the Socinians tell us otherwise that Christ's dying for us signifies his procuring a great deal of good for us by his Death this we certainly believe he did but cannot imagine it 's any detraction from the Worth of that Good he procured for us to conclude that he suffered instead of Sinners for if he offered himself to Divine Punishment in the place of those who were unquestionably obnoxious to it and if his Father accepted of that Offer then all those Sinners who accept of those Conditions on which alone his Death is effectually beneficial to them are certain of the pardon of their Sins and of eternal Happiness the natural Consquence of that Pardon But they have yet a farther Shift and because St. John tells us We ought to lay down our Lives for the Brethren 1 John 3.16 Col. 1.24 and St. Paul tells the Colossians that by his sufferings he fill'd up what was behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for his Body's sake which was the Church they conclude that as those who die for the Brethren cannot be said to die in their stead nor St. Paul to satisfie by his sufferings for the sins of the Church so neither could Christ on account of his being said to die for us be reasonably thought to satisfie for our sins but this Allegation is impertinent for though we are obliged to expose our Lives to the utmost hazards for the Conversion and Edification of others yet where was it ever said We should be wounded for the Transgressions of our Brethren or be bruised for their Iniquities or that they should be healed by our stripes that God should lay on us the Iniquities of all our Brethren that We should make our Souls an Offering for Sin that We should be delivered for the Offences of our Brethren and should bear their Sins in our own Bodies on the Cross all which things with more to the same purpose are spoken of Christ and ought to be the Explications of the other As for that of St. Paul if we translate it as we very well may all their pretences from it are lost I rejoice in all my sufferings for you all or in those Troubles and Persecutions I undergo for Preaching the Gospel to you and in my turn fulfil in my flesh the latter parts of Christ's Afflictions for his own Body that is the Church and so Afflictions or Sufferings for the Church are not apply'd to St. Paul but to Christ who really laid down his Life for his Flock and all the Afflictions of the Servants of Christ are but the Counterparts of what Christ has done for them it being their Duty to mantain what he has delivered to them and to be faithful to Death as he dy'd before for them and the Church the Body of Christ is exceedingly edified and benefitted by the couragious Sufferings of their Fellow-Members Martyrs and Confessors giving the best evidences of the Excellent Nature of the Gospel and confirming and encouraging others in the same Resolutions of dying rather than forsaking Truth but neither can any of the former passages be applied to St. Paul therefore his Words cannot bear the same sense as applied to him as the same Expressions do when they are apply'd to Christ Scripture which is its own best Interpreter no where explaining it in the same manner But further our Saviour is said to have born our sins and to have carried our sorrows this seems to be a Metaphor taken from a Man carrying that Burthen himself which another ought to carry and this is commonly lookt on as a considerable evidence of Love and Kindness 1 Tim. 3.16 c. 2. the same has carried Men out to a willingness to die for one another so Pylades was willing to die for his Friend Orestes only that he might escape a Tyrant's Fury and Nisus in the Poet would gladly have redeem'd his lov'd Euryalus from the Enemy's Sword by putting himself into their hands in lieu of him but the tendry in these Cases was certainly a vicarious Death and the Persons so offering themselves without all doubt concluded that whatsoever could be pretended to by the most severe Justiciaries would be well satisfied by an Innocent's offering his own Life for an Offender and that voluntarily by virtue of which Consent or Desire there could be no wrong done to the innocent Sufferer and hence St. Peter tells us of Christ that he suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once for sins 1 Pet. 3.18 the Just for the Vnjust where by the way we may observe the phrase of dying for Sins is authentically explain'd by dying for Sinners or for the Unjust i. e. He bore that Burden of God's Displeasure in himself though he were Just and Righteous which was due to the Unrighteous and yet as among Men those generous Offers made by Friends for one another are not wont to be displeasing to the greatest Princes nor are they a whit the more angry with the vicarious Innocent though to satisfie the Rules of Justice they accept the Offer no more was God displeased with his Son for taking upon him that Burthen due to Sinners since it only was the Sin which had trespass'd so much on Justice and provided that were punished either in the real or the substituted Offender who was only putatively Criminal infinite Justice would be satisfied Sin condemned and all Mankind be afraid of committing that which they saw was in its own Nature unpardonable One would think too that other passage of the same Apostle were plain enough 1 Pet. 2.24 That Christ bore our Sins in his own body upon the Cross Sins are there put for the Punishment due to Sins and the bearing them in his own Body must signifie his Body's being punished for them and if for