself
God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To this I answer 1. That the reason why the person propitiated is not expressed is because it was so much taken for granted that the whole Institution of Sacrifices did immediately respect God and therefore there was no danger of mistaking concerning the person who was to be atoned 2. I wonder Crellius can himself produce no instance where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used with respect to the Sacrifices and the persons whose offences are remitted by the Atonement but where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath a relation to that it is still joyned with a Preposition relating either to the person or to the offences if no more were understood when it is so used than when God himself is said to do it why is not the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well said of the Priest as it is of God From whence Grotius his sense of Hebr. 2. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is far more agreeable to the use of the phrase in the Old Testament than that which Crellius would put upon it Therefore since the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is attributed to Christ we ought to take it in the sense proper to a Propitiatory Sacrifice so it is said by Moses where God is left out but is necessarily understood after the people had provoked God by their Idolatry Ye have sinned a great sin And now I will go up unto the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That I may make an Atonement for your sin What way could Moses be said to make this Atonement but by propitiating God yet his name is not there expressed but necessarily understood So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in the most proper sense for appeasing the anger of a person Gen 32. 20. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Sam. 21. 3. which places have been already insisted on in the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that those places wherein Christ is said to be a propitiation for our sins are capable of no other sense will appear from the consideration of Christ as a middle person betwen God and us and therefore his being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot be parallel with that phrase where God himself is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Christ is here considered as interposing between God and us as Moses and the Priests under the Law did between God and the people in order to the averting his wrath from them And when one doth thus interpose in order to the Atonement of the offended party something is alwayes supposed to be done or suffered by him as the means of that Atonement As Iacob supposed the present he made to his Brother would propitiate him and David appeased the Gibeonites by the death of Sauls Sons both which are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the shedding of the blood of Sacrifices before and under the Law was the means of atoning God for the sins they committed What reason can there be then why so received a sense of Atonement both among the Iews and all other Nations at that time when these words were written must be forsaken and any other sense be embraced which neither agrees with the propriety of the expression nor with so many other places of Scripture which make the blood of Christ to be a Sacrifice for the Expiation of sin Neither is it only our Atonement but our Reconciliation is attributed to Christ too with a respect to his Death and Sufferings As in the place before insisted on For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son and more largely in the second Epistle to the Corinthians And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Iesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him And to the Ephesians And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by his Cross having slain the enmity thereby To the same purpose to the Colossians And having made peace through the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself by him I say whether they be things in Heaven or in Earth and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death Two things the substance of Crellius his answer may be reduced to concerning these places 1. That it is no where said that God was reconciled to us but that we are reconciled to God and therefore this reconciliation doth not imply any averting of the anger of God 2. That none of these places do assert any reconciliation with God antecedent to our conversion and so that the Reconciliation mention'd implyes only the laying aside our enmity to God by our sins I begin with the first of these concerning which we are to consider not barely the phrases used in Scripture but what the nature of the thing implyes as to which a difference being supposed between God and man on the account of sin no reconciliation can be imagined but what is mutual For did man only fall out with God and had not God just reason to be displeased with men for their Apostasie from him If not what made him so severely punish the first sin that ever was committed by man what made him punish the old World for their impieties by a deluge what made him leave such Monuments of his anger against the sins of the World in succeeding Ages what made him add such severe sanctions to the Laws he made to the people of the Iews what made the most upright among them so vehemently to deprecate his wrath and displeasure upon the sense of their sins what makes him declare not only his hatred of the sins of men but of the persons of those who commit them so far as to express the greatest abhorrency of them Nay what makes our Adversaries themselves to say that impiety is in its own nature hateful to God and stirrs him up to anger against all who commit it what means I say all this if God be not angry with men on the account of sin Well then supposing God to be averse from men by reason of their sins shall this displeasure always continue or not if it always continues men must certainly suffer the desert of their sins if it doth not always continue then God may be said to be reconciled in the same sense that an offended party is capable of being reconciled to him who hath provoked him Now there are two ways whereby a party justly offended may be
from Lev. 17. 11. and the Concession of Crellius about the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lev. 10. 17. explained The expiation of uncertain murther proves a substitution A substitution of Christ in our room proved from Christ being said to dye for us the importance of that phrase considered In what sense a Surrogation of Christ in our room is asserted by us Our Redemption by Christ proves a substitution Of the true notion of Redemption that explained and proved against Socinus and Crellius No necessity of paying the price to him that detains captive where the captivity is not by force but by sentence of Law Christs death a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attributed to it cannot be taken for meer deliverance pag. 314 CHAP. V. The notion of a sacrifice belongs to the death of Christ because of the Oblation made therein to God Crellius his sense of Christs Oblation proposed Against him it is proved that the Priestly office of Christ had a primary respect to God and not to us Expiatory Sacrifices did divert the wrath of God Christ not a bare Metaphorical High-Priest Crellius destroys the Priesthood of Christ by confounding it with the exercise of his Regal Power No proper expiation of sin belongs to Christ in Heaven if Crellius his Doctrine be true Ephes. 5. 2. proves the death of Christ an Expiatory Sacrifice and an Oblation to God The Phrase of a sweet-smelling savour belongs to Expiatory Sacrifices Crellius his gross notion of it His mistakes about the kinds of Sacrifices Burnt-offerings were Expiatory Sacrifices both before and under the Law A new distribution of sacrifices proposed What influence the mactation of the Sacrifice had on Expiation The High-Priest only to slay the Sin-offering on the day of Atonement from whence it is proved that Christs Priesthood did not begin from his entrance into Heaven The mactation in Expiatory Sacrifices no bare preparation to a Sacrifice proved by the Iewish Laws and the customs of other Nations Whether Christs Oblation of himself once to God were in Heaven or on Earth Of the proper notion of Oblations under the Levitical Law Several things observed from thence to our purpose All things necessary to a legal Oblation concur in the death of Christ His entrance into Heaven hath no correspondency with it if the blood of Christ were no sacrifice for sin In Sin-offerings for the People the whole was consumed no eating of the Sacrifices allowed the Priests but in those for private Persons Christs exercise of Power in Heaven in no sense an Oblation to God Crellius his sense repugnant to the circumstances of the places in dispute Objections answered pag. 329 CHAP. VI. That the effects of proper Expiatory Sacrifices belong to the death of Christ which either respect the sin or the person Of the true notion of expiation of sin as attributed to Sacrifices Of the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to them Socinus his proper sense of it examined Crellius his Objections answered The Iews notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sacrifices not bare conditions of pardon nor expiated meerly as a slight part of obedience Gods expiating sin destroys not expiation by Sacrifice The importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to Sacrifices Expiation attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ in the same sense that it was to other Sacrifices and from thence and the places of Scripture which mention it proved not to be meerly declarative If it had been so it had more properly belonged to his Resurrection than his death The Death of Christ not taken Metonymically for all the Consequents of it because of the peculiar effects of the death of Christ in Scripture and because Expiation is attributed to him antecedently to his entrance into Heaven No distinction in Scripture of the effects of Christs entrance into Heaven from his sitting at the right hand of God The effects of an Expiatory Sacrifice respecting the person belong to the death of Christ which are Atonement and Reconciliation Of the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Reconciliation by Christs death doth not meerly respect us but God why the latter less used in the New Testament A twofold Reconciliation with God mentioned in Scripture Crellius his evasion answered The Objections from Gods being reconciled in the sending his Son and the inconsistency of the Freeness of Grace with the Doctrine of Satisfaction answered and the whole concluded pag. 355 TO THE Right Honourable ELIZABETH COUNTESSE DOWAGER OF JOCELIN Late EARLE of Northumberland Madam AMONG the number of those who congratulate Your safe return into Your own Countrey wherein Your Ladiship is so justly beloved and esteemed by all that honour Vertue and Goodness Give me leave to express my Duty in an Address more agreeable to my own Profession than some perhaps will think it is to Your Quality and Condition Those I mean who measure their Greatness by their contempt of Religion and all that belong to it Who know nothing of Wit or Vertue beyond the Stage or think the Leviathan contains in it the Whole Duty of Man The utmost these Persons will allow us whose Honour and Imployment lyes in asserting the Truth of Religion and perswading to the practice of it is that we are men of a Profession and speak for the things we are to live by As though Reason and Religion were such contemptible Wares as scarce any would enquire after if it were not some mens Trade to put them off and were of less force in themselves because it is our Duty and Interest to maintain them Is it any disparagement to a Prince to have Subjects obliged to defend his Honour and Servants to attend his Person and must not what they say or do be at all minded because their own Interest is joyned with his Why then should Religion suffer in the esteem of any because she hath servants of her own to defend her Cause As if it had alwayes been a received Principle with mankind that no man is to be trusted in his own Profession According to this the Lawyers ought to preach and the Divines plead Causes because the one gets nothing by Divinity nor the other by Law the Merchant should visit Patients and the Physicians attend the Committees of Trade because it is dangerous trusting men in what they are most concerned to understand When once I see these persons for bear to consult the Lawyers about setling their Estates and Physicians for their health meerly because they get by their Professions I shall then think it is something else besides a Pique at Religion which makes them so ready to contemn whatever is said by us in behalf of it because forsooth it is our Trade to defend it I wish it were theirs as much to practise it and then we should not be troubled
commanded the power of Heaven When God of a sudden like one highly provoked drew forth the sword of his destroying Angel and by it cut off so many thousands in the midst of us Then we fell upon our knees and begg'd the mercy of Heaven that our Lives might be spared that we might have time to amend them but no sooner did our fears abate but our devotion did so too we had soon forgotten the promises we made in the day of our distress and I am afraid it is at this day too true of us which is said in the Revelations of those who had escaped the several plagues which so many had been destroyed by And the rest of the men which were not killed by these Plagues yet repented not of the work of their bands For if we had not greedily suckt in again the poyson we had only laid down while we were begging for our lives if we had not returned with as great fury and violence as ever to our former lusts the removing of one judgement had not been as it were only to make way for the coming on of another For the grave seemed to close up her mouth and death by degrees to withdraw himself that the Fire might come upon the Stage to act its part too in the Tragoedy our sins have made among us and I pray God this may be the last Act of it Let us not then provoke God to find out new methods of vengeance and make experiments upon us of what other unheard of severities may do for our cure But let us rather meet God now by our repentance and returning to him by our serious humiliation for our former sins and our stedfast resolutions to return no more to the practice of them That that much more dangerous infection of our souls may be cured as well as that of our bodies that the impure flames which burn within may be extinguished that all our luxuries may be retrenched our debaucheries punished our vanities taken away our careless indifferency in Religion turned into a greater seriousness both in the profession and the practice of it So will God make us a happy and prosperous when he finds us a more righteous and holy Nation So will God succeed all your endeavours for the honour and interest of that people whom you represent So may he add that other Title to the rest of those you have deserved for your Countries good to make you Repairers of the breaches of the City as well as of the Nation and Restorers of paths to dwell in So may that City which now sits solitary like a Widow have her tears wiped off and her beauty and comeliness restored unto her Yea so may her present ruines in which she now lies buried be only the fore-runners of a more joyful resurrection In which though the body may remain the same the qualities may be so altered that its present desolation may be only the putting off its former inconveniences weakness and deformities that it may rise with greater glory strength and proportion and to all her other qualities may that of incorruption be added too at least till the general Conflagration And I know your great Wisdom and Iustice will take care that those who have suffered by the ruines may not likewise suffer by the rising of it that the glory of the City may not be laid upon the tears of the Orphans and Widows but that its foundations may be setled upon Justice and Piety That there be no complaining in the Streets for want of Righteousness nor in the City for want of Churches nor in the Churches for want of a settled maintenance That those who attend upon the service of God in them may never be tempted to betray their Consciences to gain a livelihood nor to comply with the factions humours of men that they may be able to live among them And thus when the City through the blessing of Heaven shall be built again may it be a Habitation of Holiness towards God of Loyalty towards our Gratious King and his Successors of Iustice and Righteousness towards Men of Sobriety and Peace and Unity among all the Inhabitants till not Cities and Countries only but the world and time it self shall be no more Which God of his infinite mercy grant through the merits and mediation of his Son to whom with the Father and Eternal Spirit be all Honour and Glory for evermore SERMON II. Preached before the KING MARCH 13. 1665 9. PROV XIV IX Fools make a mock at Sin WHEN God by his infinite Wisdom had contrived and by a power and goodness as infinite as his Wisdom had perfected the creation of the visible world there seemed to be nothing wanting to the glory of it but a creature endued with reason and understanding which might comprehend the design of his wisdom enjoy the benefits of his goodness and employ it self in the celebration of his power The Beings purely intellectual were too highly raised by their own order and creation to be the Lords of this inferiour world and those whose natures could reach no higher than the objects of sense were not capable of discovering the glorious perfections of the great Creator and therefore could not be the fit Instruments of his praise and service But a conjunction of both these together was thought necessary to make up such a sort of being which might at once command this lower world and be the servants of him who made it Not as though this great fabrick of the world were meerly raised for man to please his fancy in the contemplation of it or to exercise his dominion over the creatures designed for his use and service but that by frequent reflections on the author of his being and the effects of his power and goodness he might be brought to the greatest love and admiration of him So that the most natural part of Religion lyes in the grateful acknowledgements we owe to that excellent and supream Being who hath shewed so particular a kindness to man in the creation and Government of the world Which was so great and unexpressible that some have thought it was not so much pride and affectation of a greater height as envy at the felicity and power of mankind which was the occasion of the fall of the Apostate spirits But whether or no the state of man were occasion enough for the envy of the Spirits above we are sure the kindness of Heaven was so great in it as could not but lay an indispensable obligation on all mankind to perpetual gratitude and obedience For it is as easie to suppose that affronts and injuries are the most suitable returns for the most obliging favours that the first duty of a Child should be to destroy his Parents that to be thankful for kindnesses received were to commit the unpardonable sin as that man should receive his being and all
God and the Power of God Here the Iew might find his Messias come and the Promises fulfilled which related to him here the Greek might find his long and vainly looked for certainty of a life to come and the way which leads to it here the Roman might see a Religion serviceable to another world and this together Here are Precepts more holy Promises more certain Rewards more desireable than ever the wit or invention of men could have attained to Here are Institutions far more pious useful and serviceable to mankind than the most admired Laws of the famous Legislators of Greece or Rome Here are no popular designs carried on no vices indulged for the publick interest which Solon Lycurgus and Plato are charged with Here is no making Religion a meer trick of State and a thing only useful for governing the people which Numa and the great men at Rome are lyable to the suspicion of Here is no wrapping up Religion in strange figures and mysterious non-sense which the Aegyptians were so much given to Here is no inhumanity and cruelty in the sacrifices offer'd no looseness and profaneness allowed in the most solemn mysteries no worshipping of such for Gods who had not been fit to live if they had been men which were all things so commonly practised in the Idolatries of the Heathens But the nature of the Worship is such as the minds of those who come to it ought to be and as becomes that God whom we profess to serve pure and holy grave and serious solemn and devout without the mixtures of superstition vanity or ostentation The precepts of our Religion are plain and easie to be known very suitable to the nature of Mankind and highly tending to the advantage of those who practise them both in this and a better life The arguments to perswade men are the most weighty and powerful and of as great importance as the love of God the death of his Son the hopes of happiness and the fears of eternal misery can be to men And wherein is the contrivance of our Religion defective when the end is so desireable the means so effectual for the obtaining of it 2. Which is the next thing to be considered There are two things which in this degenerate estate of man are necessary in order to the recovery of his happiness and those are Repentance for sins past and sincere Obedience for the future now both these the Gospel gives men the greatest encouragements to and therefore is the most likely to effect the design it was intended for 1. For Repentance for sins past What more powerful motives can there be to perswade men to repent than for God to let men know that he is willing to pardon their sins upon the sincerity of their Repentance but without that there remains nothing but a fearful expectation of judgement and fiery indignation that their sins are their follies and therefore to repent is to grow wise that he requires no more from men but what every considerative man knows is fitting to be done whenever he reflects upon his actions that there can be no greater ingratitude or disingenuity towards the Son of God than to stand at defiance with God when he hath shed his blood to reconcile God and Man to each other that every step of his humiliation every part of the Tragedy of his life every wound at his death every groan and sigh which he uttered upon the Cross were designed by him as the most prevailing Rhetorick to perswade men to forsake their sins and be happy that there cannot be a more unaccountable folly than by impenitency to lose the hopes of a certain and eternal happiness for the sake of those pleasures which every wise man is ashamed to think of that to continue in sin with the hopes to repent is to stab a mans self with the hopes of a cure that the sooner men do it the sooner they will find their minds at ease and that the pleasures they enjoy in forsaking their sins are far more noble and manly than ever they had in committing them but if none of these arguments will prevail with them perish they must and that unavoidably insupportably and irrecoverably And if such arguments as these will not prevail with men to leave their sins it is impossible that any should 2. For Holiness of Life For Christ did not come into the World and dye for us meerly that we should repent of what is past by denying ungodliness and worldly lusts but that we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world And what he doth expect he hath given the greatest encouragements to perform by the clearness of his precepts the excellency of his own example the promise of his Grace and the proposition of eternal rewards and punishments whereby he takes off all the objections men are apt to make against obedience to the Commands of Christ the pretence of ignorance because his Laws are so clear the pre tence of impossibility by his own example the pretence of infirmity by the assistance of his Grace the pretence of the unnecessariness of so great care of our actions by making eternal rewards and punishments to depend upon it Let us then reflect upon the whole design of the Gospel and see how admirably it is suited to the end it was intended for to the condition of those whose good was designed by it and to the honour of the great contriver and manager of it And let not us by our impenitency and the unholiness of our lives dishonour God and our Saviour reproach our Religion and condemn that by our lives which we justifie by our words For when we have said all we can the best and most effectual vindication of Christian Religion is to live according to it But oh then how unhappy are we that live in such an Age wherein it were hard to know that men were Christians unless we are bound to believe their words against the tenour and course of their actions What is become of the purity the innocency the candour the peaceableness the sincerity and devotion of the Primitive Christians What is become of their zeal for the honour of Christ and Christian Religion If it weâ—e the design of men to make our Religion a dishonour and reproach to the Iews Mahumetans and Heathens could they do it by more effectual means than they have done Who is there that looks into the present state of the Christian World could ever think that the Christian Religion was so incomparably beyond all others in the world Is the now Christian Rome so much beyond what it was while it was Heathen Nay was it not then remarkable in its first times for justice sincerity contempt of riches and a kind of generous honesty and who does not though of the same Religion if he hath any ingenuity left lament the want of all those things there now Will