them then for those who had committed them now if Christ did not take our place or appear in our room in those Sufferings there can be no reason suitable to Divine Wisdom and Justice why he an Innocent should die at all for our Transgressions for to say That his Father had design'd him for it before and therefore he must die would be impertinent to say that without dying a vicarious Death for us he could procure any good with respect to our Sins would be very hard to prove for he might Die to make good the Truth of those things he had preach'd to set us an example of Patience Submission and Humility which Socinians tell us were the great Ends of his Death and yet we be as far from obtaining Remission of Sins by the means of his Death as we were at first So we believe that St. Stephen was murdered for giving Testimony to Evangelic Truths the very Circumstances of his Death prove him an eminent Example of Patience Fortitude and Resignation his Resolution appearing upon a Socinian view much beyond that of our Saviour himself yet St. Stephen is not said to have died for the sins of the World nor
the bringing the Son of God to Death who had so terribly over-aw'd and baffled him before were the utmost reach of Hell's impetuous Malice yet that very Death of his gave the infernal Tyrant that fatal Blow which he strove by that very Prosecution to put off that mighty Wound which Hell with all its Stratagems and Strugglings can never recover and this great Event the vanishing of that thick Darkness at that very Instant of his Expiration which before when Nature's Lord was in his Agonies cover'd the Face of the whole Earth the terrible Convulsions of the Earth the Dissolution of mighty Rocks the Rending of the Temples Vail and long buried Saints starting from their Graves as if at that very Instant of their Saviour's Death all the Chains of that King of Terrors had been broke at once with that great Event all these mighty Wonders seem'd to sympathize Now if with these greater and more inexpressible Sufferings we consider all the rest which our Saviour's Life was obnoxious to from his Cradle to his Tomb and withal reflect with due reverence upon the dignity of the Sufferer the distance may not seem so immoderately great as the Socinians would have us believe between the Satisfaction given and the Necessities of those it was given for But further we are to consider that the Eternity of that Death Adam's Sin had laid him open to did not proceed from the nature of the Sin it self for no Crime infinite in its own Nature can proceed from a finite Being but the Eternity of that Penalty annex'd to Sin in Man arises from the absolute Infinity of that God against whom he sinn'd and whose Anger when irreversible must be eternal from a respect to that infinite Goodness and Justice essential to him whereby he had conferred such mighty Benefits upon Man and laid so very reasonable Duties upon him which yet Man had ingratefully slighted and abused Now if the greatness of the Penalty arise from the greatness or immensity of the Being offended then the Greatness and Value of the Satisfaction tender'd in lieu of that Penalty arises from the same Consideration viz. the greatness of that God it 's offer'd to and accepted by and as we believe God to be infinitely Wise and therefore not to be impos'd upon so as with Glaucus in the Poet to exchange 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things of the greatest consideration for Trifles Gold for Brass so we reasonably conclude That God understands the true Value of that Satisfaction offer'd to Justice in the Sufferings of his Son we are assured that he has accepted of what his Son has done on our behalf therefore we are assured too that what he has so acted for us was and is equivalent to those Punishments we ought as Sinners to have undergone for the Satisfaction of eternal Justice Our Adversaries indeed would persuade us That if we insist so much on the Dignity of the Person suffering we must suppose that Christ suffer'd for our Sins as he was God or in his divine Nature which Supposition would be blasphemous and the Conclusion impossible but by their leave we neither mean nor pretend to any such thing We know and assert that Immortality cannot die and that the Deity cannot suffer yet we believe that He who was and is true God did both suffer and die but we know He that was God took upon him the Nature of Man and therefore though he could not nor did die as God yet that Humane Nature which he assum'd both could and did suffer and die and by that Suffering and Death among other Proofs evidenc'd the Reality of his being Man as well as he demonstrated his Divinity by his continual Words and Actions But now let us consider God condescending to take upon him our Nature that very Condescension alone is of infinite weight we look upon it as a very meritorious piece of Humility for a Soveraign Prince to take upon him the Habit of a Beggar only to procure good for some miserable undeserving Wretches the Athenians therefore long celebrated the glorious Memory of their last Monarch Codrus who put on the ignoble Arms of a private Centinel meerly that he might die by the hands of those Enemies who had been forewarn'd by an Oracle not to kill him by which private Habit assum'd he procur'd the safety of his Country but we never admire much the Humility or Condescension of that Beggar who wears Rags because he has no richer Habits to put on Now had the Son of God taken upon him a Royal Grandeur had he been