hearty and sincere obedience to his will declared by his Son so that all those who perform that though they live not in the nice observance of the Law of Moses shall not need to fear the penalty of their sins in another life Which is the second thing he designs to prove viz. That those who obeyed the Gospel whether Iew or Greek were equally capable of salvation by it For saith he is God the God of the Iews only is he not also of the Gentiles Tes of the Gentiles also because both Iew and Gentile were to be justified upon the same terms as he proves afterwards So that Gods justifying of us by the Gospel is the solemn declaration of himself upon what terms he will pardon the sins of men that is deliver them from the penalties they have deserved by them For the actual discharge of the person is reserved to the great day all the justification we have here is only declarative from God but so as to give a right to us by vertue whereof we are assured that God will not only not exercise his utmost rigour but shew all favour and kindness to those who by belief of the Gospel do repent and obey God doth now remit sin as he forbears to punish it he remits the sinner as he he assures him by the death of Christ he will not punish upon his repentance but he fully remits both when he delivers the person upon the tryal of the great day from all the penalties which he hath deserved by his sins So that our compleat justification and salvation go both upon the same terms and the same Faith which is sufficient for one must be sufficient for the other also What care then ought men to take lest by mis-understanding the notion of Believing so much spoken of as the condition of our salvation they live in a neglect of that holy obedience which the Gospel requires and so believe themselves into eternal misery But as long as men make their obedience necessary though but as the fruit and effect of Faith it shall not want its reward for those whose hearts are purified by Faith shall never be condemned for mistaking the notion of it and they who live as those that are to be judged according to their works shall not miss their reward though they do not think they shall receive it for them But such who make no other condition of the Gospel but Believing and will scarce allow that to be called a Condition ought to have a great care to keep their hearts sounder than their heads for their only security will lye in this that they are good though they see no necessity of being so And such of all others I grant have reason to acknowledge the irresistable power of Divine Grace which enables them to obey the will of God against the dictates of their own judgements But thanks be to God who hath so abundantly provided for all the infirmities of humane Nature by the large offers of his Grace and assistance of his Spirit that though we meet with so much opposition without and so much weakness within and so many discouragements on every side of us yet if we sincerely apply our selves to do the will of God we have as great assurance as may be that we shall be kept by the power of God through Faith unto Salvation SERMON V. Preached at WHITE HALL HEBREWS II. III. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation WHen the wise and eternal Counsels of Heaven concerning the salvation of Mankind by the death of the Son of God were first declared to the World by his own appearance and preaching in it nothing could be more reasonably expected than that the dignity of his Person the authority of his Doctrine and the excellency of his Life should have perswaded those whom he appeared among to such an admiration of his Person and belief of his Doctrine as might have led them to an imitation of him in the holiness of his life and conversation For if either the worth of the Person or the Importance of the Message might prevail any thing towards a kind and honourable reception among men there was never any person appeared in any degree comparable to him never any Message declared which might challenge so welcome an entertainment from men as that was which he came upon If to give Mankind the highest assurance of a state of life and immortality if to offer the pardon of sin and reconciliation with God upon the most easie and reasonable terms if to purge the degenerate World from all its impurities by a Doctrine as holy as the Author of it were things as becoming the Son of God to reveal as the Sons of men to receive nothing can be more unaccountable than that his person should be dispised his Authority slighted and his Doctrine contemned And that by those whose interest was more concerned in the consequence of these things than himself could be in all the affronts and injuries he underwent from men For the more the indignities the greater the shame the sharper the sufferings which he did undergo the higher was the honour and glory which he was advanced to but the more obliging the instances of his kindness were the greater the salvation that was tendered by him the more prevailing the motives were for the entertainment of his Doctrine the more exemplary and severe will the punishment be of all those who reject it For it is very agreeable to those eternal Laws of Justice by which God governs the world that the punishment should arise pro portionably to the greatness of the mercies despised and therefore although the Scripture be very sparing in telling us what the state of those persons shall be in another life who never heard of the Gospel yet for those who do and despise it it tells us plainly that an eternal misery is the just desert of those to whom an eternal happiness was offered and yet neglected by them And we are the rather told of it that men may not think it a surprize in the life to come or that if they had known the danger they would have escaped it and therefore our Blessed Saviour who never mentioned punishment but with a design to keep men from it declares it frequently that the punishment of those persons and places would be most intolerable who have received but not improved the light of the Gospel and that it would be more tolerable for the persons who had offered violence to Nature and had Hell-fire burning in their hearts by their horrid impurities than for those who heard the Doctrine and saw the Miracles of Christ and were much the worse rather than any thing the better for it But lest we should think that all this black scene of misery was only designed for those who were the Actors in that doleful Tragedy of our
but too much will unfit them for greater business But do men believe these things to be true or not when they say thus if they be true why need they fear their uncertainty if they be certain what pains and care can be too great about them since a little will never serve to obtain them Let but the care and diligence be proportionable to the greatness of the end and the weight of the things and you never need fear the want of a recompence for all your labour But suppose you say if you were fully convinced of their certainty you would look more after them What hinders you from being so convinced Is it not a bad disposition of mind which makes you unwilling to enquire into them examine things with a mind as free as you would have it judge seriously according to the reason of things and you will easily find the interests of a life to come are far more certain as well as more desireable than those of this present life And yet the great uncertainty of all the honours and riches of this world never hinder the covetous or ambitious person from their great earnestness in pursuit of them And shall not then all the mighty arguments which God himself hath made use of to confirm to us the certainty of a life to come prevail upon us to look more seriously after it Shâ—ll the unexpressible love of the Father the unconceiveable sufferings of the Son of God and the miraculous descent and powerful assistance of the Holy Ghost have no more impression on our minds than to leave us uncertain of a future state What mighty doubts and suspicions of God what distrusts of humane Nature what unspeakable ingratitude and unaccountable folly lies at the bottom of all this uncertainty O fools and slow of heart to believe not only what the Prophets have spoken but what our Lord hath declared God himself hath given testimony to and the Holy Ghost hath confirmed 3. But is not your Interest concerned in these things Is it all one to you whether your souls be immortal or no whether they live in eternal felicity or unchangeable misery Is it no more to you than to know what kind of Bables are in request at the Indies or whether the customs of China or Iapan are the wiser i. e. than the most trifling things and the remotest from our knowledge But this is so absurd and unreasonable to suppose that men should not think themselves concerned in their own eternal happiness and misery that I shall not shew so much distrust of their understandings to speak any longer to it 3. But if notwithstanding all these things our neglect still continues then there remains nothing but a fearful looking for of judgement and the fiery indignation of God For there is no possibility of escaping if we continue to neglect so great salvation All hopes of escaping are taken away which are only in that which men neglect and those who neglect their only way to salvation must needs be miserable How can that man ever hope to be saved by him whose blood he despises and tramples under foot What grace and favour can he expect from God who hath done despight unto the Spirit of Grace That hath cast away with reproach and contempt the greatest kindness and offers of Heaven What can save him that resolves to be damned and every one does so who knows he shall be damned if he lives in his sins and yet continues to do so God himself in whose only pity our hopes are hath irreversibly decreed that he will have no pity upon those who despise his goodness slight his threatnings abuse his patience and sin the more because he offers to pardon It is not any â—elight that God takes in the miseries of his Creatures which makes him punish them but shall not God vindicate his own honour against obstinate and impenitent sinners He declares before hand that he is far from delighting in their ruine and that is the reason he hath made such large offers and used so many means to make them happy but if men resolve to despise his offers and slight the means of their salvation shall not God be just without being thought to be cruel And we may assure our selves none shall ever suffer beyond the just desert of their sins for punishment as the Apostle tells us in the words before the Text is nothing but a just recompence of reward And if there were such a one proportionable to the violation of the Law delivered by Angels how shall we think to escape who neglect a more excellent means of happiness which was delivered by our Lord himself If God did not hate sin and there were not a punishment belonging to it why did the Son of God die for the expiation of it and if his death were the only means of expiation how is it possible that those who neglect that should escape the punishment not only of their other sins but of that great contempt of the means of our salvation by him Let us not then think to trifle with God as though it were impossible a Being so merciful and kind should ever punish his Creatures with the miseries of another life For however we may deceive our selves God will not be mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flâ—sh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting I shall only propound some few Considerations to prevent so great a neglect as that of your salvation is 1. Consider what it is you neglect the offer of Eternal Happiness the greatest kindness that ever was expressed to the World the foundation of your present peace the end of your beings the stay of your minds the great desire of your Souls the utmost felicity that humane Nature is capable of Is it nothing to neglect the favour of a Prince the kindness of Great Men the offers of a large and plentiful Estate but these are nothing to the neglect of the favour of God the love of his Son and that salvation which he hath purchased for you Nay it is not a bare neglect but it implies in it a mighty contempt not only of the things offered but of the kindness of him who offers them If men had any due regard for God or themselves if they had any esteem for his love or their own welfare they would be much more serious in Religion than they are When I see a person wholly immersed in affairs of the World or spending his time in luxury and vanity can I possibly think that man hath any esteem of God or of his own Soul When I find one very serious in the pursuit of his Designs in the World thoughtful and busie subtle in contriving them careful in managing them but very formal remiss and negligent in all affairs
were made of very small things done by other persons as the cure of a blind Man by Vespasian when such multitudes of far more certain and considerable cures can hardly keep up the reputation of any thing extraordinary in him But though his kindness was great to the bodies of men where they were fit objects of pity and compassion yet it was far greater to their souls that being more agreeable to the design of his coming into the World for the other tended to raise such an esteem of him as might make him the more successful in the cure of their Souls And to shew that this was his great business wherever he comes he discourses about these things takes every opportunity that might be improved for that end refuses no company he might do good upon and converses not with them with the pride and arrogance of either the Pharisees or Philosophers but with the greatest meekness humility and patience How admirable are his more solemn discourses especially that upon the Mount and that wherein he takes leave of his Disciples How dry and insipid are the most sublime discourses of the Philosophers compared with these how clearly doth he state our Duties and what mighty encouragements does he give to practise them how forcibly does he perswade men to self-denyal and contempt of the world how excellent and holy are all his Precepts how serviceable to the best interest of men in this life and that to come how suitable and desireable to the souls of good men are the rewards he promises what exact rule of Righteousness hath he prescribed to men in doing as they would be done by with what vehemency doth he rebuke all hypocrisie and Pharisaism with what tenderness and kindness does he treat those that have any real inclinations to true goodness with what earnestness does he invite and with what love doth he embrace all repenting sinners with what care doth he instruct with what mildness doth he reprove with what patience doth he bear with his own disciples Lastly with what authority did he both speak and live such as commanded a reverence where it did not beget a love And yet after a life thus spent all the requital he met with was to be reproached despised and at last crucified O the dreadful effects of malice and hypocrisie for these were the two great enemies which he always proclaimed open war with and these at first contrived and at last effected his cruel death What baseness ingratitude cruelty injustice and what not will those two sins betray men to when they have once taken possession of the hearts of men for we can find nothing else at the bottom of all that wretched conspiracy against our Saviour but that his doctrine and design was too pure and holy for them and therefore they study to take him away who was the author of them 3. We consider in what way and manner our Saviour underwent all these sufferings and this as much as any thing is here propounded to our consideration For it is not only who or what but in what manner he endured the contradiction of sinners that we ought to consider to prevent fainting and dejection of mind So another Apostle tells us that Christ suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judged righteously He uses none of those ranting expressions which none of the patientest persons in the world were accustomed to of bidding them laugh in Phalaris his Bull and when they were racked with pains to cry out Nil agis dolor he tells them not that it is their duty to have no sense of torments and to be jocund and pleasant when their flesh is torn from them or nailed to a Cross if this be any kind of fortitude it is rather that of a Gladiator than of a wise man or a Christian. The worst of men either through a natural temper of body or having hardned themselves by custom have born the greatest torments with the least expression of grief under them And Panaetius one of the wisest of the Stoicks is so far from making insensibleness of pain the property of a wise man that he makes it not the property of a man The inferiour Creatures are call'd Brutes from their dulness and insensibleness and not meerly from want of reason any further than that one follows from the other bruta existimantur animalium quibus cor durum riget saith Pliny those animals are call'd Brutes which have the hardest hearts and the nearer any of them approach to the nature of man the more apprehensive they are of danger and the more sensible of pain thence Scaliger saith of the Elephant that it is maximabellua sed non maximè bruta though it be the greatest beast it is the least a Brute Stupidity then under sufferings can be no part of the excellency of a man which in its greatest height is in the Beings the most beneath him But when danger is understood and pain felt and Nature groans under it then with patience and submission to undergo it and to conquer all the strugglings of Nature against it that is the duty and excellency of a Christian. If to express the least sense of grief and pain be the highest excellency of suffering the Macedonian boy that suffer'd his flesh to be burnt by a Coal till it grew offensive to all about him without altering the posture of his arm lest he should disturb Alexanders sacrifice out-did the greatest Philosophers of them all Possidonius his pitiful rant over a fit of the Gout so highly commended by Pompey and Tully O pain it is to no purpose though thou beest troublesome I will never confess thou art evil falls extremely short of the resolution of the Macedonian boy or any of the Spartan Youths who would not in the midst of torments so much as confess them troublesome And what a mighty revenge was that that he would not confess it to be evil when his complaint that it was troublesome was a plain argument that he thought it so It is not then the example of Zeno or Cleanthes or the rules of Stoicism which Dionysius Heracleotes in a fit of the Stone complained of the solly of that are to be the measures of patience and courage in bearing sufferings but the example and Precepts of our Lord and Saviour who expressed a great sense of his sufferings but withal the greatest submission under them When Lipsius lay a dying and one of the by-standers knowing how conversant he had been in the Stoicks writings began to suggest some of their Precepts to him Vana sunt ista said he I find all those but vain things and beholding the Picture of our Saviour near his bed he pointed to
laid on him the iniquities of us all that through the eternal Spirit he offer'd himself without spot to God and did appear to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself that he was made a propitiation for our sins that he laid down his life as a price of Redemption for Mankind that through his blood we obtain Redemption even the forgiveness of sins which in a more particular manner is attributed to the blood of Christ as the procuring cause of it That he dyed to reconcile God and us together and that the Ministery of Reconciliation is founded on Gods making him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and that we may not think that all this Reconciliation respects us and not God he is said to offer up himself to God and for this cause to be a Mediator of the New Testament and to be a faithful high-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people and every high-Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God not appointed by God in things meerly tending to the good of men which is rather the Office of a Prophet than a Priest So that from all these places it may easily appear that the blood of Christ is to be looked on as a sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the World Not as though Christ did suffer the very same which we should have suffer'd for that was eternal death as the consequent of guilt in the person of the Offender and then the discharge must have been immediately consequent upon the payment and no room had been left for the freeness of remission or for the conditions required on our parts But that God was pleased to accept of the death of his Son as a full perfect sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the World as our Church expresseth it and in consideration of the sufferings of his Son is pleased to offer pardon of sin upon sincere repentance and eternal life upon a â—…y obedience to his will Thus much for the things we are to consider concerning the contradiction of sinners which Christ endured against himself Nothing now remains but the influence that ought to have upon us lest we be weary and faint in our minds For which end I shall suggest two things 1. The vast disproportion between Christs sufferings and ours 2. The great encouragement we have from his sufferings to bear our own the better 1. The vast Disproportion between Christs sufferings and our own Our lot is fallen into suffering times and we are apt enough to complain of it I will not say it is wholly true of us what the Moralist saith generally of the complaints of men Non quia dura sed quia molles patimur that it is not the hardness of our conditions so much as the softness of our spirits which makes us complain of them For I must needs say this City hath smarted by such a series and succession of judgements which few Cities in the world could parallel in so short a time The Plague hath emptied its houses and the fire consumed them the War exhausted our spirits and it were well if Peace recovered them But still these are but the common calamities of humane nature things that we ought to make account of in the World and to grow the better by them And it were happy for this City if our thankfulness and obedience were but answerable to the mercies we yet enjoy let us not make our condition worse by our fears nor our fears greater than they need to be for no enemy can be so bad as they Thanks be to God our condition is much better at present than it hath been let us not make it worse by fearing it may be so Complaints will never end till the World does and we may imagine that will not last much longer when the City thinks it hath trade enough and the Country riches enough But I will not go about to perswade you that your condition is better than it is for I know it is to no purpose to do so all men will believe as they feel But suppose our condition were much worse than it is yet what were all our sufferings compared with those of our Saviour for us the sins that make us smart wounded him much deeper they pierced his side which only touch our skin we have no cause to complain of the bitterness of that Cup which he hath drunk off the dreggs of already We lament over the ruins of a City and are revived with any hopes of seeing it rise out of the dust but Christ saw the ruins that sin caused in all mankind he undertook the repairing them and putting men into a better condition than before And we may easily think what a difficult task he had of it when he came to restore them who were delighted in their ruins and thought themselves too good to be mended It is the comfort of our miseries if they be only in this life that we know they cannot last long but that is the great aggravation of our Saviours sufferings that the contradiction of sinners continues against him still Witness the Atheism I cannot so properly call it as the Antichristianism of this present Age wherein so many profane persons act over again the part of the Scribes and Pharisees they slight his Doctrine despise his Person disparage his miracles contemn his Precepts and undervalue his Sufferings Men live as if it were in defiance to his holy Laws as though they feared not what God can do so much as to need a Mediator between him and them If ever men tread under foot the Son of God it is when they think themselves to be above the need of him if ever they count the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing it is not only when they do not value it as they ought but when they exercise their profane wits upon it Blessed Saviour was it not enough for thee to bear the contradiction of sinners upon Earth but thou must still suffer so much at the hands of those whom thou dyedst for that thou mightest bring them to Heaven was it not enough for thee to be betrayed on Earth but thou must be defied in Heaven Was it not enough for thee to stoop so low for our sakes but that thou shouldest be trampled on because thou didst it was the ignominious death upon the Cross too small a thing for thee to suffer in thy Person unless thy Religion be contemned and exposed to as much shame and mockery as thy self was Unhappy we that live to hear of such things but much more unhappy if any of our sins have been the occasion of them If our unsuitable lives to the Gospel have open'd the mouths of any against so
difficult and unpleasing for what ever the actions of Princes are they are liable to the censures of the people Their bad actions being more publick and their good therefore suspected of design and the wiser Governours are the more jealous the people are of them For alwaies the weakest part of mankind are the most suspicious the less they understand things the more designs they imagine are laid for them and the best counsels are the soonest rejected by them So that the wisest Government can never be secure from the jealousies of the people and they that will raise a faction against it will never want a party to side with them For when could we ever have imagined a Government more likely to be free from this than that which Moses had over the people of Israel He being an extraordinary person for all the abilities of Government one bred up in the Egyptian Court and in no mean degree of honour being called the the Son of Pharaohs Daughter one of great experience in the management of affairs of great zeal for the good of his Country as appeared by the tenderness of his peoples interest in their deliverance out of Egypt one of great temper and meekness above all men of the earth one who took all imaginable care for the good establishment of Laws among them but above all these one particularly chosen by God for this end and therefore furnished with all the requisites of a good man and an excellent Prince yet for all these things a dangerous sedition is here raised against him and that upon the common grounds of such things viz. usurpation upon the peoples rights arbitrary Government and ill management of affairs Usurpation upon the peoples rights v. 4. the Faction makes a Remonstrance asserting the priviledges of the people against Moses and Aaron Ye take too much upon you seeing all the Congregation are holy every one of them and the Lord is among them Wherefore then lift you up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord As though they had said we appear only in behalf of the Fundamental Liberties of the people both Civil and Spiritual we only seek to retrench the exorbitances of power and some late innovations which have been among us if you are content to lay aside your power which is so dangerous and offensive to Gods holy people we shall then sit down in quietness for alas it is not for our selves that we seek these things what are we but the cause of Gods people is dearer to us than our lives and we shall willingly sacrifice them in so good a Cause And when Moses afterwards sends for the Sons of Eliah to come to him they peremptorily refuse all Messages of Peace and with their men of the sword mentioned v. 2. They make votes of non-Addresses and break off all Treaties with him and declare these for their reasons that he did dominando dominari as some render it exercise an arbritary and tyrannical power over the people that he was guilty of breach of the trust committed to him for he promised to bring them into a Land flowing with Milk and Honey or give them inheritance of fields and vineyards but he had not done it and instead of that only deceives the people still with fair promises and so puts out their eyes that they cannot see into the depth of his designs So that now by the ill management of his Trust the power was again devolved into the hands of the people and they ought to take account of his actions By which we see the design was under very fair and popular pretences to devest Moses of his Government and then they doubted not but such zealous Patriots as they had shewed themselves should come to have the greatest share in it but this which they most aimed at must appear least in view and only Necessity and Providence must seem to cast that upon them which was the first true motive they had to rebel against Moses and Aaron 2. The Persons who were engaged in it At first they were only some discontented Levites who murmured against Moses and Aaron because they were not preferred to the Priesthood and of these Corah was the chief R. Solomo◠observes that the reason of Corahs discontent was that Elizaphan the Son of Uzziel of the younger house to Izhar from whom Corah descended was preferred before him by Moses to be Prince over the Sons of Kohath Corah being active and busie in his discontents had the opportunity of drawing in some of the Sons of Reuben for they pitched their tents near each other both on the South side of the Tabernacle of the Congregation and these were discontented on the account of their Tribe having lost the priviledge of Promogeniture Thus what ever the pretences are how fair and popular soever in the opposition men make to Authority ambition and private discontents are the true beginners of them but these must be covered over with the deepest dissimulation with most vehement Protestations to the contrary nothing must be talked of but a mighty zeal for Religion and the publick Interest So Iosephus tells us concerning Corah that while he carried on his own ambitious designs with all the arts of sedition and a popular eloquence insinuating into the peoples minds strange suggestions against Moses his Government as being a meer politick design of his to enslave the people of God and advance his own family and interest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he would seem to regard nothing but the publick good If fair pretences and glorious titles will serve to cheat the people into their own miseries and the sad effects of Rebellion they shall never want those who will enslave them for the sake of Liberty undo them for the publick good and destroy them with designs of Reformation For nothing is more popular than Rebellion in the beginning nothing less in the issue of it And the only true reason that it is ever so is from the want of wisdom and judgement in the generality of mankind who seldom see to the end of things and hardly distinguish between the names and nature of them till their own dear bought experience hath taught them the difference Sedition is of the nature and hath the inseparable properties of Sin for it is conceived with pleasure brought forth with pain and ends in death and misery Nothing enters upon the stage with a braver shew and appearance but however prosperous for a time it may continue it commonly meets with a fatal end But it is with this sin as to this world as it is with others as to the next men when they are betrayed into them are carried away and transported with the pleasing temptations not considering the unspeakable misery that follows after them So that what the Devils advantage is in order to the ruine of mens souls is the advantage of seditious persons over the
Kingdom of God among them to consist 3. That which they thought gave them the greatest title to the being Gods peculiar people was the solemn worship of him at the Temple But what is become of all the glory of that now where are all the pompous Ceremonies the numerous sacrifices the magnificent and solemn Feasts which were to be constantly observed there how is it then possible for them to observe the Religion now which God commanded them since he likewise forbid the doing these things any where but in the Place which himself should appoint So that they are under an unavoidable necessity of breaking their Law if they do them not they break the Law which commands them to be done if they do them they break the Law which forbids the doing them in any other place but at the Temple at Hierusalem And this I am apt to think was one of the greatest grounds among them after the destruction of the Temple of their setting up traditions above the written Law for finding it impossible to keep the written Law if they could gain to themselves the Authority of interpreting it they were not much concerned for the Law it self And this is one of the strongest holds of their infidelity at this day For otherwise we might in reason have thought that their infidelity would have been buried in the ashes of their Temple when they had such plain predictions that the Messias was to come during the second Temple that the prediction of Christ concerning the destruction of this Temple was so exactly fulfilled that all attemps for the rebuilding of it were vain and fruitless Of all which none promissed so fair as that in Iulians time who out of spight to the Christians and particularly with a design to contradict the prophecy of our Saviour gave all encouragement to the Iews to build it he provided at his own charge all materials for it and gave command to the Governour of the Province to take particular care in it and the Jews with great joy and readiness set about it but when they began to search the ground in order to the laying the Foundations the earth round about trembles with a horrible earthquake and the flames of a sudden break out which not only consumed the undertakers but a great multitude of spectators and the materials prepared for the building In so much that an universal astonishment seized upon them and the rest had rather leave their work than be consumed by it This we have delivered to us not by persons at a great distance of time from it but by such who lived in the same age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are all witnesses saith St. Chrysost. of the truth of these things not by one or two but the concurrent Testimony of the writers of that age Not only by St. Chrysost. But Gregorius Nazianzenus Ambrose Ruffinus Socrates Sozomen Theodoret. And lest all these should be suspected of partiality because Christians we desire no more to be believed concerning it than what is recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus a Heathen Historian of that time who was a souldier under Iulian in his last expedition and he asserts the substance of what I have said before And what a strange difference do we now find in the building of a third and a second Temple In the former though they met with many troubles and difficulties yet God carried them through all and prospered their endeavours with great success Now they had all humane encouragements and God only opposes them and makes them desist with the loss of their workmen and materials and perpetual dishonour to themselves for attempting to fight against God in building him a Temple against his will From which we see that in all the senses the Jews understood the Kingdom of God it was remarkably taken from them within so many years after Christ the true Passover was slain by them as had passed from their first Passover after their going out of Aegypt to their entrance into Canaan The difficulty will be far less and the concernment not so great as to the Jews to prove that the Kingdom of God in the sense our Saviour meant it for the Power of the Gospel was taken from them For the event it self is a clear proof of it In stead of that therefore I shall now prove that this taking away the Kingdom of God from them was the effect of their sin in crucifying Christ. Therefore I say c. To make this clear I shall proceed by these following steps 1. That it is acknowledged by the Jews themselves that these great calamities have happened to them for some extraordinary sins For to these they impute the destruction of the City and Temple their oppressions and miseries ever since and the deferring the coming of the Messias For some of them have confessed that all the terms prefixed for the coming of the Messias are past long ago but that God provoked by their great sins hath thus long deferred his appearance and suffered them in the mean while to lye under such great calamities 2. The sin ought to be looked on as so much greater by how much heavier and longer this punishment hath been than any inflicted upon them before For if God did in former captivities punish them for their sins when they were brought back again into their own land after 70. years we must conclude that this is a sin of a higher nature which hath not been expiated by 1600. years captivity and dispersion 3. The Jews have not suffered these calamities for the same sins for which they suffered before For then God charged them with Idolatry as the great provoking sin and it is very observable that the Jews were never freer from the suspicion of this sin than under the second Temple and particularly near their destruction They generally pretended a mighty zeal for their Law and especially opposed the least tendency to Idolatry in so much that they would not suffer the Roman Ensigns to be advanced among them because of the Images that were upon them and all the History of that time tells us of the frequent contests they had with the Roman Governours about these things and ever since that time they have been perfect haters of Idolatry and none of the least hindrances of their embracing Christianity hath been the infinite scandal which hath been given them by the Roman Church in that particular 4. It must be some sin which their Fathers committed and continues yet unrepented of by them to this day Their Fathers committing it was the meritorious cause of the first punishment their Children not repenting of it is the cause why that judgement lies still so heavy upon them And now what sin can we imagine this to be but putting to death the true Messias which they will acknowledge themselves to be a sin that deserves all the miseries they have undergone and it is
apparent that in all this long captivity they never have had the heart to repent of the sin of crucifying Christ other sins they confess and say they heartily repent of but why then hath not God accepted of their repentance and brought them back into their own Land according to the promises he long since made unto their Fathers Which is a certain argument it is some sin as yet unrepented of by them which continues them under all their sufferings and what can this be but that horrid sin of putting to death the son of God with that dreadful imprecation which to this day hath its force upon them His blood be upon us and our Children and this sin they are so far from repenting of that they still justify their Fathers in what they did and Blaspheme Christ to this day in their prayers where they think they may do it with safety And to all this we may add that the ensuing calamities were exactly soretold by that Christ whom they crucified and if no other argument would convince them that he was at least a Prophet yet the punctual accomplishment of all his predictions ought to do it as will appear by comparing Matth. 24. With the series of the story And it is observable that the very place where our Saviour foretold these things viz. the Mount of Olives was the first wherein the Roman Army encamped before Hierusalem And as they had crucified the Son of God and put the Lord of glory to open shame mocking and deriding him in his sufferings so when the Romans came to revenge his quarrel upon them they took the captive Jews and crucified them openly in the view of the City 500. oft-times in a day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in different forms for sport sake as Iosephus tells us who was then in the Roman camp and withal adds their numbers were so great that these was no room left for the crosses to stand or wood enough to make crosses of And they who had bought the blood of the Son of God for 30. pieces of silver had this sin of theirs severely punished when such multitudes of the Jews 2000 in one night had their bowels ript up by the Roman Souldiers in hopes to have found the gold and silver there which they were supposed to have swallowed And what greater argument can we have to believe that such judgements fell upon them upon the account of their sin in crucifying Christ than that they were so punctually foretold so long before and had all things so exactly answering in the accomplishment of them For when Christ spake those things the Jews thought their destruction as incredible as that he was the Messias but what greater evidence could there be to them that he was so than that God did so severely avenge his blood upon them and continues to do it for their unbelief and impenitency to this very day But it may be some will say what are all these things to us we are none of those who crucified Christ or justify the doing it Thanks be to God the Kingdom of God is not taken from us but we enjoy what was taken from them To which I answer If we really were what we pretend to be these things are of great consequence to be considered by us 1. For is it nothing to us to have so great an argument of the truth of our Religion as the sufferings of the Jews to this day is for the sin of crucifying Christ As often as we think of them we ought to consider the danger of infidelity and the heavy judgements which that brings upon a people We may take some estimate of the wrath of God against that sin by the desolation of the Country and the miseries of the inhabitants of it When you think it a small sin to despise the Son of God to revile his doctrine and reproach his miracles consider then what the Jews have suffered for these sins As long as they continue a people in the world they are the living monuments of the Vengeance of God upon an incorrigible and unbelieving nation And it may be one of the ends of Gods dispersing them almost among all nations that as often as they see and despise them they may have a care of those sins which have made them a byword and reproach among men who once were a nation beloved of God and feared by men See what it is to despise the offers of grace to reproach and ill use the Messengers of it who have no other errand but to perswade men to accept that Grace and bring forth the fruits thereof See what it is for men to be slaves to their own lusts which makes them not only neglect their own truest interest but that of their nation too If that had not been the fundamental miscarriage of the rulers of the Jewish nation at the time of our Saviour they would most readily have entertained him and saved their land from ruine See what it is for a people to be high in conceit of themselves and to presume upon Gods favour towards them For there never was a nation more self opinionated as to their wisdom goodness and interest with God than the Jews were when they began their war and the confidence of this made them think it long till they had destroyed themselves See what it is to be once engaged too far in a bad cause how hard it is though they suffer never so much for it afterwards for them to repent of it We might have thought the Jews when they had seen the destruction of Ierusalem would have come off from their obstinacy but how very few in comparison from that time to this have sincerely repented of the sins of their Fore-fathers in the death of Christ. See how hard a matter it is to conquer the prejudices of education and to condemn the most unjust actions of those when we come to understanding whom from our infancy we had in veneration For it is in great measure because they were their Ancestors that the Jews to this day are so hardly convinced they could be guilty of so soul a sin as crucifying the Messias 2. Is it nothing to us what they have suffered who enjoy the greatest blessings we have by their means and upon the same terms which they did For to them at first were committed the Oracles of God we enjoy all the excellent and sacred records of ancient times from them all the prophecies of the men whom God raised up and inspired from time to time among them By their means we converse with those great persons Moses David Solomon and others and understand their wisdom and piety by the writings which at this day we enjoy By them we have conveyed to us all the particular prophesies which relate to the Messias which point out the Tribe the place the time the very person he was to be born of By their means
suspicion of it yet in the morning the door was open and they fast asleep For as the Orator saith no man can imagine that those who had broken all the Laws of God and nature by so great an act of wickedness could presently sleep upon it for they who do such things can neither rest withoutcare nor breath without fear We are not to believe saith he the fables of the Poets as though wicked men were haunted and terrified with the burning torches of the furies but every mans wickedness is the greatest terrour to himself and the evil thoughts which pursue wicked men are their constant and domestick furies It would be endless to repeat what force the more civil Heathens have given to conscience either way as to the peace which follows innocency and the disquiet which follows guilt Which they looked on as the great thing which governed the world quâ sublatâ jacent omnia as the orator speaks without which all things would be in great disorder for these punishments they are sure not to escape though they may do others and these they thought so great and weighty that upon this ground they vindicated divine providence as to the seeming prosperity of wicked men thinking it the most unreasonable thing in the world to call those persons happy who suffered under the severe lashes of their own consciences If there were such a force in the consciences of those who had nothing but the light of nature to direct them how much greater weight must there be when the terrours of the Lord are made known by himself and the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men I know that wicked men in the height of their debaucheries pretend to be above these things and are ready to laugh at them as the effects of a strong spleen and a weak brain but I appeal to their most sober thoughts when the steams of wine are evaporated and the intoxication of evil company is removed from them when in the deep and silent night they revolve in their minds the actions of the foregoing day what satisfaction they then take in all the sinful pleasures they have pursued so eagerly but especially when either their lusts have consumed their bodies or the vengeance of God hath overtaken them when death begins to seize upon their vitals and themselves not wholly stupified through the power of their sins or their disease let then if it were possible any represent the fears the horrour and astonishment which the consciences of wicked men labour under in remembrance of their evil actions How mean and poor would they leave themselves if with all their honours and riches they could purchase to themselves a reprieve from death and from the miseries which follow after it what would they then give for the comfort of a good conscience and the fruit of a holy righteous and sober life with what another sense of Religion do men whose minds are awakened speak then in comparison of what they did in the days of their mirth and jollity Neither is this to take them at the greatest disadvantage as some of them have been ready to say for I suppose their minds as clear then as at any time and so much the clearer because freed from the impediments of such freedom of their thoughts at another time for the same thoughts would have possessed them before only the pleasures and the hopes of life diverted their minds from them but now the nearness of the things they feared and the weight and consequence of them make them more diligently examine and impartially consider them But that demonstrates the great misery of a sinners State that what cures the other greatest troubles of our life doth the most increase his which is the exercise of reason and consideration that allays the power of griefs that easeth the mind of vain fears that prevents many troubles and cures others that governs other passions and keeps them in their due bounds but this is it which of all things doth the most increase the trouble of a wicked mans mind for the more he considers the worse he finds his condition and while he finds his condition so bad he can never enjoy any peace in his mind 2. The violence of his passions those a wicked man hath lost the command of or else he could never be a wicked man and whosoever is under the power of any unruly passion forseits all his peace by it For what peace can ever be expected in such a State of violence and usurpation where the calm government of reason is cast off as an unnecessary burden and every passion under the pretence of liberty sets up for an arbitrary power Nay what confusion and disorder must needs follow where the powers of the mind which ought to keep all in order are themselves in subjection to their own slaves and none ever govern so ill as those which ought to obey How serene and quiet is the mind of a man where the superiour faculties preserve their just authority How composed is his temper how moderate his desires how well governed his fears But where once that authority is lost how extravagant is the rage of men how unruly their lusts how predominant their fears What peace had Xerxes in his mind when in stead of conquering his foolish passion he challenged mount Athos into the field and no doubt would have run fast enough if he had seen it moving What pleasure was it to see that mighty Monarch whip the Sea in a rage as though the waves had been under his discipline and would run the faster for the fear of his rod What harm had the hair of his head done to that man who pulled it off with the violence of his passion as though as the Philosopher told him baldness would asswage his grief Was ever Varus the nearer to restoring his Legions for Augustus knocking his head against the wall in a rage about the loss of them What injury did Neptune suffer when he displaced his image in the Circenstan games because he had an ill Voyage at Sea What height of madness and folly did that modern Prince's rage betray him to who as the French Mora list saith having received a blow from heaven sware to be revenged on Almighty God and for 10. years space forbid all publick exercise of devotion towards him I instance in these things to let us see there is nothing so ridiculous nothing so absurd nothing so irreligious but a violent passion may betray men to And if such things ever break forth into actions what may we conceive the inward disturbance is where the outward shew which usually dissembles the inward passion betrayed so much rage and disorder for where such flames break out what combustion may we conceive within But it is not only this kind of passion which is so great an enemy to the peace of
govern those who were yet under the night of Ignorance Why may not the Firmament being in the midst of the Waters imply the erection of the Jeâ—…ish State in the midst of a great deal of trouble since it is confeâ—â—ed that Waters are often taken in Scripture in a Metaphorical sense for troubles and afflictions and the Earth appearing out of the Waters be no more but the settlement of that state aftâ—â—â—tâ— troubles and particularly with great elegancy aâ—ter 〈◊〉 pâ—…age through the Red Sea And the production of Herbs and living Creatures be the great encrease of the People of all sorts as well those of a meaner rank and therefore called herbs as those of a higher that were to live upon the other and sometimes trample upon them and therefore by way of excellency called the Living Creatures And when these were multiplied and brought into order which being done by steps and degrees is said to be finished in several days then the State and the Church flourished and enjoyed a great deal of pleasure which was the production of Man and Woman and their being placed in Paradise for a perfect Man notes a high degree of perfection and a Woman is taken for the Church in the Revelations But when they followed the Customs of other Nations which were as a forbidden tree to them then they lost all their happiness and pleasure and were expelled out of their own Country and lived in great slavery and misery which was the Curse pronounced against them for violating the rules of Policy established among them Thus you see how small a measure of wit by the advantage of those ways of interpreting Scripture which the subtilest of our adversaries make use of will serve to pervert the clearest expressions of Scripture to quite another sense than was ever intended by the Writer of them And I assure you if that rule of interpreting Scripture be once allowed that where words are ever used in a Metaphorical sense there can be no necessity of understanding them in a proper there is scarce any thing which you look on as the most necessary to be believed in Scripture but it may be made appear not to be so upon those terms for by reason of the paucity and therefore the ambiguity of the Original words of the Hebrew language the strange Idioms of it the different senses of the same word in several Conjugations the want of several modes of expression which are used in other Languages and above all the lofty and Metaphorical way of speaking used in all Eastern Countries and the imitation of the Hebrew Idioms in the Greek translation of the Old Testament and Original of the New you can hardly affix a sense upon any words used therein but a man who will be at the pains to search all possible significations and uses of those words will put you hard to it to make good that which you took to be the proper meaning of them Wherefore although I will not deny to our adversaries the praise of subtilty and diligence I cannot give them that which is much more praise worthy viz. of discretion and sound judgement For while they use their utmost industry to search all the most remote and Metaphorical senses of words with a design to take off the genuine and proper meaning of them they do not attend to the ill consequence that may be made of this to the overthrowing those things the belief of which themselves make necessary to salvation For by this way the whole Gospel may be made an Allegory and the Resurrection of Christ be thought as metaphorical as the Redemption by his Death and the sorce of all the Precepts of the Gospel avoided by some unusual signification of the words wherein they are delivered So that nothing can be more unreasonable than such a method of proceeding unless it be first sufficiently proved that the matter is not capable of the proper sense and therefore of necessity the improper only is to be allowed And this is that which Socinus seems after all his pains to pervert the meaning of the places in controversie to rely on most viz. That the Doctrine of satisfaction doth imply an impossibility in the thing it self and therefore must needs be false nay he saith the infallibility of the Revealer had not been enough in this Case supposing that Christ had said it and risen from the dead to declare his own Veracity unless he had delivered it by its proper causes and effects and so shewed the possibility of the thing it self And the reason he saith why they believe their Doctrine true is not barely because God hath said it but they believe certainly that God hath said it because they know it to be true by knowing the contrary Doctrine to be impossible The controversie then concerning the meaning of the places in dispute is to be resolved from the nature and reasonableness of the matter contained in them for if Socinus his reason were answerable to his confidence if the account we give of the sufferings of Christ were repugnant not only to the Justice Goodness and Grace of God but to the nature of the thing if it appear impossible that mankind should be redeemed in a proper sense or that God should be propitiated by the Death of his Son as a Sacrifice for sin if it enervate all the Precepts of Obedience and tends rather to justifie sins than those who do repent of them I shall then agree that no industry can be too great in searching Authors comparing places examining Versions to find out such a sense as may be agreeable to the nature of things the Attributes of God and the design of Christian Religion But if on the contrary the Scripture doth plainly assert those things from whence our Doctrine follows and without which no reasonable account can be given either of the expressions used therein or of the sufferings of Christ if Christs death did immediately respect God as a sacrifice and were paid as a price for our Redemption if such a design of his death be so far from being repugnant to the nature of God that it highly manifests his Wisdom Justice and Mercy if it assert nothing but what is so far from being impossible that it is very reconcileable to the common principles of Reason as well as the Free-Grace of God in the pardon of sin if being truly understood it is so far from enervating that it advances highly all the purposes of Christian Religion then it can be no less than a betraying one of the grand Truths of the Christian Doctrine not to believe ours to be the true sense of the places in controversie And this is that which I now take upon me to maintain For our clearer proceeding herein nothing will be more necessary than to understand the true state of the Controversie which hath been rendred more obscure by the mistakes of some who have