wrapt in purple ador'd by all Mankind in his Cradle worn the Imperial Crown even in his Infancy or had he taken any other Methods we could fancy to our selves which might have render'd him considerable to the World yet this had been an infinitely greater Humiliation than for a Cyrus or an Alexander or a Trajan or a Constantine or a Tamerlane to have taken upon him the Person of the most contemptible Wretch in the World and for the noblest End It cannot well be questioned whether it was possible for God to take into his Own an Humane Nature or not Humanity it self being the product of his own Eternal Power was as all other parts of the Creation wholly at his command and though God's assuming a Body might be suppos'd enough of it self to render that Body immortal yet we may reasonably be assured that he could make it according to his own good Pleasure liable to Death as well as other Humane Bodies were but the Union between the Divine and Humane Nature being so close and absolute the Humane Nature howsoever submitted to Mortality must contract an infinite Honour and Dignity from thence but after all the Condescension is not a whit the less that he who is God should assume that mortal Nature nor is his Love less admirable who should assume it for our sake or who should stoop so low purely to make up that breach that was between his Father and Mankind but if to this Condescension we add a due consideration of those many Calamities or extreme Sufferings this Humane Nature was all along obnoxious to if we consider the Son of God as he was Man always in a state of Persecution and that carried on by various Degrees to the utmost Extremity and then recollect again that Honour it had contracted from that close and inseparable Union there was between the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ such Sufferings in such a Person must be acknowledg'd infinitely meritorious and consequently capable of atoning or satisfying for infinite Guilt though such Sufferings were not Eternal as those of sinful Men are or ought to have been for it 's not necessary that the Satisfaction given for Humane Sins should be of the same kind as if Divine Anger could have been averted by no Method but that of the Lex talionis or like for like but that the Redemption-Price paid for the guilty Prisoner should be of
equal value to those Injuries done by that Prisoner to him to whom that Redemption-Price is paid down as if I take up Goods or Silver Coin of any one for which I my self am wholly insolvent and another undertakes for me to discharge the Debt the Creditor will scarce take it ill if he paid to the full in Gold or Jewels for that Silver or those Goods he had given credit for though the Debt be not paid in kind Cat. Rac. §. 6. c. 8. p. 146. But say They it 's ordinary to say That one Dâ—â—p of Christ's Blood was enough to wash away the Sins of the whole World therefore God must be very unjust to exact so extraordinary Sufferings at the hand of his Son that he should shed so much of his Blood and die at last and so pay a Price for Man's Sin so much greater than necessary We might easily answer this Cavil by saying that an Argument drawn against an Article of Faith meerly from an Hyperbolical Expression is altogether invalid nor is the Christian Church in general bound to answer for every passionate Expression which one of her Sons may use But we may consider further that whereas the reason of the Bloody Sacrifices offer'd by Men in former Ages was to signifie to the World that an Expiation was to be made for the World's Sins and to keep up their hopes and expectations of it and whereas we are assured in God's Word that without Blood there is no Remission though the shedding one Drop of the Blood of the intended Sacrifice be as real Blood-shedding as the drawing out of all is and though one Drop of that Blood of the Sacrifice had as much Virtue and Efficacy in it as the whole Mass could be thought to have yet that was not all that was aim'd at for the Blood of the Sacrifice was so to be shed as that Death might naturally follow on that Action which was not likely to follow on the shedding one or only a few Drops and without this Death the Beast was not fit for Sacrifice so much Blood being required as was necessary to sprinkle on several things in agreeance with which the Blood of Christ too is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 12.24 the Blood of sprinkling The Blood then shed of old represented somewhat Expiatory but not as it was the Blood of an Animal but as it was the Blood of such a Creature sacrificed on the Altar to that God who was to be atoned so though the Blood of our Saviour in every Drop of it as shed for us was of an infinite Worth yet the Worth of that Blood with respect to us depended on his being Sacrificed or made an Offering for Sin which he could not have been had not his Life been taken away by the pouring out of his Blood before for as we easily apprehend that the fairest Beast design'd for Sacrifice by Men if yet it dy'd alone or accidentally was no Sacrifice but that to make it such it was necessary the Priests should make it bleed to Death So had our Saviour's Humane Nature submitted only to the common Rules of Mortality or fallen by a natural Death he had been no Offering no Sacrifice to God but he really was a Sacrifice and is own'd as such in Scripture therefore his Blood too was to be shed and that so far as to put an end to his Humane Life or the Union between his Rational Soul and his Mortal Body