controversie with all clearness and brevity And the substance of it will be reduced to these two debates 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion 2. Whether the death of Christ in particular were a proper expiatory sacrifice for sin or only an antecedent condition to his exercise of the Office of Priesthood in Heaven 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion for that it must be one or the other of these two cannot be denyed by our Adversaries for the inflicting those sufferings upon Christ must either proceed from an antecedent meritorious cause or not If they do they are then punishments if not they are meer exercises of power and dominion whatever ends they are intended for and whatever recompence be made for them So Crellius asserts that God as absolute Lord of all had a right of absolute dominion upon the life and body of Christ and therefore might justly deliver him up to death and give his body to the Cross and although Christ by the ordinary force of the Law of Moses had a right to escape so painful and accursed death yet God by the right of dominion had the power of disposal of him because he intended to compensate his torments with a reward infinitely greater than they were but because he saith for great ends the consent of Christ was necessary therefore God did not use his utmost dominion in delivering him up by force as he might have done but he dealt with him by way of command and rewards proposed for obedience and in this sence he did act as a righteous Governor and indulgent Father who encouraged his Son to undergo hard but great things In which we see that he makes the sufferings of Christ an act of meer dominion in God without any antecedent cause as the reason of them only he qualifies this act of dominion with the proposal of a reward for it But we must yet further enquire into their meaning for though here Crellius attributes the sufferings of Christ meerly to Gods dominion without any respect to sin yet elsewhere he will allow a respect that was had to sin antecedently to the sufferings of Christ and that the sins of men were the impulsive cause of them And although Socinus in one place utterly denies any lawful-antecedent cause of the death of Christ besides the will of God and Christ yet Crellius in his Vindication saith by lawful cause he meant meritorius or such upon supposition of which he ought to dye for elsewhere he makes Christ to dye for the cause or by the occasion of our sins which is the same that Crellius means by an impulsive or procatartick cause Which he thus explains we are now to suppose a decree of God not only to give salvation to Mankind but to give us a firm hope of it in this present state now our sins by deserving eternal punishment do hinder the effect of that decree upon us and therefore they were an impulsive cause of the death of Christ by which it was effected that this decree should obtain notwithstanding our sins But we are not to understand as though this were done by any expiation of the guilt of sin by the death of Christ but this effect is hindred by three things by taking away their sins by assuring men that their former sins and present infirmities upon their sincere obedience shall not be imputed to them and that the effect of that decree shall obtain all which saith he is effected morte Christi interveniente the death of Christ intervening but not as the procuring cause So that after all these words he means no more by making our sins an impulsive cause of the death of Christ but that the death of Christ was an argument to confirm to us the truth of his Doctrine which doctrine of his doth give us assurance of these things and that our sins when they are said to be the impulsive cause are not to be considered with a respect to their guilt but to that distrust of God which our sins do raise in us which distrust is in truth according to this sense of Crellius the impulsive cause and not the sins which were the cause or occasion of it For that was it which the doctrine was designed to remove and our sins only as the causes of that But if it be said that he speaks not only of the distrust but of the punishment of sin as an impediment which must be removed too and therefore may be called an impulsive cause we are to consider that the removal of this is not attributed to the death of Christ but to the leaving of our sins by the belief of his Doctrine therefore the punishment of our sins cannot unless in a very remote sense be said to be an impulsive cause of that which for all that we can observe by Crellius might as well have been done without it if any other way could be thought sufficient to confirm his Doctrine and Christ without dying might have had power to save all them that obey him But we understand not an impulsive cause in so remote a sense as though our sins were a meer occasion of Christs dying because the death of Christ was one argument among many others to believe his Doctrine the belief of which would make men leave their sins but we contend for a neerer and more proper sense viz. that the death of Christ was primarily intended for the expiation of our sins with a respect to God and not to us and therefore our sins as an impulsive cause are to be considered as they are so displeasing to God that it was necessary for the Vindication of Gods Honour and the deterring the world from sin that no less a Sacrifice of Attonement should be offered than the blood of the Son of God So that we understand an impulsive cause here in the sense that the sins of the people were under the Law the cause of the offering up those Sacrifices which were appointed for the expiation of them And as in those Sacrifices there were two things to be considered viz. the mactation and the oblation of them the former as a punishment by a substitution of them in place of the persons who had offended the latter as the proper Sacrifice of attonement although the mactation it self considered with the design of it was a Sacrificial act too So we consider the sufferings of Christ with a twofold respect either as to our sins as the impulsive cause of them so they are to be considered as a punishment or as to God with a design to expiate the guilt of them so they are a Sacrifice of Attonement The first consideration is that we are now upon and upon which the present debate
expiation of sins to have been performed there which they utterly deny and say that Christ only took the Cross in his way to his Ascension to Heaven that there he might expiate sins But doth not St. Peter say that what was done by him here was in his body on the tree and they will not say he carryed that with him to Heaven too Well but what then was the taking away of sin which belonged to Christ upon the Cross is it only to perswade men to live vertuously and leave off their sins This Socinus would have and Crellius is contented that it should be understood barely of taking away sins and not of the punishment of them but only by way of accession and consequence but if it be taken which he inclines more to for the punishment then he saith it is to be understood not of the vertue and efficacy of the death of Christ but of the effect and yet a little after he saith those words of Christs bearing our sins are to be understood of the force and efficacy of Christs death to do it not including the effect of it in us not as though Christ did deliver us from sins by his death but that he did that by dying upon which the taking away of sin would follow or which had a great power for the doing it So uncertain are our Adversaries in affixing any sense upon these words which may attribute any effect at all to the death of Christ upon the Cross. For if they be understood of taking away sins then they are only to be meant of the power that was in the death of Christ to perswade men to leave their sins which we must have a care of understanding so as to attribute any effect to the death of Christ in order to it but only that the death of Christ was an argument for us to believe what he said and the believing what he said would incline us to obey him and if we obey him we shall leave off our sins whether Christ had died or no supposing his miracles had the same effect on us which those of Moses had upon the Iews which were sufficient to perswade them to believe and obey without his death But if this be all that was meant by Christs bearing our sins in his body on the tree why might not St. Peter himself be said to bear them upon his cross too for his death was an excellent example of patience and a great argument to perswade men he spake truth and that doctrine which he preached was repentance and remission of sins So that by this sense there is nothing peculiar attributed to the death of Christ But taking the other sense for the taking away the punishment of sins we must see how this belongs to the death of Christ Do they then attribute our delivery from the punishment of sin to the death of Christ on the Cross yes just as we may attribute Coesars subduing Rome to his passing over Rubicon because he took that in his way to the doing of it so they make the death of Christ only as a passage in order to expiation of sins by taking away the punishment of them For that shall not be actually perfected they say till his full deliverance of all those that obey him from hell and the grave which will not be till his second coming So that if we only take the body of Christ for his second coming and the Cross of Christ or the tree for his Throne of Glory then they will acknowledge that Christ may very well be said to take away sins in his own body on the tree but if you take it in any sense that doth imply any peculiar efficacy to the death of Christ for all the plainness of St. Peters words they by no means will admit of it But because Crellius urgeth Grotius with the sense of that place Isa. 53. 11. out of which he contends these words are taken and Crellius conceives he can prove there that bearing is the same with taking away sin We now come to consider what force he can find from thence fâ—r the justifying his assertion That the bearing of sins when attributed to Christ doth not imply the punishment of them but the taking them away The words are for he shall bear their iniquities As to which Grotius observes that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies iniquity is sometimes taken for the punishment of sin 2 Kings 7. 9. and the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to bear and when ever it is joyned with sin or iniquity in all languages and especially the Hebrew it signifies to suffer punishment for although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may sometimes signifie to take away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never does so that this phrase can receive no other interpretation Notwithstanding all which Crellius attempts to prove that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here must be taken in a sense contrary to the natural and perpetual use of the word for which his first argument is very infirm viz. because it is mentioned after the death of Christ and is therefore to be considered as the the reward of the other Whereas it appears 1. By the Prophets discourse that he doth not insist on an exact methodical order but dilates and amplifies things as he sees occasion for Verse 9. he saith He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death and Verse 10. he saith Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief Will Crellius therefore say that this must be consequent to his death and burial 2. The particle 〈◊〉 may be here taken causally as we render it very agreeably to the sense and so it gives an account of the fore-going clause By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many for he shall bear their iniquities And that this is no unusual acception of that particle might be easily cleared from many places of Scripture if it were necessary and from this very Prophet as Isa. 39. 1. where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 King 20. 12. and Isa. 64. 5. Thou art wroth for we have sinned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the same particle is made the causal of what went before But we need not insist upon this to answer Crellius who elsewhere makes use of it himself and says They must be very ignorant of the Hebrew Tongue who do not know that the conjunction copulative is often taken causally and so much is confessed by Socinus also where he explains that particle in one sense in the beginning and causally in the middle of the verse And the Lords anger was kindled against Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he moved c. but if this will not do he attempts to prove That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this very Chapter hath the signification of taking away
of kindness it must be there fore out of enmity and with a design to destroy him and so our sins cannot be understood as Socinus and Crellius would have them as the meer occasions of Christs death but as the proper impulsive cause of it Whether the following word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be taken with a respect to sin and so it properly signifies It is required or with a respect to the person and so it may signifie he was oppressed is not a matter of that consequence which we ought to contend about if it be proved that Christs oppression had only a respect to sin as the punishment of it Which will yet further appear from another expression in the same Chapter vers 5. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed In which Grotius saith the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie any kind of affliction but such as hath the nature of punishment either for example or instruction but since the latter cannot be intended in Christ the former must Crellius thinks to escape from this by acknowledging that the sufferings of Christ have some respect to sin but if it be such a respect to sin which makes what Christ underwent a punishment which is only proper in this case it is as much as we contend for This therefore he is loth to abide by and saith that chastisement imports no more than bare affliction without any respect to sin which he thinks to prove from St. Pauls words 2 Cor. 6. 9. We are chastised but not given over to death but how far this is from proving his purpose will easily appear 1. Because those by whom they were said to be chastened did not think they did it without any respect to a fault but they supposed them to be justly punished and this is that we plead for that the chastisement considered with a respect to him that inflicts it doth suppose some fault as the reason of inflicting it 2. This is far from the present purpose for the chastisement there mentioned is oposed to death as chastened but not killed whereas Grotius expresly speaks of such chastisements as include death that these cannot be supposed to be meerly designed for instruction and therefore must be conceived under the notion of punishment The other place Psal. 73. 14. is yet more remote from the business for though the Psalmist accounts himself innocent in respect of the great enormities of others yet he could not account himself so innocent with a respect to God as not to deserve chastisement from him But Crellius offers further to prove that Christs death must be considered as a bare affliction and not as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or exemplary punishment because in such a punishment the guilty themselves are to be punished and the benefit comes to those who were not guilty but in Christs sufferings it was quite contrary for the innocent was punished and the guilty have the benefit of it and yet he saith if we should grant that Christs sufferings were a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that will not prove that his death was a proper punishment To which I answer That whatever answers to the ends of an exemplary punishment may properly be called so but supposing that Christ suffered the punishment of our sins those sufferings will answer to all the ends of an exemplary punishment For the ends of such a punishment assigned by Crellius himself are That others observing such a punishment may abstain from those sins which have brought it upon the person who suffers Now the question is whether supposing Christ did suffer on the account of our sins these sufferings of his may deter us from the practice of sin or no And therefore in opposition to Crellius I shall prove these two things 1. That supposing Christ suffered for our sins there was a sufficient argument to deter us from the practice of sin 2. Supposing that his sufferings had no respect to our sins they could not have that force to deter men from the practice of it for he after asserts That Christs sufferings might be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to us though they were no punishment of sin 1. That the death of Christ considered as a punishment of sin is a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or hath a great force to deter men from the practice of sin and that because the same reason of punishment is supposed in Christ and in our selves and because the example is much more considerable than if we had suffered our selves 1. The same reason of punishment is supposed For why are men deterred from sin by seeing others punished but because they look upon the sin as the reason of the punishment and therefore where the same reason holds the same ends may be as properly obtained If we said that Christ suffered death meerly as an innocent person out of Gods dominion over his life what imaginable force could this have to deter men from sin which is asserted to have no relation to it as the cause of it But when we say that God laid our iniquities upon him that he suffered not upon his own account but ours that the sins we commit against God were the cause of all those bitter Agonies which the Son of God underwent what argument can be more proper to deter men from sin than this is For hereby they see the great abhorrency of sin which is in God that he will not pardon the sins of men without a compensation made to his Honor and a demonstration to the world of his hatred of it Hereby they see what a value God hath for his Laws which he will not relax as to the punishment of offenders without so valuable a consideration as the blood of his own Son Hereby they see that the punishment of sin is no meer arbitrary thing depending barely upon the will of God but that there is such a connexion between sin and punishment as to the ends of Government that unless the Honor and Majesty of God as to his Laws and Government may be preserved the violation of his Laws must expect a just recompence of reward Hereby they see what those are to expect who neglect or despise these sufferings of the Son of God for them for nothing can then remain but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the Adversaries So that here all the weighty arguments concur which may be most apt to prevail upon men to deter them from their sins For if God did thus by the green tree what will be do by the dry If he who was so innocent in himself so perfectly holy suffered so much on the account of our sins what then may those expect to suffer who have no innocency at all to plead and add wilfulness and impenitency to their sins But if it be replied by Crellius that it is otherwise
among men I answer that we do not pretend in all things to parallel the sufferings of Christ for us with any sufferings of men for one another But yet we add that even among men the punishments inflicted on those who were themselves innocent as to the cause of them may be as exemplary as any other And the greater appearance of severity there is in them the greater terror they strike into all offenders As Childrens losing their estates and honors or being banished for their Parents treasons in which they had no part themselves Which is a proper punishment on them of their Fathers faults whether they be guilty or no and if this may be just in men why not in God If any say that the Parents are only punished in the Children he speaks that which is contradictory to the common sense of mankind for punishment doth suppose sense or feeling of it and in this case the Parents are said to be punished who are supposed to be dead and past feeling of it and the Children who undergo the smart of it must not be said to be punished though all things are so like it that no person can imagine himself in that condition but would think himself punished and severely too If it be said that these are calamities indeed but they are no proper punishments it may easily be shewed that distinction will not hold here Because these punishments were within the design of the Law and were intended for all the ends of punishments and therefore must have the nature of them For therefore the Children are involved in the Fathers punishment on purpose to deter others from the like actions There are some things indeed that Children may fall into by occasion of their Fathers guilt which may be only calamities to them because they are necessary consequents in the nature of the thing and not purposely designed as a punishment to them Thus being deprived of the comfort and assistance of their Parents when the Law hath taken them off by the hand of justice this was designed by the Law as a punishment to the Parents and as to the Children it is only a necessary consequent of their punishment For otherwise the Parents would have been punished for the Childrens faults and not the Children only involved in that which unavoidably follows upon the Parents punishment So that Crellius is very much mistaken either in the present case of our Saviours punishment or in the general reason of exemplary punishments as among men But the case of our Saviour is more exemplary when we consider the excellency of his person though appearing in our nature when no meaner sufferings would satisfie than of so transcendent a nature as he underwent though he were the Eternal Son of God this must make the punishment much more exemplary than if he were considered only as our Adversaries do as a meer man So that the dignity of his person under all his sufferings may justly add a greater consideration to deter us from the practice of sin which was so severely punished in him when he was pleased to be a Sacrifice for our sins From whence we see that the ends of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are very agreeable with the sufferings of Christ considered as a punishment for sin We now consider whether as Crellius asserts supposing Christs death were no punishment it could have these effects upon mens minds or no Yes he saith it might because by his sufferings we might see how severely God would punish wicked and obstinate persons Which being a strange riddle at the first hearing it viz. that by the sufferings of an innocent person without any respect to sin as the cause of them we should discern Gods severity against those who are obstinate in sin we ought the more diligently to attend to what is said for the clearing of it First saith he If God spared not his own most innocent and holy and only Son than whom nothing was more dear to him in Heaven or Earth but exposed him to so cruel and ignominious a death how great and severe sufferings may we think God will inflict on wicked men who are at open defiance with him I confess my self not subtle enough to apprehend the force of this argument viz. If God dealt so severely with him who had no sin either of his own or others to answer for therefore he will deal much more severely with those that have For Gods severity considered without any respect to sin gives rather encouragement to sinners than any argument to deter them from it For the natural consequence of it is that God doth act arbitrarily without any regard to the good or evil of mens actions and therefore it is to no purpose to be sollicitous about them For upon the same account that the most innocent person suffers most severely from him for all that we know the more we strive to be innocent the more severely we may be dealt with and let men sin they can be but dealt severely with all the difference then is one shall be called punishments and the other calamities but the severity may be the same in both And who would leave off his sins meerly to change the name of punishments into that of calamities And from hence it will follow that the differences of good and evil and the respects of them to punishment and reward are but aiery and empty things but that God really in the dispensation of things to men hath no regard to what men are or do but acts therein according to his own Dominion whereby he may dispose of men how or which way he pleases If a Prince had many of his Subjects in open rebellion against him and he should at that time make his most obedient and beloved Son to be publickly exposed to all manner of indignities and be dishonoured and put to death by the hands of those rebels could any one imagine that this was designed as an exemplary punishment to all rebels to let them see the danger of rebellion No but would it not rather make them think him a cruel Prince one that would punish innocency as much as rebellion and that it was rather better to stand at defiance and become desperate for it was more dangerous to be beloved than hated by him to be his Son than his declared Enemy So that insisting on the death of Christ as it is considered as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for of that we speak now there is no comparison between our Adversaries hypothesis and ours but saith Crellius the consequence is not good on our side if Christ suffered the punishment of our sins therefore they shall suffer much more who continue in sin for Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world but they suffer only for their own and what they have deserved themselves To which I answer that the argument is of very good force upon our hypothesis