so that the extraordinary Sufferings of our Saviour take not away from the Worth of his Blood in it self but his Blood could have had no effect upon us for the washing away of our Sins had it not been the Blood of our Sacrifice our Propitiation as well as it was the Blood of the Son of God and therefore we own with all Humility and Thankfulness the Goodness of our Lord in offering up himself a Sacrifice for Sin on our account by permitting those Powers to kill him which he could have destroy'd with one revenging Word Nor can we less acknowledge the Goodness of his and our Father who was pleased to accept of that Propitiation for our Sins his Son's Satisfaction for our Debts which he was no way oblig'd to but by the Concurrence of the Divine Love and Goodness of the Father and the Son from all Eternity But from this Doctrine of Christ's making Satisfaction to his Father for our Sins they draw a very unhappy Consequence for they tell us Quod Hominibus fenestram ad peccandi licentiam aperiat aut certè ad socordiam in pietate colenda invitet c. That it gives Men an open Liberty to sin or at least gives them great encouragement to Slothfulness in the Duties of Religion for if Christ has satisfied for all our Sins then we are free from all obligation to any punishment for Sin and therefore there can be no Conditions reasonably propounded to us by virtue of which we should be free from those Punishments or it 's unreasonable that God should still make Practical Holiness a Condition of our Salvation when Christ by his Death has fully satisfied his Fathers Wrath with respect to all our Sins past present and to come This Charge would be very heavy if it were true but would they consider those very Texts they endeavour to confirm this Objection by they would easily see how they confound themselves and slander that Holy Doctrine The Apostle tells us of Jesus Christ Tit. 2.14 That he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works All this we stedfastly believe 2 Cor. 5.15 And that Christ died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them and rose again We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our Sins Gal. 1.4 that he might deliver us from this present evil World Eph. 5.27 That he might present his Church to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish We believe Heb. 9.14 that our Lord offer'd himself without spot to God that he might purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God 1 Pet. 1.18 19. and that we are redeemed from our vain conversation not with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot and from all these things we conclude That our Saviour's Sufferings for us were originally design'd to free us both from the Punishment and Guilt of Sin and therefore as we look up to our Saviour as our Priest and our Sacrifice so we acknowledge him to be our Prophet and our King our Instructer and our Governour that he has been our Instructer in all Ages by his Messengers Prophetical and Apostolical and those to this day lawfully entrusted with the
by those particular Sufferings upon the Cross for his Father accepting that Price so paid down Christ as Man Heb. 7.25 acquired that Power as to be able to save to the utmost all those that come to God by him and therefore his humane Nature is immortal that he may always be capable of exerting such a Power But the Socinians would prove their position by that Heb. 8.4 That if Christ were on Earth he should not be a Priest seeing that there are Priests which offer Gifts according to the Law but here they are vastly wide from the Apostle's meaning for the Apostle writing there to Jews and arguing the matter with them concerning the Messiahship of Christ shows them that though he asserted Christ's High-priesthood yet he pretended not that he was any Successor of Aaron or the Legal High-priests for says he 7. 13. 14. it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah of which Moses spake nothing concerning the Priesthood therefore our Saviour was a Priest according to Prophecy after the order of Melchisedech and not only after that Order but for ever so a High-priest never to die never to be succeeded in that sacred Office by any other now being after that Order and under a necessity of having somewhat to offer as a Priest for so we are taught and 8.3 as a Priest having no right to offer any Jewish Sacrifices or Gifts the Order of Melchisedech not having any relation to them Christ offered himself the greatest the noblest Offering in the World having made that glorious Offering he soon left Earth having there no further immediate concern for could he have made his Title to Priesthood never so plain and offered himself never so freely among the Jews to execute the Priestly Office it had been to no purpose they having Priests of their own of the Aaronical Line of whom by Divine prescription they were to make use in things pertaining to God those Priests properly officiating so long as Sacrifices were legally necessary and when they were render'd unnecessary by the perfection of our Saviour's Sacrifice there being no need of any Priests at all to offer such external Sacrifices or Gifts the Apostles of Christ and their Followers succeeding their Master onely in the Instructing Governing and Interceding Parts of his Sacerdotal Function As for some part of their Argument to prove that Christ was not a compleat High-priest till his Entrance into Heaven it 's more dark and unintelligible to me than all those Mysteries in Religion which they pretend to explode for say they since the Apostle asserts that he ought in all things to be like his Brethren that he might be a compassionate and faithful High-priest in things pertaining to God and for expiating the Sins of the People it 's plain that so long as he was not like to his Brethren in all things i. e. in Afflictions and in Death so long he was not a compleat High-priest well is the Consequence from all this therefore he was not a compleat High-priest till he appeared in Heaven before his Father nothing less It will only follow on their own Principles that upon his Death without that Consequence the expiatory Sacrifice was compleated for there was no need of sanctifying the highest Heavens with his own Blood nor does this at all abate the necessity of Christ's Resurrection or Ascension into Heaven since without these that Faith fixt in one who had been false to his own Promises concerning himself who could neither have rais'd himself nor others who could neither have possest those eternal Mansions in his own Person nor have prepared them for his Followers who could neither have protected nor assisted them to the end of the World could have been no way justifiable but Christ's assimilation to his Brethren could proceed no further than to the end of his Sufferings which ended with his Death upon the Cross since none of his Brethren had been so glorified or had so risen as he did or so ascended into the presence of God to make Intercession for Sinners but indeed Death it self was not so essential to that Resemblance as they imagine for whosoever is liable to common Infirmities and obnoxious to Sufferings must of necessity be obnoxious to Death on the same reason though he should actually be translated with Enoch or carried up into Heaven with Elijah for though those holy Men after such a Translation were no more in a mortal state yet all that was no greater Privilege than all are Partakers of who after their final Resurrection die no more or than those who shall be found alive at the day of judgment for though such shall only be subjected to a change and not really die as others yet that hinders not but that in their own Natures they shall be mortal and as liable to Distempers so to Death as well as others To say truth our Saviour during the whose course of his Life and in all its particulars liv'd as Men do and being a Partaker of real and not fantastical Flesh and Blood it was not probable he should live otherwise only in his exemption from Sin he was beyond that general Rule the Deity not being capable of an Union with any thing imperfect or impure But having liv'd as real Man and suffer'd as such and having by himself throughly purged our Sins Heb. 1.3 he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high the Socinians indeed seem to point at somewhat of an Interstice between his Ascension and his Session at the right hand of God that 's not at all grounded upon Scripture for though we know he convers'd some time with his Disciples before he left them that was not the time of presenting himself before his Father and for any thing of a formal presenting himself before his Father as a Suppliant with his own Blood it 's an irrational Dream neither becoming Men pretending to Scriptural nor to Philosophical Reason for since we must to please their Fancies make an exact Parallelism between the Annual Sacrifice and that of Christ we must consider that the High-priest entring into the Holy of Holies had really with him the Blood of the Victim already dead and in that state of Death to continue till consumed by fire without the Camp and so never capable of a Resurrection but our Saviour rose again from the dead and though those of Rome would persuade us some of his Blood was gathered from under the Cross and preserv'd as a venerable Relick by some very Pious and Devout Persons and may be seen at this day by those who have Faith enough yet we doubt not but that Blood so shed was re-united to his Body being easily gathered by Almighty Power from that Diffusion it had suffer'd at his Crucifixion so that though our Lord had died yet his Blood after his Resurrection existed only as in a living Body therefore it could be presented before God only as in such a
For those rites continued will move the world to belive that the Messias is not yet come that the Faith so long profest in him as if he were come is vain that He who once pretended to that name only impos'd upon the world and was no better than a cheat and that therefore the Jewish Religion is and ought to be still in its full force Now this will appear very absurd and unreasonable to any one who has seriously weighed all those arguments brought to prove that Jesus Christ was the Son of the living God and therefore could be no Impostor and therefore must be that Messias he declar'd himself to be which being true it will follow that our Saviours coming must of necessity put an end to so much of the Jewish Law as was not co-incident with that of Nature and consequently not perpetually obliging That many of the Jews themselves ever look'd upon their Law as of a mutable nature in it self is proved sufficiently by Raymundus Martini in his Pugio fidei against the Jews and that it could never be more properly actually chang'd than by the Messias appears in him who proves from Jewish writers themselves that the Messias the King shall be greater than Moses nay greater than the ministring Angels and therefore the fittest for such a work and as he shews their own