though it would not be upon theirs For if we suppose him to be a meer man that suffered then there could be no argument drawn from his sufferings to ours but according to the exact proportion of sins and punishments but supposing that he had a divine as well as humane nature there may not be so great a proportion of the sins of the world to the sufferings of Christ as of the sins of a particular person to his own sufferings and therefore the argument from one to the other doth still hold For the measure of punishments must be taken with a proportion to the dignity of the person who suffers them And Crellius himself confesseth elsewhere that the dignity of the person is to be considered in exemplary punishment and that a lesser punishment of one that is very great may do much more to deter men from sin than a greater punishment of one much less But he yet further urgeth that the severity of God against sinners may be discovered in the sufferings of Christ because Gods hatredagainst sin is discovered therein But if we ask how Gods hatred against sin is seen in the sufferings of one perfectly innocent and free from sin and not rather his hatred of innocency if no respect to sin were had therein he answers that Gods hatred against sin was manifested in that he would not spare his only Son to draw men off from sin For answer to which we are to consider the sufferings of Christ as an innocent person designed as an exemplary cause to draw men off from sin and let any one tell me what hatred of sin can possibly be discovered in proposing the sufferings of a most innocent person to them without any consideration of sin as the cause of those sufferings If it be said that the Doctrine of Christ was designed to draw men off from sin and that God suffered his Son to dye to confirm this Doctrine and thereby shewed his hatred to sin I answer 1. This is carrying the dispute off from the present business for we are not now arguing about the design of Christs Doctrine nor the death of Christ as a means to confirm that but as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what power that hath without respect to our sins as the cause of them to draw us from sin by discovering Gods hatred to it 2. The Doctrine of Christ according to their hypothesis discovers much less of Gods hatred to sin than ours doth For if God may pardon sin without any compensation made to his Laws or Honour if repentance be in its own nature a sufficient satisfaction for all the sins past of our Lives if there be no such thing as such a Justice in God which requires punishment of sin committed if the punishment of sin depend barely upon Gods will and the most innocent person may suffer as much from God without respect to sin as the cause of suffering as the most guilty let any rational man judge whether this Doctrine discovers as much Gods abhorrency of sin as asserting the necessity of vindicating Gods honour to the World upon the breach of his Laws if not by the suffering of the offenders themselves yet of the Son of God as a sacrifice for the expiation of sin by undergoing the punishment of our iniquities so as upon consideration of his sufferings he is pleased to accept of repentance and sincere obedience as the conditions upon which he will grant remission of sins and eternal life So that if the discovery of Gods hatred to sin be the means to reclaim men from it we assert upon the former reasons that much more is done upon our Doctrine concerning the sufferings of Christ than can be upon theirs So much shall suffice to manifest in what sense Christs death may be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that this doth imply that his sufferings are to be considered as a punishment of sin The next Series of places which makes Christs sufferings to be a punishment for sin are those which assert Christ to be made sin and a curse for us which we now design to make clear ought to be understood in no other sense for as Grotius saith As the Jews sometimes use sin for the punishment of sin as appears besides other places by Zach. 14. 19. Gen. 4. 13. so they call him that suffers the punishment of sin by the name of sin as the Latins use the word Piaculum both for the fault and for him that suffers for it Thence under the Law an expiatory Sacrifice for sin was called sin Levit. 4. 3 29 5. 6. Psal. 40. 7. Which way of speaking Esaias followed speaking of Christ Esai 53. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he made his soul sin i. e. liable to the punishment of it To the same purpose St. Paul 2 Cor. 5. 21. He made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him To which Crellius replies `` That as there is no necessity that by the name of sin when applied to sufferings any more should be implied than that those sufferings were occasioned by sin no more is there when it is applied to the person nay much less for he saith `` No more is required to this but that he should be handled as sinners use to be and undergo the matter of punishment without any respect to sin either as the cause or occasion of it So he saith The name Sinner is used 1 King 1. 21. and in St. Paul the name of sin in the first clause is to be understood as of righteousness in the latter and as we are said to be righteousness in him when God deals with us as with righteous persons so Christ was said to be sin for us when he was dealt with as a sinner And the Sacrifices for sin under the Law were so called not with a respect to the punishment of sin but because they were offered upon the account of sin and were used for taking away the guilt of it or because men were bound to offer them so that they sinned if they neglected it So that all that is meant by Esaias and St. Paul is That Christ was made an expiatory Sacrifice or that he exposed himself for those afflictions which sinners only by right undergo But let Crellius or any others of them tell me if the Scripture had intended to express that the sufferings of Christ were a punishment of our sins how was it possible to do it more Emphatically than it is done by these expressions the custom of the Hebrew Language being considered not only by saying that Christ did bear our sins but that himself was made sin for us those phrases being so commonly used for the punishment of sin Let them produce any one instance in Scripture where those expressions are applied to any without the consideration of sin that place 1
punishment and afterwards when Grotius urgeth that though it be essential to punishment that it be inflicted for sin yet it is not that it be inflicted upon him who hath himself sinned which he shews by the similitude of rewards which though necessary to be given in consideration of service may yet be given to others besides the person himself upon his account All this Crellius acknowledgeth who saith They do not make it necessary to the nature but to the justice of punishment that it be inflicted upon none but the person who hath offended So by his own Confession it is not against the nature of punishment that one man suffer for anothers faults From whence it follows that all Socinus his arguments signifie nothing which are drawn from the impossibility of the thing that one man should be punished for anothers faults for Crellius grants the thing to be possible but denies it to be just yet not absolutely neither but with some restrictions and limitations For 6. It is not but that there may be sufficient causes assigned in some particular cases wherein it may be just for God to punish some for the sins of others For Crellius himself hath assigned divers When there is such a neer conjunction between them that one may be said to be punished in the punishment of another as Parents in their Children and Posterity Kings in their Subjects or the body of a State in its Members either in the most or the most principal though the fewest but we are to consider how far he doth extend this way of punishment of some in others 1. At the greatest distance of time if they have been of the same Nation for he extends it to the utmost degree of Gods patience towards a people For saith he God doth not presently punish as soon as they have sinned but spares for a great while and forbears iu expectation of their repentance in the mean while a great many guilty persons die and seem to have escaped punishment But at last the time of Gods patience being past he punisheth their Posterity by exacting the fu l punishment of their sins upon them and by this means punisheth their Ancestors tâ—o and punisheth their sins in their punishment for saith he all that people are reckoned for one one man of several Ages and that punishment which is taken of the last may be for the sins of the first for the conjunction and succession of them of which we have an example saith he in the destructiof Hierusalem By which we see a very remote conjunction and a meer similitude in comparing a succession of Ages in a people with those in a man may when occasion serves be made use of to justifie Gods punishing one Generation of men for the sins of others that have been long before 2. When sins are more secret or less remarkable which God might not punish unless an occasion were given from others sins impelling him to it but because God would punish one very near them he therefore punisheth them that in their punishment he might punish the other Or in case sins spread through a Family or a people or they are committed by divers persons at sundry times which God dot◠〈◊〉 severally punish but sometimes then when the Head of a People or Family hath done something which remarkably deserves punishment whom he will punish in those he is related to and therefore generally punisheth the whole Family or People 3. That which may be a meer exercise of dominion as to some may be a proper punishment to others as in the case of Infants being taken away for their Parents sins For God as to the Children he saith useth only an act of dominion but the punishment only redounds to the Parents who lose them and though this be done for the very end of punishment yet he denies that it hath the nature of Punishment in any but the Parents 4. That punishment may be intended for those who can have no sense at all of it as Crellius asserts in the case of Sauls sons 2 Sam. 21. 8 14. that the punishment was mainly intended for Saul who was aheady dead From these concessions of Crellius in this case we may take notice 1. That a remote conjunction may be sufficient for a translation of penalty viz. from one Generation to another 2. That sins may be truly said to be punished in others when the offenders themselves may escape punishment thus the sins of Parents in their Children and Princes in their Subjects 3. That an act of dominion in some may be designed as a proper punishment to others 4. That the nature of punishment is not to be measured by the sense of it Now upon these concessions though our Adversaries will not grant that Christ was properly punished for our sins yet they cannot deny but that we may very properly be said to be punished for our sins in Christ and if they will yield us this the other may be a strife about words For surely there may be easily imagined as great a conjunction between Christ and us as between the several Generations of the Iews and that last which was punished in the destruction of Hierusalem and though we escape that punishment which Christ did undergo yet we might have our sins punished in him as well as Princes theirs in their Subjects when they escape themselves or rather as Subjects in an innocent Prince who may suffer for the faults of his people if it be said that these are acts of meer dominion as to such a one that nothing hinders but granting it yet our sins may be said to be punished in him as well as Parents sins are punished properly in meer acts of dominion upon their Children if it be laid that can be no punishment where there is no sense at all of it that is fully taken off by Crellius for surely we have as great a sense of the sufferings of Christ as the first Generation of the Iews had of the suffering of the last before the fatal destruction of the City or as Saul had of the punishment of his Sons after his death So that from Crellius his own concessions we have proved that our sins may very properly be said to be punished in Christ although he will not say that Christ could be properly punished for our sins nay he and the rest of our Adversaries not only deny it but earnestly contend that it is very unjust to suppose it and repugnant to the rectitude of Gods nature to do it And so we come to consider the mighty arguments that are insisted on for the proof of this which may be reduced to these three viz. 1. That there can be no punishment but what is deserved but no man can deserve that another should be punished 2. That punishment flows from revenge but there can be no revenge where there hath been no fault 3. That
fat but this All the fat is the Lords Which was enough to keep them from eating it but we see here in the case of blood somewhat further is assigned viz. that it was the life and therefore was most proper for expiation the life of the beast being substituted in the place of the offenders Which was therefore called anamalis hostia among the Romans as Grotius observes upon this place and was distinguished from those whose entrails were observed for in those Sacrifices as Servius saith sola anima Deo sacratur the main of the Sacrifice lay in shedding of the blood which was called the Soul and so it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place From whence it appears that such a sacrifice was properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used both relating to the blood and the soul that is expiated by it and the LXX do accordingly render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the last clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From whence Eusebius calls these Sacrifices of living Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and afterwards saith they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Crellius elsewhere grants that where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it doth imply that one doth undergo the punishment which another was to have undergone which is all we mean by substitution it being done in the place of another From whence it follows that the Sacrifices under the Law being said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth necessarily infer a substitution of them in the place of the offenders And from hence may be understood what is meant by the Goat of the Sin offering bearing the iniquity of the Congregation to make atonement for them before the Lord Levit. 10. 17. for Crellius his saying That bearing is as much as taking away or declaring that they are taken away hath been already disproved And his other answer hath as little weight in it viz. That it is not said that the sacrifice did bear their iniquities but the Priest For 1. The Chaldee Paraphrast and the Syriack Version understand it wholly of the Sacrifice 2. Socinus himself grants That if it were said the Priest did expiate by the sacrifices it were all one as if it were said that the sacrifices themselves did expiate because the expiation of the Priest was by the sacrifice Thus it is plain in the case of uncertain murther mentioned Deut 21. from the first to the tenth If a murther were committed in the Land and the person not known who did it a heifer was to have her head cut of by the Elders of the next City and by this means they were to put away the guilt of the innocent blood from among them The reason of which was because God had said before That blood defiled the Land and the Land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it From whence it appears that upon the shedding of blood there was a guilt contracted upon the whole Land wherein it was shed and in case the Murtherer was not found to expiate that guilt by his own blood then it was to be done by the cutting off the head of a heifer instead of him In which case the death of the heiser was to do as much towards the expiating the Land as the death of the Murtherer if he had been found And we do not contend that this was designed to expiate the Murtherers guilt which is the Objection of Crellius against this instance but that a substitution here was appointed by God himself for the expiation of the peoâ—… For what Crellius adds That the people did not deserve punishment and therefore needed no expiation it is a flat contradiction to the Text For the prayer appointed in that case is Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whom thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy people Israels Charge and the blood shall be expiated for the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used here which is in the other places where Expiation is spoken of So that here must be some guilt supposed where there was to be an expiation and this expiation was performed by the substitution of a sacrifice in the place of the offender Which may be enough at present to shew that a substitution was admitted by the Law of a sacrifice instead of the offender in order to the expiation of guilt but whether the offender himself was to be freed by that Sacrifice depends upon the terms on which the sacrifice was offered for we say still that so much guilt was expiated as the sacrifice was designed to expiate if the sacrifice was designed to expiate the guilt of the offender his sin was expiated by it if not his in case no sacrifice was allowed by the Law as in that of murther then the guilt which lay upon the Land was expiated although the offender himself were never discovered I now come to prove that in correspondency to such a substitution of the sacrifices for sin under the Law Christ was substituted in our room for the expiation of our guilt and that from his being said to dye for us and his death being called a price of Redemption for us 1. From Christs being said to dye for us By St. Peter For Christ hath also once suffered for sins the just for the unjust by whom he is also said to suffer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for us and for us in the flesh By St. Paul he is said to dye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the ungodly and to give himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransom for all and to taste death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for every man By Caiaphas speaking by inspiration he is said to dye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the people So Christ himself instituting his last Supper said This is my body which was given and my blood which was shed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for you and before he had said That the Son of man came to give his life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransom for many We are now to consider what arts our Adversaries have made use of to pervert the meaning of these places so as not to imply a substitution of Christ in our room 1. They say That all these phrases do imply no more than a final cause viz. That Christ died for the good of mankind for the Apostle tells us We are bound to lay down our lives for the Brethren and St. Paul is said to suffer for the Church To which I answer 1. This doth not at all destroy that which we now plead for viz. That these phrases do imply a substitution of Christ in our room For when we are bid to lay down our lives for our
brethren a substitution is implied therein and supposing that dying for another doth signifie dying for some benefit to come to him yet what doth this hinder substitution unless it be proved that one cannot obtain any benefit for another by being substituted in his room Nay it is observable that although we produce so many places of Scripture implying such a substitution they do not offer to produce one that is inconsistent with Christs suffering in our stead all that they say is That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not always signifie so which we never said it did who say that Christ suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not instead of our sins but by reason of them but we assert that when one person is said to dye for others as in the places mentioned no other sense can be so proper and agreeable as dying in the stead of the other 2. Socinus himself grants That there is a peculiarity implied in those phrases when attributed to Christ above what they have when attributed to any other And therefore he saith It cannot be properly said That one Brother dies for another or that Paul suffered for the Colossians or for the Church as Christ may truly and properly be said to suffer and to dye for us And from hence saith he St. Paul saith was Paul crucified for you implying thereby that there never was or could be any who truly and properly could be said to dye for men but Christ alone How unreasonable then is it from the use of a particle as applied to others to infer that it ought to be so understood when applied to Christ when a peculiarity is acknowledged in the death of Christ for us more than ever was or could be in one mans dying for another 3. It is not the bare force of the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we insist upon but that a substitution could not be more properly expressed than it is in Scripture by this and other particles for not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too which Socinus saith Although it may signifie something else besides in the stead of another yet in such places where it is spoken of a ransom or price it signifies the payment of something which was owing before as Mat. 17. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so he acknowledges that where redemption is spoken of there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth imply a commutation because the price is given and the person received which he saith holds in Christ only metaphorically for the redemption according to him being only Metaphoricall the commutation must be supposed to be so too And this now leads us to the larger Answer of Crellius upon this argument Wherein we shall consider what he yields what he denies and upon what reasons 1. He yields and so he saith doth Socinus very freely a commutation but it is necessary that we should throughly understand what he means by it to that end he tells us That they acknowledge a twofold commutation one of the person suffering the kind of suffering being changed not actually but intentionally because we are not actually freed by Christ dying for us but only Christ dyed for that end that we might be freed And this commutation he saith that Socinus doth not deny to be implied in the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the places where Christ is said to dye for us Another commutation which he acknowledges is that which is between a price and the thing or person which is bought or redeemed by it where the price is paid and the thing or person is received upon it And this kind of commutation he saith is to be understood in the places where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is mentioned which price he saith by accident may be a person and because the person is not presently delivered he therefore saith that the commutation is rather imperfect than metaphorical and although he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not of it self imply a commutation yet he grants that the circumstances of the places do imply it 2. He denies that there is any proper surrogation in Christs dying for us which he saith is such a commutation of persons that the substituted person is in all respects to be in the same place and state wherein the other was and if it refers to sufferings then it is when one suffers the very same which the other was to suffer he being immediately delivered by the others sufferings And against this kind of surrogation Crellius needed not to have produced any reasons for Grotius never asserted it neither do we say that Christ suffered eternal death for us or that we were immediately freed by his sufferings But that which Grotius asserts that he meant by substitution was this that unless Christ had died for us we must have died our selves and because Christ hath died we shall not die eternally But if this be all saith Crellius he meant by it we grant the whole thing and he complains of it as an injury for any to think otherwise of them If so they cannot deny but that there was a sufficient capacity in the death of Christ to be made an expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the world But notwithstanding all these fair words Crellius means no more than Socinus did and though he would allow the words which Grotius used yet not in the sense he understood them in for Crellius means no more by all this but that the death of Christ was an antecedent condition to the expiation of sins in Heaven Grotius understands by them that Christ did expiate sins by becoming a Sacrifice for them in his death However from hence it appears that our Adversaries can have no plea against the death of Christs being an expiatory Sacrifice from want of a substitution in our room since they profess themselves so willing to own such a substitution But if they say that there could be no proper substitution because the death of Christ was a bare condition and no punishment they then express their minds more freely and if these places be allowed to prove a substitution I hope the former discourse will prove that it was by way of punishment Neither is it necessary that the very same kind of punishment be undergone in order to surrogation but that it be sufficient in order to the accomplishing the end for which it was designed For this kind of substitution being in order to the delivery of another by it whatever is sufficient for that end doth make a proper surrogation For no more is necessary to the delivery of another person than the satisfying the ends of the Law and Government and if that may be done by an aequivalent suffering though not the same in all respects then it may be a proper surrogation If David had obtained his wish that he had died for his Son Absolom
is set down briefly by Crellius in the beginning of his discourse of Sacrifices There is a twofold power saith he of the sacrifice of Christ towards the expiation of sin one taking away the guilt and the punishment of sin and that partly by declaring that God will do it and giving us a right to it partly by actual deliverance from punishment the other is by begetting Faith in us and so drawing us off from the practice of sin Now the first and last Crellius and Socinus attribute to the death of Christ as that was a confirmation of the Covenant God made for the remission of sin and as it was an argument to perswade us to believe the truth of his Doctrine and the other viz. the actual deliverance from punishment is by themselves attributed to the second coming of Christ for then only they say the just shall be actually delivered from the punishment of sin viz. eternal death and what expiation is there now left to the Oblation of Christ in Heaven Doth Christ in Heaven declare the pardon of sin any other way than it was declared by him upon Earth What efficacy hath his Oblation in Heaven upon perswading men to believe or is his second coming when he shall sit as Judge the main part of his Priesthood for then the expiation of sins in our Adversaries sense is most proper And yet nothing can be more remote from the notion of Christs Pristhood than that is so that expiation of sins according to them can have no respect at all to the Oblation of Christ in Heaven or which is all one in their sense his continuance in Heaven to his second coming Yes saith Crellius his continuance there is a condition in order to the expiation by actual deliverance and therefore it may be said that God is as it were moved by it to expiate sins The utmost then that is attributed to Christs being in Heaven in order to the expiation of sins is that he must continue there without doing anything in order to it for if he does it must either respect God or us but they deny though contrary to the importance of the words and the design of the places where they are used that the terms of Christs interceding for us or being an Advocate with the Father for us do note any respect to God but only to us if he does any thing with respect to us in expiation of sin it must be either declaring perswading or actual deliverance but it is none of these by their own assertions and therefore that which they call Christs Oblation or his being in Heaven signifies nothing as to the expiation of sin and it is unreasonable to suppose that a thing which hath no influence at all upon it should be looked on as a condition in order to it From whence it appears that while our Adversaries do make the exercise of Christs Priesthood to respect us and not God they destroy the very nature of it and leave Christ only an empty name without any thing answering to it But if Christ be truly a High-Priest as the Apostle asserts that he is from thence it follows that he must have a respect to God in offering up gifts and sacrifices for sin which was the thing to be proved 2. That Christ did exercise this Priestly Office in the Oblation of himself to God upon the Cross. Which I shall prove by two things 1. Because the death of Christ is said in Scripture to be an Offering and a Sacrifice to God 2. Because Christ is said to offer up himself antecedently to his entrance into Heaven 1. Because the death of Christ is said to be an offering and a sacrifice to God which is plain from the words of St. Paul as Christ also hath loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour Our Adversaries do not deny that the death of Christ is here called an Oblation but they deny That it is meant of an Expiatory Sacrifice but of a free will offering and the reason Crellius gives is because that phrase of a sweet-smelling savour is generally and almost always used of sacrifices which are not expiatory but if ever they be used of an Expiatory Sacrifice they are not applyed to that which was properly expiatory in it viz. the offering up of the blood for no smell saith he went up from thence but to the burning of the fat and the kidneys which although required to perfect the expiation yet not being done till the High-Priest returned out of the Holy of Holies hath nothing correspondent to the expiatory Sacrifice of Christ where all things are persected before Christ the High-Priest goes forth of his Sanctuary How inconsistent these last words are with what they assert concerning the expiation of sin by actual deliverance at the great day the former discourse hath already discovered For what can be more absurd than to say that all things which pertain to the expiation of sin are perfected before Christ goes forth from his Sanctuary and yet to make the most proper expiation of sin to lye in that act of Christ which is consequent to his going forth of the Sanctuary viz. when he proceeds to judge the quick and the dead But of that already We now come to a punctual and direct answer as to which two things must be enquired into 1. What the importance of the phrase of a sweet-smelling savour is 2. What the Sacrifices are to which that phrase is applyed 1. For the importance of the phrase The first time we read it used in Scripture was upon the occasion of Noahs Sacrifice after the flood of which it is said that he offered burnt-offerings on the Altar and the Lord smelled a savour of rest or a sweet savour Which we are not to imagine in a gross corporeal manner as Crellius seems to understand it when he saith the blood could not make such a savour as the fat and the kidneys for surely none ever thought the smell of flesh burnt was a sweet-smelling savour of it self and we must least of all imagine that of God which Porphyry saith was the property only of the worst of Daemons to be pleased and as it were to grow fat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the smell and vapours of blood and flesh by which testimony it withal appears that the same steams in Sacrifices were supposed to arise from the blood as the flesh But we are to understand that phrase in a sense agreeable to the divine nature which we may easily do if we take it in the sense the Syriack Version takes it in when it calls it Odorem placabilitatis or the savour of rest as the word properly signifies for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word formed from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is used for the resting of the Ark v. 4. of the
e. as the Iews expound it at the entrance of the Court of the Priests and there he was to lay his hands upon the head of it and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him This Offering was made before the Beast was slain after the killing the beast then the Priests were to make an Offering of the blood by sprinkling it round about the Altar of Burnt-offerings the rest of the blood say the Iews was poured out by the Priests at the South-side of the Altar upon the foundation where the two holes were for the passage into the Channel which conveyed the blood into the valley of Kidron thus the blood being offered the parts of the beast were by the Priests to be laid upon the Altar and there they were all to be consumed by fire and then it was called an Offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord. The same rites were used in the Peace-offerings and Trespass-offerings as to the laying on of hands and the sprinkling the blood and consuming some part by fire and in the sin-offerings there was to be the same imposition of hands but concerning the sprinkling of the blood and the way of consuming the remainders of the Sacrifice there was this considerable difference that in the common sin-offerings for particular persons the blood was sprinkled upon the horns of the Altar of Burnt-offerings but in the sin-offerings for the High-Priest and the Congregation or all the People he was to carry the blood within the Sanctuary and to sprinkle of it seven times before the Vail of the Sanctuary and some of the blood was to be put upon the horns of the Altar of Incense but the remainder of the blood and the same things which were offered by fire in Peace-Offerings were to be disposed of accordingly on the Altar of Burnt-offerings And withal there was this great difference that in other sin-offerings the Priests were to eat the remainder of the sacrifice in the Holy place but in these there was nothing to be eaten by them for the whole Bullock was to be carried forth without the Camp and there he was to be burned till all were consumed For it was an express Law That no sin-offering whereof any of the blood is brought into the Tabernacle of the Congregation to reconcile withal in the Holy-place shall be eaten it shall be burnt in the fire All the difference that was on the great day of Atonement was this that the High Priest himself was to slay the Sin-offerings and then to carry the blood of them into the Holy of Holies and there was to sprinkle the blood with his finger towards the Mercy-seat seven times after which and the sending away the scape-goat the ceremonies were the same for the Atonement of the people which were at other solemn sin-offerings for the Priest or the people From all which being thus laid together we shall observe several things which are very material to our purpose 1. That in the oblations which were made for expiation of sins the difference between the mactation and the oblation did arise from the difference between the Priest and the Sacrifice For the Priests Office was to atone but he was to atone by the Sacrifice on which account although the Priest were to offer the Sacrifice for himself yet the oblation did not lie in the bare presenting himself before God but in the presenting the blood of that Sacrifice which was shed in order to expiation If we could have supposed that the High-Priest under the Law instead of offering a Goat for a Sin-offering for the people on the day of Atonement should have made an oblation of himself to God by dying for the expiation of their sins In this case his death being the Sacrifice and himself the Priest the mactation as it relates to his own act and his oblation had been one and the same thing For his death had been nothing else but the offering up himself to God in order to the expiation of the sins of the people and there can be no reason why the oblation must be of necessity something consequent to his death since all things necessary to a perfect oblation do concur in it For where there is something solemnly devoted to God and in order to the expiation of sins and by the hand of a Priest there are all things concurring to a legal oblation but in this case all these things do concur and therefore there can be no imaginable necessity of making the oblation of Christ only consequent to his Ascension since in his death all things concur to a proper oblation In the Law we grant that the oblation made by the Priest was consequent to the death of the beast for Sacrifice but the reason of that was because the beast could not offer up it self to God and God had made it necessary that the Priest should expiate sins not by himself but by those Sacrifices and therefore the oblation of the blood was after the Sacrifice was slain neither could this have been solved barely by the Priests slaying of the Sacrifices for this being an act of violence towards the beasts that were thus killed could not be a proper oblation which must suppose a consent antecedent to it All which shewed the great imperfection of the Levitical Law in which so many several things were to concur to make up a sacrifice for sin viz. The first offering made by the party concerned of what was under his dominion viz. The beast to be sacrificed at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation but the beast not being able to offer up it self it was necessary for the offering up its blood that it must be slain by others and for the better understanding not only of the efficacy of the blood but the concurrence of the Priest for expiation he was to take the blood and sprinkle some of it on the Altar and pour out the rest at the foundation of it But since we assert a far more noble and excellent Sacrifice by the Son of God freely offering up himself to be made a Sacrifice for the sins of the world why may not this be as proper an oblation made unto God as any was under the Law and far more excellent both in regard of the Priest and the Sacrifice why should his oblation of himself then be made only consequent to his death and resurrection Which â—latter being by our Adversaries made not his own act but Gods upon him and his entrance into Heaven being given him as they assert as a reward of his sufferings in what tolerable sense can that be called an oblation of himself which was conferâ—ed upon him as a reward of his former sufferings From whence it follows that upon our Adversaries own grounds the death of Christ may far more properly be called the oblation of himself than his entrance
too viz. Because it was the way whereby he obtained the power of expiation and far more properly so than the other since they make Christs entrance and power the reward of his sufferings but they never make his sitting at the right hand of God the reward of his entrance into Heaven 2. His offering up himself to God upon the Cross was his own act but his entrance into Heaven was Gods as themselves acknowledge and therefore could not in any propriety of speech be called Christs offering up himself 3. If it were his own act it could not have that respect to the expiation of sins which his death had for our Adversaries say that his death was by reason of our sins and that he suffered to purge us from sin but his entrance into Heaven was upon his own account to enjoy that power and authority which he was to have at the right hand of God 4. How could Christs entrance into Heaven be the way for his enjoying that power which was necessary for the expiation of sin when Christ before his entrance into Heaven saith that all power was given to him in Heaven and earth and the reason assigned in Scripture of that power and authority which God gave him is because he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the Cross So that the entrance of Christ into Heaven could not be the means of obtaining that power which was conferred before but the death of Christ is mentiâ—ned on that account in Scripture 5. If the death of Christ were no expiatory Sacrifice the entrance of Christ into Heaven could be no Oblation proper to a High-Priest for his entrance into the Holy of Holies was on the account of the blood of the sin-offering which he carried in with him If there were then no Expiatory Sacrifice before that was slain for the sins of men Christ could not be said to make any Oblation in Heaven for the Oblation had respect to a Sacrifice already slain so that if men deny that Christs death was a proper Sacrifice for sin he could make no Oblation at all in Heaven and Christ could not be said to enter thither as the High-Priest entred into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the Sacrifice which is the thing which the Author to the Hebrews asserts concerning Christ. 2. There is as great an inconsistency in making the exercise of Christs power in Heaven an Oblation in any sense as in making Christs entrance into Heaven to be the Oblation which had correspondency with the Oblations of the Law For what is there which hath the least resemblance with an Oblation in it Hath it any respect to God as all the legal Oblations had no for his intercession and power Crellius saith respects us and not God Was there any Sacrifice at all in it for expiation how is it possible that the meer exercise of power should be called a Sacrifice What analogy is there at all between them And how could he be then said most perfectly to exercise his Priesthood when there was no consideration at all of any Sacrifice offered up to God so that upon these suppositions the Author to the Hebrews must argue upon strange similitudes and fancy resemblances to himself which it was impossible for the Iews to understand him in who were to judge of the nature of Priesthood and Oblations in a way agreeable to the Institutions among themselves But was it possible for them to understand such Oblations and a Priesthood which had no respect at all to God but wholly to the People and such an entrance into the Holy of Holies without the blood of an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the people But such absurdities do men betray themselves into when they are forced to strain express places of Scripture to serve an hypothesis which they think themselves obliged to maintain We now come to shew that this interpretation of Crellius doth not agree with the circumstances of the places before mentioned which will easily appear by these brief considerations 1. That the Apostle always speaks of the offering of Christ as a thing past and once done so as not to be done again which had been very improper if by the Oblation of Christ he had meant the continual appearance of Christ in Heaven for us which yet is and will never cease to be till all his enemies be made his foot-stool 2. That he still speaks in allusion to the Sacrifices which were in use among the Iews and therefore the Oblation of Christ must be in such a way as was agreeable to what was used in the Levitical Sacrifices which we have already at large proved he could not do in our Adversaries sense 3 That the Apostle speaks of such a Sacrifice for sins to which the sitting at the right hand of God was consequent so that the Oblation antecedent to it must be properly that Sacrifice for sins which he offered to God and therefore the exercise of his power for expiation of sins which they say is meant by sitting at the right hand of God cannot be that Sacrifice for sins Neither can his entrance into Heaven be it which in what sense it can be called a Sacrifice for sins since themselves acknowledge it had no immediate relation to the expiation of them I cannot understand 4. The Apostle speaks of such an Offering of Christ once which if it had been repeated doth imply that Christs sufferings must have been repeated too For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the World but the repeated exercise of Christs power in Heaven doth imply no necessity at all of Christs frequent suffering nor his frequent entrance into Heaven which might have been done without suffering therefore it must be meant of such an offering up himself as was implyed in his death and sufferings 5. He speaks of the offering up of that body which God gave him when he came into the World but our Adversaries deny that he carried the same Body into Heaven and therefore he must speak not of an offering of Christ in Heaven but what was performed here on Earth But here our Adversaries have shewn us a tryal of their skill when they tell us with much confidence that the World into which Christ is here said to come is not to be understood of this World but of that to come which is not only contrary to the general acceptation of the word when taken absolutely as it is here but to the whole scope and design of the place For he speaks of that World wherein Sacrifices and Burnt-offerings were used and the Levitical Law was observed although not sufficient for perfect expiation and so rejected for that end and withal he speaks of that World wherein the chearful obedience of Christ to the will of his Father was seen for he saith Lo I come to
do thy will O God which is repeated afterwards but will they say that this World was not the place into which Christ came to obey the Will of his Father and how could it be so properly said of the future World Lo I come to do thy will when they make the design of his ascension to be the receiving the reward of his doing and suffering the will of God upon Earth But yet they attempt to prove from the same Author to the Hebrews that Christs entrance into Heaven was necessary to his being a perfect High-Priest for he was to be made higher than the Heavens and if he were on earth he should not be a Priest but he was a Priest after the power of an endless life Neither could he say they be a perfect High-Priest till those words were spoken to him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee which as appears by other places was after the Resurrection But all the sufferings he underwent in the world were only to qualifie him for this Office in Heaven therefore it is said That in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest c. This is the substance of what is produced by Crellius and his Brethren to prove that Christ did not become a perfect High-Priest till he entred into Heaven But it were worth the knowing what they mean by a perfect High-Priest Is it that Christ did then begin the Office of a High-Priest and that he made no offering at all before No that they dare not assert at last but that there was no perfect Sacrifice offered for sin otherwise Sâ—cinus contends That Christ did offer upon earth and that for himself too So that all kind of offering is not excluded by themselves before Christs entrance into Heaven But if they mean by perfect High-Priest in Heaven that his Office of High-Priest was not consummated by what he did on earth but that a very considerable part of the Priest-hood of Christ was still remaining to be performed in Heaven it is no more than we do freely acknowledge and this is all we say is meant by those places For the Apostles design is to prove the excellency of the Priest-hood of Christ above the Aaronical which he doth not only from the excellency of the Sacrifice which he offered above the blood of Bulls and Goats but from the excellency of the Priest who did exâ—el the Aaronical Priests both in regard of his calling from God which is all the Apostle designs Heb 5. 5. not at all intending to determine the time when he was made but by whom he was made High-Priest even by him that had said Thou art my Son c. and in regard of the excellency of the Sanctuary which he entâ—ed into which was not an earthly but ia heavenly Sanctuâ—ry and in regard of the perpetuity of his function there Not gâ—…ing in once a year as the High-Priests under the Law did but there ever living to make intercession for us Now this being the Apostles design we may easily understand why he saith That he was to be a heavenly High-Priest and if he had been on earth he could not have been a Priest The meaning of which is only this that if Christs Office had ended in what he did on earth he would not have had such an excellency as he was speaking of for then he had ceased to be at all such a High-Priest having no Holy of Holies to go into which should as much transcend the earthly Sanctuary as his Sacrifice did the blood of Bulls and Goats Therefore in correspondency to that Priesthood which he did so far excell in all the parts of it he was not to end his Priesthood meerly with the blood which was shed for a Sacrifice but he was to carry it into Heaven and present it before God and to be a perpetual Intercessor in the behalf of his people And so was in regard of the perpetuity of his Office a Priest after the Law of an endlesslife But lest the peâ—ple should imagine that so great and excellent a High-Priest being so far exalted above them should have no sense or compassion upon the infirmities of his people therefore to encourage them to adhere to him he tells them That he was made like to his Brethren and therefore they need not doubt but by the sense which he had of the infirmities of humane nature he will have pity on the weaknesses of his people which is all the Apostle means by those expressions So that none of these places do destroy the Priesthood of Christ on earth but only assert the excellency and the continuance of it in heaven Which latter we are as far from denying as our Adversaries are from granting the former And thus much may suffice for the second thing to prove the death of Christ a proper sacrifice for sin viz. The Oblation which Christ made of himself to God by it CHAP. VI. That the effects of proper Expiatory Sacrifices belong to the death of Christ which either respect the sin or the person Of the true notion of expiation of sin as attributed to Sacrifices Of the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to them Socinus his proper sense of it examined Crellius his Objections answered The Iews notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sacrifices not bare conditions of pardon nor expiated meerly as a slight part of obedience Gods expiating sin destroys not expiation by Sacrifice The importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to Sacrifices Expiation attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ in the same sense that it was to other Sacrifices and from thence and the places of Scripture which mention it proved not to be meerly declarative If it had been so it had more properly belonged to his Resurrection than his death The Death of Christ not taken Metonymically for all the Consequents of it because of the peculiar effects of the death of Christ in Scripture and because Expiation is attributed to him antecedently to his entrance into Heaven No distinction in Scripture of the effects of Christs entrance into Heaven from his sitting at the right hand of God The effects of an Expiatory Sacrifice respecting the person belong to the death of Christ which are Atonement and Reconciliation Of the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Reconciliation by Christs death doth not meerly respect us but God why the latter lessused in the Now Testament Atwofold Reconciliation with God mentioned in Scripture Crellius his evasion answered The Objections from Gods being reconciled in the sending his Son and the inconsistency of the Freeness of Grace with the Doctrine of Satisfaction answered and the whole concluded THE last thing to prove the death of Christ a proper Expiatory Sacrifice is
That the effects of a proper Sacrifice for sin are attributed to it Which do either respect the sins committed and are then called Expiation and Remission or the persons who were guilty of them as they stand obnoxious to the displeasure of God and so the effect of them is Atonement and Reconciliation Now these we shall prove do most properly and immediately refer to the death of Christ and are attributed to it as the procuring cause of them and not as a bare condition of Christs entrance into Heaven or as comprehending in it the consequents of it I begin with the Expiation and Remission of sins as to which Socinus doth acknowledge That the great correspondency doth lie between Christs and the Legal Sacrifices We are therefore to enquire 1. What respect the Expiation of sins had to the Sacrifices under the Law 2. In what sense the Expiation of sins in attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ For the due explication of the respect which Expiation of sins had to the Legal Sacrifices we are to consider in what sense Expiation is understood and in what respect it is attributed to them For this we are to enquire into the importance of the several phrases it is set sorth by which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New all which are acknowledged by our Adversaries to have a peculiar respect to the Expiation made by a Sacrifice We shall begin with the former because Crellius objects this against Grotius That he imployed his greatest diligence in the explication of the Greek and Latin words for Expiation of sin and was contented only to say that the Hebrew words would bear the same signification Whereas saith he he ought to have proved that the Hebrew words do require that sense which he takes them in But by Crellius his leave Grotius took the best course was to be taken in words whose signification is so obscure as those are in the Hebrew Language For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being so very rarely used in Scripture in that which Socinus and Crellius contend to be the proper and natural signification of it viz. To hide or cover and so frequently in the sense of Expiation what better way could be taken for determining the sense of it as applied to Sacrifices than by insisting upon those words which are used in the New-Testament to the very same purpose that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in the old For they cannot pretend that which they say is the most proper sense can be applied to this subject viz. To cover with pitch or a bituminous matter which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 6. 14. therefore it must of necessity be taken in another sense here But Socinus contends That it ought to be taken in a sense most agreeable to that which is saith he that the Expiation of sin be nothing else but the covering of it by Gods grace and benignity Thence saith he David saith Blessed is the man whose iniquity is covered But how can this prove that the proper signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to sin is covering by Gods Grace when neither the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here used nor is there any respect at all mentioned of an Expiation by Sacrifice which is the thing we are discoursing of And is the covering of sin such an easie and intelligible phrase that this should be made choice of to explain the difficulty of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by What is it that they would have us understand by the covering sin surely not to make it stronger and more lasting as the Ark was covered with that bituminous matter for that end and yet this would come the nearest to the proper sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that from their own interpretation it appears that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to the expiation of sin by Sacrifices cannot be taken so much as in allusion to that other sense for their sense of Expiation is either by the destruction of sin or deliverance of the sinner from the punishment of it but what resemblance is there between the covering of a thing in order to its preservation and the making it not to be or at least destroying all the power of it But supposing we should grant that it hath some allusion to the sense of covering why must it necessarily be supposed to be done by the meer Grace of God as excluding all antecedent causes which should move to it would not the propriety of the sense remain as well supposing a moving cause as excluding it What should hinder but that God may be said as well to cover sin upon a Sacrifice as to forgive it and this is very frequently used upon a Sacrifice That the sin shall be forgiven But yet themselves acknowledge that the Sacrifices were conditions required in order to expiation if then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath an immediate respect to Gods immediate favour and benignity how comes it to be used where a condition is necessarily supposed in order to it Had it not been more agreeable to this benignity of God to have pardon'd sin without requiring any sacrifice for it than so strictly insisting upon the offering up Sacrifice in order to it and then declaring that the sin is expiated and it should be forgiven from hence we see that there is no necessity why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be used as applyed to sacrifices in a sense most agreeable to that of covering with pitch nor that it is not possible it should have such a sense when applyed to sins and withal that it is very consistent with an antecedent condition to it and therefore can by no means destroy satisfaction Yes saith Crellius it doth for expiation is explained in the Law by non-imputation Deut. 21. 8. Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whâ—m thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israels charge and the blood shall be forgiven them But not to impute saith he and to receive true and full satisfaction overthrow each other and so expiation being the same with that will overthrow it too To this I answer 1. I grant that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here used both as applyed to God and to the sin and that the sense of it is used as to the people when the prayer is that God would not lay it to their charge which is the same with expiating of it 2. We are to consider what the foundation of this Prayer was viz. the slaying of the Heifer for expiation of the uncertain murder and when the Elders had washed their hands over the head of the Heifer then they were to protest their own innocency and to use this prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expiate thy people Israel c. i. e.
hath declared that the blood was given for Expiation the Expiation which belongs to God must imply his acceptance of it for that end for which it was offered For the execution or discharge of the punishment belonging to him he may be said in that sense to expiate because it is only in his power to discharge the sinner from that obligation to punishment he lies under by his sins And we do not say that where expiating is attributed to him that accepts the Atonement that it doth imply his undergoing any punishment which is impossible to suppose but that where it is attributed to a Sacrifice as the means of Atonement there we say it doth not imply a bare condition but such a Substitution of one in the place of another that on the account of that the fault of the offender himself is expiated thereby And to this sense the other word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth very well agree for Socinus and Crellius cannot deny but that Gen. 31. 39. it properly signifies Luere or to bear punishment although they say it no where else signifies so and the reason is because it is applyed to the Altar and such other things which are not capable of it but doth it hence follow that it should not retain that signification where the matter will bear it as in the case of Sacrifices And although it be frequently rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet that will be no prejudice to the sense we plead for in respect of Sacrifices because those words when used concerning them do signifie Expiation too Grotius proves that they do from their own nature and constant use in Greek Authors not only signifie an antecedency of order but a peculiar efficacy in order to Expiation Thence expiatory Sacrifices among the Greeks were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frequently in Homer applied to Sacrifices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Plutarch and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the same sense an Expiatory Sacrifice in Herodotus is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to the same purpose it is used in Hermogenes Plato and Plutarch as among the Latins placare purgare purificare conciliare lustrare in the same sense and piare when used in Sacrifices he proves to signifie Luere per successionem rei alterius in locum poenae debitae Thence piaculum used for an Expiatory Sacrifice and expiare is to appease by such a Sacrifice so Cereris numen expiare is used in Cicero filium expiare in Livy So that all these Sacrifices among them were supposed still to pertain to the atoning the Deity and obtaining a remission of sins committed by them And from hence because where there was a greater equality and nearness there might be the greater efficacy of the Sacrifice for expiation came the custome of sacrificing men which Grotius at large shews to have almost universally obtained before the coming of Christ. We are now to consider what Crellius answers to this the substance of which lies in these two things 1. He denies not but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do in their proper use in the Greek Tongue signifie the purging of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God and punishment but that those and such other words are attributed to Sacrifices because those were supposed to be the effects of them among the Heathens but the attributing such effects to them did arise from their superstition whereby greater things were attributed to Sacrifices than God would have given to them either before or under the Law 2. He denyes not but that those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being used by the Author to the Hebrews more than once with respect to the Sacrifices and Priesthâ—od of Christ were taken in the same sense in which they are used in the Greek Tongue viz. For the purging of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God and the punishment consequent upon it But all that he contends for is That there is a difference in the manner of effecting it which he acknowledges the words themselves do not imply and the reasons he gives for it are That the other were proper but Christs an improper Sacrifice and that the other Sacrifices were offered by men to God but the Sacrifice of Christ was given by God to men and therefore he must be supposed to be reconciled before From whence he would at least have other senses of these words joyned together with the former viz. Either for purging away the filth of sin or for a declaration of a deliverance from guilt and punishment in imitation of the Idiome of the Hebrew in which many words are used in the New Testament From hence it follows that Crellius doth yield the main cause if it appear that Christ did offer up an Expiatory Sacrifice to God in his death for then he grants that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being applyed to the Sacrifice of Christ are to be taken for the purging away of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God and the punishment of sin And it is to no purpose to say that it is not a proper Sacrifice for if the effects of a proper Sacrifice do belong to it that proves that it is so for these words being acknowledged to be applyed to the Sacrifice of Christ by the Author to the Hebrews what could more evince that Christs was a proper Sacrifice than that those things are attributed to it which by the consent of all Nations are said to belong to proper Sacrifices and that in the very same sense in which they are used by those who understood them in the most proper sense And what reason could Crellius have to say that it was only the superstition of the Heathens which made them attribute such effects to sacrifices when himself acknowledges that the very same sense doth belong to the Sacrifice of Christ under that notion and as to the Iews we have already proved that the sense of expiation among them was by vertue of the Law to be taken in as proper a sense as among the Heathens for the purging of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God And why should Crellius deny that effect of the Sacrifice of Christ as to the atonement of God because Gods love was seen in giving him who was to offer the Sacrifice since that effect is attributed to those Sacrifices under the Law which God himself appointed to be offered and shewed his great kindness to the people in the Institution of such a way whereby their sins might be expiated and they delivered from the punishment of them But of the consistency of these two I shall speak more afterwards in the effect of the Sacrifices as relating to Persons We now come to consider in what sense the expiation of sins is in
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crellius acknowledgeth do frequently signifie deliverance from guilt and punishment but he saith they may likewise signifie a declaration of that deliverance as decreed by God or a purging from the sins themselves or from the custom of sinning So that by Crellius his own confession the sense we contend for is most proper and usual the other are more remote and only possible why then should we forsake the former sense which doth most perfectly agree to the nature of a Sacrifice which the other senses have no such relation to as that hath For these being the words made use of in the New Testament to imply the force and efficacy of a Sacrifice why should they not be understood in the same sense which the Hebrew words were taken in when they are applied to the Sacrifices under the Law We are not enquiring into all possible senses of words but into the most natural and agreeable to the scope of them that use them and that we shall make it appear to be the same we plead for in the places in dispute between us as 1 John 1. 7. The blood of Iesus Christ his Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 purgeth us from all sin Heb. 9. 13 14. If the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your consciences from dead works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he had by himself purged our sins So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are used with a respect to the blood of Christ Heb. 10. 22. Apocalip 1. 5. And because remission of sin was looked on as the consequent of expiation by Sacrifice under the Law therefore that is likewise attributed to the blood of Christ Matth. 26. 28 This is the blood of the New Testament which was shed for many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the remission of sins Eph. 1. 7. In whom we have redemption through his blood the remission of sins and to the same purpose Coloss. 1. 14. And from hence we are said to be justified by his blood Rom. 5. 9. and Christ is said to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 25. The substance of all that Crellius replies to these places is That those words which do properly signifie the thing it self may very conveniently be taken only for the declaration of it when the performance of the thing doth follow by vertue of that declartaion which then happens when the declaration is made of the thing decreed by another and that in the name and by the command of him who did decree it And in this sense Christ by his blood may be said to deliver us from the punishment of our sins by declaring or testifying to us the will and decree of God for that purpose But this answer is by no means sufficient upon these considerations 1. Because it doth not reach the proper and natural sense of the words as Crellius himself confesseth and yet he assigns no reason at all why we ought to depart from it unless the bare possibility of another meaning be sufficient But how had it been possible for the efficacy of the blood of Christ for purging away the guilt of our sins to have been expressed in clearer and plainer terms than these which are acknowledged of themselves to signifie as much as we assert If the most proper expressions for this purpose are not of force enough to perswade our Adversaries none else could ever do it so that it had been impossible for our Doctrine to have been delivered in such terms but they would have found out ways to evade the meaning of them It seems very strange that so great an efficacy should not only once or twice but so frequently be attributed to the blood of Christ for expiation of sin if nothing else were meant by it but that Christ by his death did only declare that God was willing to pardon sin If there were danger in understanding the words in their proper sense why are they so frequently used to this purpose why are there no other places of Scripture that might help to undeceive us and tell us plainly that Christ dyed only to declare his Fathers will but what ever other words might signifie this was the only true meaning of them But what miserable shifts are these when men are forced to put off such Texts which are confessed to express our Doctrine only by saying that they may be otherwise understood which destroys all kind of certainty in words which by reason of the various use of them may be interpreted to so many several senses that if this liberty be allowed upon no other pretence but that another meaning is possible men will never agree about the intention of any person in speaking For upon the same reason if it had been said That Christ declared by his death Gods readiness to pardon it might have been interpreted That the blood of Christ was therefore the declaration of Gods readiness to pardon because it was the consideration upon which God would do it So that if the words had been as express for them as they are now against them according to their way of answering places they would have been reconcileable to our opinion 2. The Scripture in these expressionÅ› doth attribute something peculiar to the blood of Christ but if all that were meant by it were no more than the declaring Gods will to pardon this could in no sense be said to be peculiar to it For this was the design of the Doctrine of Christ and all his miracles were wrought to confirm the truth of that part of his Doctrine which concerned remission of sins as well as any other but how absurd would it have been to say that the miracles of Christ purge us from all sin that through Christ healing the sick raising the dead c. we have redemption even the forgiveness of sins which are attributed to the blood of Christ but if in no other respect than as a testimony to the truth of the Doctrine of Remission of sins they were equally applicable to one as to the other Besides if this had been all intended in these expressions they were the most incongruously applied to the blood of Christ nothing seeming more repugnant to the Doctrine of the Remission of sins which was declared by it than that very thing by which it was declared if no more were intended by it For how unsuitableâ—a way was it to declare the pardon of the guilty persons by such severities used towards the most Innocent Who could believe that God should declare his willingness to pardon others by the death of his own Son unless that death of his be considered as the Meritorious cause for
procuring it And in that sense we acknowledge That the death of Christ was a declaration of Gods will and decree to pardon but not meerly as it gave testimony to the truth of his Doctrine for in that sense the blood of the Apostles and Martyrs might be said to purge us from sin as well as the blood of Christ but because it was the consideration upon which God had decreed to pardon And so as the acceptance of the condition required or the price paid may be â—aid to declare or manifest the intention of a person to release or deliver a Captive So Gods acceptance of what Christ did suffer for our sakes may be said to declare his readiness to pardon us upon his account But then this declaration doth not belong properly to the act of Christ in suffering but to the act of God in accepting and it can be no other ways known than Gods acceptance is known which was not by the Sufferings but by the Resurrection of Christ. And therefâ—re the declaring Gods will and decree to pardon doth properly belong to that and if that had been all which the Scripture had meant by purging of sin by the blood of Christ it had been very incongruously applied to that but most properly to his Resurrection But these phrases being never attributed to that which most properly might be said to declare the will of God and being peculiarly attributed to the death of Christ which cannot be said properly to do it nothing can be more plain than that these expressions ought to be taken in that which is confessed to be their proper sense viz. That Expiation of sin which doth belong to the death of Christ as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world But yet Socinus and Crellius have another subterfuge For therein lies their great art in seeking rather by any means to escape their enemies than to overcome them For being sensible that the main scope and design of the Scripture is against them they seldom and but very weakly assault but shew all their subtilty in avoiding by all imaginable arts the force of what is brought against them And the Scripture being so plain in attributing such great effects to the death of Christ when no other answer will serve turn then they tell us That the death of Christ is taken Metonymically for all the consequents of his death viz. His Resurrection Exaltation and the Power and Authority which he hath at the right hand of his Father But how is it possible to convince those who by death can understand life by sufferings can mean glory and by the shedding of blood sitting at the right hand of God And that the Scripture is very far from giving any countenance to these bold Interpretations will appear by these considerations 1. because the effect of Expiation of our sins is attributed to the death of Christ as distinct from his Resurrection viz. Our reconciliation with God Rom. 5. 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life To which Crellius answers That the Apostle doth not speak of the death of Christ alone or as it is considered distinct from the consequences of it but only that our Reconciliation was effected by the death of Christ intervening But nothing can be more evident to any one who considers the design of the Apostles discourse than that he speaks of what was peculiar to the death of Christ for therefore it is said that Christ dyed for the ungodly For scarcely for a righteous man will one dye but God commâ—ndeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved through him upon which those words follow For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son c. The Reconciliation here mentioned is attributed to the death of Christ in the same sense that it is mentioned before but there it is not mentioned as a bare condition intervening in order to something farther but as the great instance of the love both of God and Christ of God in sending his Son of Christ in laying down his life for sinners in order to their being justified by his blood But where is it that St. Paul saith that the death of Christ had no other influence on the expiation of our sins but as a bare condition intervening in order to that power and authority whereby he should expiate sins what makes him attribute so much to the death of Christ if all the benefits we enjoy depend upon the consequences of it and no otherwise upon that than meerly as a preparation for it what peculiar emphasis were there in Christs dying for sinners and for the ungodly unless his death had a particular relation to the expiation of their sins Why are men said to be justified by his blood and not much rather by his glorious Resurrection if the blood of Christ be only considered as antecedent to the other And that would have been the great demonstration of the love of God which had the most immediate influence upon our advantage which could not have been the death in this sense but the life and glory of Christ. But nothing can be more absurd than what Crellius would have to be the meaning of this place viz. that the Apostle doth not speak of the proper force of the death of Christ distinct from his life but that two things are opposed to each other for the effecting of one of which the death of Christ did intervene but it should not intervene for the other viz. it did intervene for our reconciliation but it should not for our life For did not the death of Christ equally intervene for our life as for our reconciliation was not our eternal deliverance the great thing designed by Christ and our reconciliation in order to that end what opposition then can be imagined that it should be necessary for the death of Christ to intervene in order to the one than in order to the other But he means that the death of Christ should not intervene anymore what need that when it is acknowledged by themselves that Christ dyed only for this end before that he might have power to bestow eternal life on them that obey him But the main force of the Apostles argument lies in the comparison between the death of Christ having respect to us as enemies in order to reconciliation and the life of Christ to us considered as reconciled so that if he had so much kindness for enemies to dye for their reconciliation we may much more presume that he now living in Heaven will accomplish the end of that reconciliation in the eternal salvation of them that obey him By which it is apparent that he
speaks of the death of Christ in a notion proper to it self having influence upon our reconciliation and doth not consider it metonymically as comprehending in it the consequents of it 2. Because the expiation of sins is attributed to Christ antecedently to the great consequents of his death viz. his sitting at the right hand of God Heb. 1. 3. When he had by himself purged our sins sate down on the right hand of his Majesty on high Heb. 9. 12. But by his own blood he entred in once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal redemption for us To these places Crellius gives a double answer 1. That indefinite particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned with Verbs of the praeterperfect tense do not always require that the action expressed by them should precede that which is designed in the Verbs to which they are joyned but they have sometimes the force of particles of the present or imperfect tense which sometimes happens in particles of the praeterperfect tense as Matth. 10. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and several other instances produced by him according to which manner of interpretation the sense he puts upon those words Heb. 9. 12. is Christ by the shedding of his blood entred into the Holy of Holies and in so doing he found eternal redemption or the expiation of sins But not to dispute with Crellius concerning the importance of the Aorist being joyned with a Verb of the praeterperfect tense which in all reason and common acceptation doth imply the action past by him who writes the words antecedent to his writing of it as is plain in the instances produced by Crellius but according to his sense of Christs expiation of sin it was yet to come after Christs entrance into Heaven and so it should have been more properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not I say to insist upon that the Apostle manifests that he had a respect to the death of Christ in the obtaining this eternal redemption by his following discourse for v. 14. he compares the blood of Christ in point of efficacy for expiation of sin with the blood of the Legal Sacrifices whereas if the expiation meant by him had been sound by Christs Oblation of himself in Heaven he would have compared Christs entrance into Heaven in order to it with the entrance of the High-Priest into the Holy of Holies and his argument had run thus For if the High-Priest under the Law did expiate sins by entring into the Holy of Holies How much more shall the Son of God entring into Heaven expiate the sins of Mankind but we see the Apostle had no sooner mention'd the redemption obtained for us but he presently speaks of the efficacy of the blood of Christ in order to it and as plainly asserts the same v. 15. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Why doth the Apostle here speak of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the expiation of sins by the means of death if he had so lately asserted before that the redemption or expiation was found not by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and withal the Apostle here doth not speak of such a kind of expiation as wholly respects the future but of sins that were under the first Testament not barely such as could not be expiated by vertue of it but such as were committed during the time of it although the Levitical Law allowed no expiation for them And to confirm this sense the Apostle doth not go on to prove the necessity of Christs entrance into Heaven but of his dying v. 16 17 18. But granting that he doth allude to the High-Priests entring into the Holy of Holies yet that was but the representation of a Sacrifice already offer'd and he could not be said to find expiation by his entrance but that was already found by the blood of the Sacrifice and his entrance was only to accomplish the end for which the blood was offer'd up in sácrifice And the benefit which came to men is attributed to the Sacrifice and not to the sprinkling of blood before the Mercy-seat and whatever effect was consequent upon his entrance into the Sanctuary was by vertue of the blood which he carried in with him and was before shed at the Altar Neither can it with any reason be said that if the redemption were obtained by the blood of Christ there could be no need of his entrance into Heaven since we do not make the Priesthood of Christ to expire at his death but that he is in Heaven a merciful High-Priest in negotiating the affairs of his People with God and there ever lives to make intercession for them Crellius answers That granting the Aorist being put before the Ver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should imply such an action which was antecedent to Christs sitting at the right hand of God yet it is not there said that the expiation of sins was made before Christs entrance into Heaven for those saith he are to be considered as two different things for a Prince first enters into his Palace before he sits upon his throne And therefore saith he Christ may be said to have made expiation of sins before he sate down at the right hand of his Father not that it was done by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and offering himself to God there by which means he obtained his sitting on the right hand of the Majesty on high and thereby the full Power of remission of sins and giving eternal life To which I answer 1. That the Sripture never makes such a distinction between Christs entrance into Heaven and sitting at the right hand of God which latter implying no more but the glorious state of Christ in Heaven his entrance into Heaven doth imply it For therefore God exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour and the reason of the power and authority given him in Heaven is no where attributed to his entrance into it as the means of it but our Saviour before that tells us that all power and authority was committed to him and his very entrance into Heaven was a part of his glory and given him in consideration of his sufferings as the Apostle plainly asserts and he became obedient to death even the death of the Cross wherefore God hath highly exalted him c. There can be then no imaginable reason to make the entrance of Christ into Heaven and presenting himself to God there a condition or means of obtaining that power and authority which is implyed in his sitting at the right hand of God 2. Supposing we should look on these as distinct there is
as little reason to attribute the expiation of sin to his entrance considered as distinct from the other For the expiation of sins in Heaven being by Crellius himself confessed to be by the exercise of Christs power and this being only the means to that power how could Christ expiate sins by that power which he had not But of this I have spoken before and shewed that in no sense allowed by themselves the expiation of sins can be attributed to the entrance of Christ into Heaven as distinct from his sitting at the right hand of God Thus much may suffice to prove that those effects of an Expiatory Sacrifice which do respect the sins committed do properly agree to the death of Christ. I now come to that which respects the person considered as obnoxious to the wrath of God by reason of his sins and so the effect of an Expiatory Sacrifice is Atonement and Reconciliation By the wrath of God I mean the reason which God hath from the holiness and justice of his nature to punish sin in those who commit it by the means of Atonement and Reconciliation I mean that in consideration of which God is willing to release the sinner from the obligation to punishment he lyes under by the Law of God and to receive him into favour upon the terms which are declared by the Doctrine of Christ. And that the death of Christ was such a means of Atonement and Reconciliation for us I shall prove by those places of Scripture which speak of it But Crellius would seem to acknowledge That if Grotius seem to contend for no more than that Christ did avert that wrath of God which men had deserved by their sins they would willingly yield him all that he pleads for but then he adds That this deliverance from the wrath to come is not by the death but by the power of Christ. So that the question is Whether the death of Christ were the means of Atonement and Reconciliation between God and us and yet Crellius would seem willing to yield too that the death of Christ may be said to avert the wrath of God from us as it was a condition in order to it for in that sense it had no more influence upon it than his birth had but we have already seen that the Scripture attributes much more to the death and blood of Christ in order to the expiation of sin We do not deny that the death of Christ may be called a condition as the performance of any thing in order to an end may be called the condition upon which that thing is to be obtained but we say that it is not a bare condition but such a one as implies a consideration upon which the thing is obtained being such as answers the end of him that grants it by which means it doth propitiate or atone him who had before just reason to punish but is now willing to forgive and be reconciled to them who have so highly offended him And in this sense we assert that Christ is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a propitiation for our sins 1 John 2. 2. 4. 10. which we take in the same sense that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken for the Sin-offering for Atonement Ezek. 44. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall offer a sin-offering for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies and in the same sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken Ezek. 45. 19 and the Ram for Atonement t s call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Numb 5. 8. And thence the High-Priest when he made an Atonement is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Maccab 3. 33. which is of the greater consequence to us because Crellius would not have the sense either of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be taken from the common use of the word in the Greek Tongue but from that which some call the Hellenistical use of it viz. That which is used in the Greek of the New Testament out of the LXX and the Apocryphal Greek in both which we have found the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a sense fully correspondent to what we plead for But he yet urges and takes a great deal of pains to prove that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not alwayes signifie to be appeased by another but sometimes signifies to be propitious and merciful in pardoning and sometimes to expiate and then signifies the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which if it be granted proves nothing against us having already proved that those words do signifie the aversion of the wrath of God by a Sacrifice and that there is no reason to recede from that signification when they are applyed to the blood of Christ. And we do not contend that when the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is applyed to him that doth forgive it doth imply appeasing but the effect of it which is pardoning but that which we assert is that when it is applyed to a third person or a thing made use of in order to forgiveness then we say it signifies the propitiating him that was justly displeased so as by what was done or suffered for that end he is willing to pardon what he had just reason to punish So Moses is said to make Atonement for the people by his prayers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exod. 34. 14. and we may see Verse 11. how much God was displeased before And Moses besought the Lord his God and said Why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people and Verse 12. Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people and then it is said Verse 14. The Lord was atoned for the evil which he thought to do unto his people I would therefore willingly know why Moses might not here properly be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore since it is so very often said in the Levitical Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the accusative case scarce ever put but in two cases viz. When these words are applyed to inanimate things as the Altar c. or when to God himself implying forgiveness what reason can we assign more probable for this different construction than that when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used the verb hath a respect to the offended party as the accusative understood as Christ is said in the places mentioned to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which ought in reason to be understood as those words after Moses his intercession 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Crellius asks Why then do we never read once concerning the Priest that he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but we read that he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and
said to be reconciled to him that hath offended him First when he is not only willing to admit of terms of agreement but doth declare his acceptance of the mediation of a third person and that he is so well satisfied with what he hath done in order to it that he appoints this to be published to the World to assure the offender that if the breach continues the fault wholly lies upon himself The second is when the offender doth accept of the terms of agreement offered and submits himself to him whom he hath provoked and is upon that received into favour And these two we assert must necessarily be distinguished in the reconciliation between God and us For upon the death and sufferings of Christ God declares to the World he is so well satisfied with what Christ hath done and suffered in order to the reconciliation between himself and us that he now publishes remission of sins to the World upon those terms which the Mediator hath declared by his own doctrine and the Apostles he sent to preach it But because remission of fins doth not immediately follow upon the death of Christ without supposition of any act on our part therefore the state of favour doth commence from the performance of the conditions which are required from us So that upon the death of Christ God declaring his acceptance of Christs mediation and that the obstacle did not lye upon his part therefore those Messengers who were sent abroad into the world to perswade men to accept of these terms of agreement do insist most upon that which was the remaining obstacle viz. the sins of Mankind that men by laying aside them would be now reconciled to God since there was nothing to hinder this reconciliation their obstinacy in sin excepted Which may be a very reasonable account why we read more frequently in the writings of the Apostles of mens duty in being reconciled to God the other being supposed by them as the foundation of their preaching to the world and is insisted on by them upon that account as is clear in that place to the Corinthians That God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself not imputing unto men their trespasses and hath committed to us the Word of Reconciliation and therefore adds Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God And least these words should seem dubious he declares that the reconciliation in Christ was distinct from that reconciliation he perswades them to for the reconciliation in Christ he supposeth past v. 18. All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Iesus Christ and v. 21. he shews us how this Reconciliation was wrought For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Crellius here finds it necessary to acknowledge a twofold Reconciliation but hopes to escape the force of this place by a rare distinction of the Reconciliation as preached by Christ and by his Apostles and so Gods having reconciled the World to himself by Iesus Christ is nothing else but Christs preaching the Gospel himself who afterwards committed that Office to his Apostles But if such shifts as these will serve to baffle mens understandings both they were made and the Scripture were written to very little purpose for if this had been all the Apostle had meant that Christ preached the same Doctrine of Reconciliation before them what mighty matter had this been to have solemnly told the World that Christs Apostles preached no other Doctrine but what their Master had preached before especially if no more were meant by it but that men should leave their sins and be reconciled to God But besides why is the Ministery of Reconciliation then attributed only to the Apostles and not to Christ which ought in the first place to have been given to him since the Apostles did only receive it from him Why is that Ministery of Reconciliation said to be viz. that God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself was this all the subject of the Apostles preaching to tell the World that Christ perswaded men to leave off their sins how comes God to reconcile the World to himself by the preaching of Christ since Christ himself saith he was not sent to preach to the world but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Was the World reconciled to God by the preaching of Christ before they had ever heard of him Why is God said not to impute to men their trespasses by the preaching of Christ rather than his Apostles if the not imputing were no more than declaring Gods readiness to pardon which was equally done by the Apostles as by Christ himself Lastly what force or dependance is there in the last words For he made him to be sin for us who knew no sin c. if all he had been speaking of before had only related to Christs preaching How was he made sin more than the Apostles if he were only treated as a sinner upon the account of the same Doctrine which they preached equally with him and might not men be said to be made the righteousness of God in the Apostles as well as in Christ if no more be meant but being perswaded to be righteous by the Doctrine delivered to them In the two latter places Eph. 2. 16. Coloss. 1. 20. c. it is plain that a twofold reconcilation is likewise mentioned the one of the Iews and Gentiles to one another the other of both of them to God For nothing can be more ridiculous than the Exposition of Socinus who would have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to be joyned with the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to stand by it self and to signifie that this reconciliation of the Iews and Gentiles did tend to the glory of God And Crellius who stands out at nothing hopes to bring off Socinus here too by saying that it is very common for the end to which a thing was appointed to be expressed by a Dative case following the Verb but he might have spared his pains in proving a thing no one questions the shorter answer had been to have produced one place where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ever signifies any thing but to be reconciled to God as the offended party or whereever the Dative of the person following the Verb importing reconciliation did signifie any thing else but the party with whom the reconciliation was to be made As for that objection concerning things in Heaven being reconciled that phrase doth not import such a Reconciliation of the Angels as of Men but that Men and Angels upon the reconciliation of men to God become one body under Christ and are gathered together in him as the Apostle expresseth it Eph. 1. 10. Having thus far proved that the effects of
an Expiatory Sacrifice do belong to the death of Christ nothing now remains but an answer to be made to two Objections which are commonly insisted on by our Adversaries The first is That God was reconciled before he sent his Son and therefore Christ could not dye to reconcile God to us The second is That the Doctrine of Satisfaction asserted by us is inconsistent with the freeness of Gods grace in the remission of sins Both which 〈◊〉 admit of an easie Solution upon the principles of the foregoing discourse To the first I answer That we assert nothing inconsistent with that love of God which was discovered in sending his Son into the world we do not say That God hated mankind so much on the account of sin that it was impossible he should ever admit of any terms of Reconciliation with them which is the only thing inconsistent with the greatness of Gods love in sending Christ into the world but we adore and magnifie the infiniteness and unexpressible greatness of his love that notwithstanding all the contempt of the former kindness and mercies of Heaven he should be pleased to send his own Son to dye for sinners that they might be reconciled to him And herein was the great love of God manifested that while we were enemies and sinâ—ers Christ dyed for us and that for this end that we might be reconciled to God by his death And therefore surely not in the state of favour or Reconciliation with God then But it were worth the while to understand what it is our Adversaries mean when they say God was reconciled when he sent his Son and therefore he could not dye to reconcile God to us Either they mean that God had decreed to be reconciled upon the sending his son or that he was actually reconciled when he sent him if he only decreed to be reconciled that was not at all inconsistent with Christs dying to reconcile God and us in pursuance of that decree if they mean he was actually reconciled then there was no need for Christ to dye to reconcile God and us but withal actual Reconciliation implies pardon of sin and if sin were actually pardoned before Christ came there could be no need of his coming at all and sins would have been pardoned before committed if they were not pardoned notwithstanding that love of God then it can imply no more but that God was willing to be reconciled If therefore the not remission of sins were consistent with that love of God by which he sent Christ into the world then notwithstanding that he was yet capable of being reconciled by his death So that our Adversaries are bound to reconcile that love of God with not presently pardoning the sins of the world as we are to reconcile it with the ends of the death of Christ which are asserted by us To the other Objection Concerning the inconsistency of the Freeness of Gods Grace with the Doctrine of Satisfaction I answer Either Gods Grace is so free as to exclude all conditions or not If it be so free as to exclude all conditions then the highest Antinomianism is the truest Doctrine for that is the highest degree of the Freeness of Grace which admits of no conditions at all If our Adversaries say That the Freeness of Grace is consistent with conditions required on our part Why shall it not admit of conditions on Gods part especially when the condition required tends so highly to the end of Gods governing the world in the manifestation of his hatred against sin and the vindication of the honour of his Laws by the Sufferings of the Son of God in our stead as an Expiatory Sacrifice for our sins There are two things to be considered in sin the dishonor done to God by the breach of his Laws and the injury men do to themselves by it now remission of sins that respects the injury which men bring upon themselves by it and that is Free when the penalty is wholly forgiven as we assert it is by the Gospel to all penitent sinners but shall not God be free to vindicate his own Honor and to declare his righteousness to the world while he is the Iustifier of them that believe Shall men in case of Defamation be bound to vindicate themselves though they freely forgive the Authors of the slander by our Adversaries own Doctrine and must it be repugnant to Gods Grace to admit of a Propitiatory Sacrifice that the world may understand that it is no such easie thing to obtain pardon of sin committed against God but that as often as they consider the bitter Sufferings of Christ in order to the obtaining the forgiveness of our sins that should be the greatest Argument to disswade them from the practice of them But why should it be more inconsistent with the Sacrifice of Christ for God freely to pardon sin than it was ever presumed to be in all the Sacrifices of either Jews or Gentiles who all supposed Sacrifices necessary in order to Atonement and yet thought themselves obliged to the goodness of God in the Remission of their sins Nay we find that God himself in the case of Abimelâ—ch appointed Abraham to pray for him in order to his pardon And will any one say this was a derogation to the grace of God in his pardon Or to the pardon of Iobs Friends because Iob was appointed to Sacrifice fâ—r them Or to the pardon of the Israelites because God out of kindness to them directed them by the Prophets and appointed the means in order to it But although God appointed our High-Priest for us and out of his great love sent him into the world yet his Sacrifice was not what was given him but what he freely underwent himself he gave us Christ but Christ offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient Sacrifice Oblation and Satisfaction for the sins of the world Thus Sir I have now given you a larger account of what I then more briefly discoursed of concerning the true Reason of the Sufferings of Christ and heartily wishing you a right understanding in all things and requesting from you an impartial consideration of what I have written I am SIR Your c. E. S. Ian. 6. 166â— FINIS Serm. I. A B C D E A B C D a Lam. 2. 1. E A B C D E A B C D E A a Luk. 17. 28 29. B 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de beil Jud. l. 7. c. 14. C D E A B C D a Jude 7. E A a Tacit. Aâ— 15. B 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Xiphil in Epit. Dion in Tito p. 227. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herodian in Commod hist. l. 1. p. 22. v. Xiphil ad fin Commodi C b Niceph. l. 15. c. 21. c Eâ—â—gr l. 2. cap 13. d Baâ—â—â— Tom. 5. A. 465. 1. D E A B C D E A B C D E A B a Hieron in loc C D b Gildas
Dâ—us sibi in reâ—â—â—dis hominibus prâ—sixit â—â—â—lo necessariâ—m Crell c. Grot. c. 2. sect 29. B C D §. 4. The reason of humame punishment is the publick interest E A B C D E B §. 5. The right of Divine punishment not meer Dominion Crell Respons ad Grot. cap. 2. sect 1. c. C p. 144. D E A B C D E A B Soc. de Servat l. 3. c. 3. Praeâ—ect c 18. §. 6. 2. The end of punishments not bare compensation as it is in debts 〈◊〉 C D Crell 〈◊〉 Gâ—ot cap. 2. Sect. 2. p. 14â— Sect. 17. p. 162. E A B C D Crell c. Grot. cap. 2. p. 174. E Sect. 29. p. 198. A B §. 7. Of Crelliâ—s his great mistake about the end of punishments Crell cap. 2. sect 2 sect 28. C P. 191. D E A B C §. 8. Of the nature of angâ—â— and revenge in mâ—n and whether punishments are designed to satisfie them D E Crell c 2. sect 22. 〈◊〉 177. A Exert 313. Seneca de Clem. l. 1. c. 20. De Irâ l. 2. c. 32. B De Iâ—á l. 1. c. 6. C De Irâ l. 1. c. 9. Cap. 12. Cap. 13. D E De Clem. l. 2. c. 4. De Clem. l. 1. c. 11 12. A B Salust in Catalin Cicero 7. v. C Cicero de Iaveat 2. D De Irâ l 1. c. 21. E * Non praeterita sed futura intuebitur nam ut Plato ait remo prâ—deâ—s punit quia peâ—catum est sed ne pec â—â—â—r Sen. de Irâ l. 1. c. 16. A Lact. de ira Dei c. 17. Cap. 2. sect 13. B C D E Cap. 2. sect 1. p. 143. Sect. 13. p. 161. A Seâ— de â—â—a l. 1. c. 14. 15. Cap. 16. B C D Quibus sc. solatio securitati addi possâ—nt honoris ac dign tatis per iajuriam violatae aliquâ ratione immiâ—â—tae viâ—diciae assâ—â—tioque juris nostri Crel cap. 2. sect 28. p. 191. E § 9. The Interest of the Magistrate in punishment distinct from that of private persons A Dâ—â—◠〈◊〉 German c. 12. Gâ—… de 〈◊〉 Gâ—â—h i◠〈◊〉 a◠〈◊〉 Goâ—h p. â—7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gâ—… ad â—o◠〈◊〉 Aâ—… Fâ—… 〈◊〉 Gloss. 〈◊〉 Fâ—… B C Bigâ—oâ— not iâ— Mâ—…â—…m cap. 20. â—â—a ro de L. 〈◊〉 lâ—b 4. Iâ—… Pollux l 8. D E A B §. 10. Of the nature of Anger in God the satisfact on to be made to it Crell cap. 2. sect 1. p. 145. p. 177. C Cicer. Tâ—… 4. Arist. Rhet. l. 2. c. 2. D Crell c. 2. sect 22 p. 177. E A B Crell de verâ Relig. l. 1. c. 30. C Crell cap. 7. sect 3. p. 350. D E A B §. 11. Of the ends of divine punishments Crell c. 2 sect 29. p. 129. C P. 195. D E A Ezek. 18. v. 23 32. c. 33. 11. Grot. de satisfact c. 2. p. 43. Ed. 1617. Grot. de jure belli c. l. 2. c. 20. sect 4. B C D §. 12. The ends of Divine punishments different in this and the future state E A B C D E A B C D §. 1. The particular state of the controversie concerning the sufferings of Christ for us E A Crell praes p. 7. Ruarus in Epistol Crell cap. 9. sect 2. Cap. 10. sect 10. Cap. 7 8 c. Cap. 1. sect 57. B C D E A B C §. 〈◊〉 Whether the sufferings of Christ are to be considered as a punishment of sin Crell cap. 2. sect 1. p. 142. D E A Crell cap. 1. sect 7. c. Soâ—iâ— de Christo servat l. 3. c. 10. Crell cap. 1. sect 16. Socia l. 2. c. 7. B Crell c. 1. sect 11. C D E A B C D E A § 3. The sufferings of Christ proved to be a punishment from Scripture 1 Pet. 2. 24. Isa. 53. 45 6 7 10 11. 2 Cor. 5. 2â— Gal. 3. 13. Rom. 4. 25. B Soc. dâ— sâ—rvat l. 2. cap. 4. Crell cap. 1. Sect. 32. C D Psal. 95. 11. Heb. 3. 11. E A Docâ—issiâ—e â—â—gaâ—tissiâ—è Vataâ—lus â—t fâ—â—e â—olet Soc. d â—…v l. 1 c. 8. Crell cap. 1. Sect. 31. B Ezekiel 18 20. Crell cap. 4. Sect. 15. §. 4. Of the Scape-Goâ—ts bearing away the sins of the people C Socil 2. c. 4. Lev. 16. 22. Grot. de sat cap. 1. D Crell cap. 1. Sect. 56. Gen. 6. 12. E Gâ—n 8. 21. A Isa. 40. 5. B C Lev. 16. 21. D E A Cod. Ioma tit 6. B Lev. 16. 10. C Heb. 9. 22. Lev. 16. 20. D V. 15. V. 21. V. 22. E A Crell c. 1 Sect. 56. B §. 5. Grotius his sense of 1 Pet. 2. 24. vindicated Crell c. 1. Sect. 35. C D E A B C D E A B C D §. 6. Crell his sense examined E Soc. deserv l. 2. cap. 6. Crell cap. 1. Sect. 39. A Sect. 44. B C D E A §. 7. Isa. 53. 11. vindicated Crell c. 1. sect 35. B C Crell c. 1. sect 44. D E Crell c. 9. sect 7. p. 463. Soc. Praeâ— c. 14. sect 6. A 2 Sam. 24. 1. B C D Matth. 8. 16. Maâ—k 1. 32 33. Luke 4. 42. E A Eâ—ist Eccle. p. 747 748. Discuss p. 16 17. B §. 8. Isa. 53. 5 6 7. vindicated De Servat l. 2. c. 5. C Crell c. 1. sect 52. D E A B C D Crell c. 1. Sect. 57. E A B §. 9. Whether Christs death be a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether that doth imply that it was a punishment of sin C D E A B C D E A B C D E A § 10. Gods hatred of sin could not be seen in the sufferings of Christ if they were no punishment of sin Crell c. 1. p. 69. B C D E A B C Crell c. 8. sect 43. D Crell c. 1. sect 57 â—0 E A B C D § 11. Grotius his arguments from Christ's being made sin and a curse for us defined against Crellius E A Crell cap. 1. sect 60. B C D E A B C Soc. l. 1. c. 8. D E A B Gen. 18. 25. C D E A B Crell c. 1. sect 57. Soâ—iâ— exâ—lâ—cat 1 cap. Ioh. v. 10. C D Socin de Câ—â—isto servat l 2. c. 1. E A B C Crell Annot. in loc D §. 12. The particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned to sins and relating to sufferings do imply those sufferings to be the punishment of sin E Rom. 4. 25. 1 Cor. 15. 3. 1 Pet. 3. 18. Heb. 10 12. Crell c. 1. Sect. 6. A Sect. 14. p. 17. B C Socin de servat l. 3. c. 6. D E A B C D E A B C D §. 1. The maâ—ter debated in point of reason E A B Ce tum est Christum innocentissimum à Deo gravissimis cruciatibus ipsaque morte suissé assectum cum â—on in materiâ poenae absolute per se consideratá adeoque etiam in eâ afflictione à quâ poeâ—ae forma abeâ—t injuria residere à nobis dicatur Crel c. 4. Sect. 3. Potuit autem id Deus facere atque adeo fecâ—t
â—…re dominii qâ—od iâ— Christi vitam ac corpus habebat accedente praesertimipsius Christi coâ—sâ—rsu Id. Ib. Sect. 4. C D E Quod si ex thesi speciale sacere velis generalâ—m 〈◊〉 erit iâ—justum esse punire innocentem quacunque tandem de causá idsiat non vern simpli iâ—â—r puaire quem iam ob alieâ—a delicta id enim concedi potest non sâ—mper esse inj stum Crel c. 4 Sect. 3. A Câ—… ne illud quideâ— ad naturam poenae reqâ—iratur ut is ipse qâ—i pâ—â—ie idâ—s est poenam reverà fuâ—rit commeritus Id. Sect. 5. B Poena quidem simpliciter ia innocentem cadit justa noâ— cadit Crell c. 4. Sect. 28. C §. 2. In what cases Crellius grants some may be lawfully punished for the sins of others D Qâ—ia Deuâ— hâ—â—c pâ—â—iâ—â—do illâ—m qâ—oqâ—e alterum ob cujus peccati cum dicitur â—…rt siâ—â—l pâ—nire possit ob arctioâ—em 〈◊〉 iâ—ter iâ—â—os iâ—teâ—ce â—at coâ—â—◠〈◊〉 Crell â—b sect 5. Crell p. 242. E A B C D Crell ib. sect 11. sect 19. E A B C §. 3. Crellius his arguments propounded D E A Crell c. 4. sect 3 p. 239 240. B C Crell ib. sect 18. D §. 4. That a person by his own consent may be punished beyond the desert of his own actions Grot. de Satisf c. 4. E A B C Crell c. 4. sect 5. p. 244. D E A B C §. 5. Objections answered D Iâ—…o quenqâ—am punâ—re est injust è punire Crell p. 240. E A B C D E A §. 6. The instances of Scripture considered B C D E A Exod 20. 3. Alph. à Castro de justâ haeret punit l. 2. c. 10. B Gen. 9. 25. C 2 Sam. 24. 17. Sam. 21. 5. D 2 Kings 23. v. 4. to v. 21. Vers. 22. Vers. 26. E 2 Chron. 34. 33. A 2 Sam. 24. 3 4. B C D §. 7. Ezek. 18. 20. explained Exek 18. 4 20. E A B Jer. 31. 29 30. C D Ezek. 18. 2. E A B C D Matth. 23. 35. Ezek. 18. 25. E A Ezek. 33. 20. B C Crell c. 4. sect 15. §. 8. The deliverance of the guilty by the sufferings of an innocent person by his own consent makes not the punishment unjust D E A Crell c. 4 sect 30 32 34 â— B C D E A B C Crell c. 4. sect 25. 1 King 21. 19. D Crell cap. 6. sect 39. E A B C D E Crell ib. sect 18. A B C D E A B C §. 1. The death of Christ considered as an Expiatory Sacrifice for sin D E A Heb. 9. 22. Crell c. 10. sect 14. B C D Crell c. 10. sect 13. E A §. 2. What the expiation of siâ— was by the sacrifices under the Law B C Grot. de Satisf c. 10. D E A Heb. 9. 12 13. B Heb. 10. 1. C Heb. 9. 9. 10. 4. D E A B Sociâ— de servat l. 2. c. 10. Praelâ—ct Theolog cap. 22. C §. 3. A substitution proved from Levit. 17. 11 c. D Crell c. 10. sect 9. E A B Exod. 30. 32 33. 37. 38. C Ovid. Fast l. 6. D Lev. 3. 16. E Servius ad Aencid 4. A Eusâ—b demonst Evang l. 1. c. 10. Crell cap. 8. sect 23. Denotat eâ—im vo◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eos quorum alter pro altero animam poâ—at aut devoveat fie id malum quod alteri subeâ—ndâ—m erat ejus loco subire non detrectet B C Sociâ— de servat l. 2. c. 11. D Numb 35. 33. E A Crell c. 10. sect 9. Deut. 21. 8. B C §. 4. A substitution of Christ in oâ—r room proved by his dying for us D 1 Pet. 3. 18. 2. 21. 4. 1. 2 Cor. 5. 14. Rom. 5. 6. 1 Tim. 2 6. Heb. 2 9. John 11 50. Luke 22. 19 20. E Matth. 20. 28. A 1 John 3. 16. Colosâ— 1. 24. B C Soc de servat l. 2. c. 8. D 1 Cor. 1. 13. E Socin io A §. 5. In what sense a surrogation of Christ in our room is asserted by us Crâ—lâ— 9 sect 3. Ib. sect 2. B C Ib sect 6. Ib. sect 7. D E Ib. 〈◊〉 3. A B C D Covarru To. 1. p. 1. sect 4 n. 3. E A §. 6 Our Redemption by Christ proves a substitution Crell c 9 sect 2. B C D §. 7. Of the true notion of Redemption E A Socia de servat 〈◊〉 2. c. 1 2. Crell c. 8. sect 11. B ulpia l 29. D. de â—â—re fiâ—â—i Budaeus ad Paâ—dect p. 189. Liv. l. 23. Festus v. red ulâ—ian l 39. D. de rei vend C Cicer. ep â—aâ—il l. 2. cp 16. D Orâ—t â—â—o Syllâ— Soc. de â—â—rvat l. 2. c. 1. E §. 8. No necessity of paying the price to him that detains captive A B Crell c 8. sect 11. C D E A B C D E A B C D §. 1. Of the Oâ—lation made by Christ unto God E A B Crâ—ll c. 10. sect 45. Ib. sect 55. Ib. sect 47. Ib. sect 53. C Ib. sect 54. Sect. 56. D E A Thaâ—â—…e Priestâ—y Office of Christ had a primary respect to God and not us Crell in Heb. 5. 1. B C Crell cap. 10. sect 3. Numb 16. 46. Vers. 48. D 2 Sam. 24. 25. E Lev. 〈◊〉 4. 4 20. 5. 7. A 1 Chron 6. 49. Grot. in Heb. 5. 1. B §. 3. Christ no barely metaphorical High-Priest C Crell cap. 10. sect 3. D Heb. 8. 2. E A B C D Crell cap. 10. â—ect 3. Iâ— sâ—ct 56. 〈◊〉 547. E A §. 4. Crellius destroys the Priesthood of Christ. B Smalc c. Smiglec Crell cap. 10. p. 544. C D E A B Levit. 4. 26. v 31. 35. §. 5. No proper expiation of sin belongs to Christ in Heaven if Crellius his doctrine be true C Crell cap. 10. sect 2. D E A Crell cap. 10. sect 3. p. 476. B H b. 7. 25. Rom. 8. 3. 1 John 2. 1. C §. 6. Ephes 5. 2. Proves the death of Christ in Expiatory Sacrifice and an oblation to God Ephes. 5. 2. D E Crell cap. 10. sect 47. B C Gen. 8. 20. 21. D Porphâ—r de abstinent l. 2. sect 42. E A B Ioseph Aâ—tiqÌ„ Iud. l. 1. c. 4. C §. 7. Crellius his mistakes about the kinds of sacrifices D Gen. 4. 3 4. E A Job 1. 5. 42 8. Selden de jure â—aâ— â—eâ—t aâ—uâ— Ebâ—a l. 3. c. 2. c. 6. B Levit. 1. 4. C Lev. 7. 16. 22. 18. c. Levit. 6. 7. D Crell c. 10. p 530. E A B C D E A §. 8. What iâ—fluence the mactation of the sacrifice had on expiation Crell cap. 10. p 533. B C Levit. 17. 11. Heb. 9. 22. D E A Levit. â—6 11 15. B Codex Ioma cap 4. sect 3. cap. 5 sect 4. C D E A Heb. 9. 13 14 1â— 4 10. Maâ—rob Satâ—…a l. 3. c. 5. B C D Strabo l. 15. Eustath iâ— Hom. Iliad 〈◊〉 Strabo l. 3. E Herod l. 1. A §. 9. Whether Christs Oblation of