gloss in the Midrasch Koheleth upon that of Solomon Eccles 11.8 Pugionis fidei p. 3. dist 3. c. 20 tells us That every Law of all people whatsoever every Law that a man can learn in this world is all but vanity in comparison of the Law of the Messias Things of a less perfect and lasting nature must then vanish when that appears which is more perfect and eternal Whatsoever therefore crosses that end for which God sent his Son into the world and retains mysteries now altogether insignificant as being fully accomplished that cannot be pleasing to God and consequently the present Religion of the Jews cannot be the true Religion There are indeed some mysterious truths in which all Religions agree viz. The existence of a God his spirituality invisibility incomprehensibility c. they all agree That his Providence governs all things in the world however trifling and inconsiderable they may appear in the eyes of the world that He hears sees knows understands every thing tho' they know not how according to the objection of Atheists to reconcile such things to his want of eyes ears soul or any other parts which are all inconsistent with a spiritual being All agree together in granting the present state of Man very wretched and deplorable in looking upon him yet as capable of happiness provided a sutable mean for its procurement could be found out and in expectation of some proper help for that purpose These things being agreeable to the general sence of mankind and being the original reasons of mens putting themselves into a religious course must still be approved by every one and every one of these that Religion setled in the world by our Saviour and his Apostles does advance yet more plainly and confirm more strongly to the world And whatsoever mysterious truths it farther propounds they are all so far intelligible by every one as may serve sufficiently to confirm those first principles whatsoever is farther to be seen in them is what moves mankind to lay aside all brutish malicious and unmanly humour as the meditation upon that extraordinary love of God to mankind of God the Father in sending his only Son into the world to dy for it of God the Son in leaving the bosom of his blessed Father and in our nature and for our sake suffering that bitter and scandalous death upon the Cross of God the Holy Ghost in pursuing us continually with his influences and assistances and so working in us to will and to do according to God's good pleasure this meditation naturally runs into that Apostolical conclusion Joh. 4.11 if God thus loved us then ought we also to love one another If we contemplate our own monstrous demerits our aversion to every thing that is good our inclination to every thing that is evil and so offensive to God our ingratitude for mercies receiv'd our unfruitfulness under the means of grace and Salvation presented to us our natural enmity to God and goodness And if withal we seriously consider that all those forementioned favours are conferr'd on us in a state of obstinate enmity the inference is easie as our Lord has laid it down Matth. 5.44 That we should love our enemies bless them that curse us do good to them that hate us and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us If again we think on that wonderful mercy of God whereby for the merits of the blessed Jesus he 's pleased to forgive us our sins those natural bars between us and heaven the consequence we must of course draw from thence is that of the Apostle That we should be kind Eph. 4.32 tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us Thus we see what excellent influence these very truths the nature and reasons of which are above the reach of our groveling minds may have upon us If we proceed and reflect upon the purity and holiness of that God with whom we have to do that he 's a Being who cannot endure sin who punishes it for its odious nature even in his dearest children all those mysteries reveal'd to us in the Gospel are so far by any fair consequence from perverting our minds that they give us all the motives imaginable 1 Pet. 1.15 that as he who has called us is holy so should we be holy in all manner of conversation A man may be a good heathen and yet a filthy Sodomite a through-pac'd Jew and yet be blind hard-hearted carnal but a man cannot be a true Christian but he 'l endeavour to avoid all appearance of evil Jude 2â— and to keep himself unspotted from the world he 'l live in a continual abhorrence of whatsoever may prejudice his soul or pollute his body and knowing that he is not his own James â—â— but that he 's bought with a price he 'l follow that advice he 'l endeavour to glorifie God in his body and in his spirit which are gods 1 Cor. 6. â—â— and to go no farther than what I had instanced in before a man that meditates on that account the Apostles and Evangelists have given us of the appearance of the Son of God in the flesh and on the ends and designs of such his appearance he 'l never spend his time idly about types and shadows when he is invited to embrace the substance he 'l study to conform himself to the Doctrine of the Gospel to be so far as belongs to a meer man a perfect imitator of all those excellent virtues so apparent in our Saviour during his converse with the world he 'l carefully avoid all
vice was so notorious that they could not want arguments to disgrace it yet while ambition and an enterprising humour were commended while their applauded Philosophers were the persons who above all others contemn'd and vilified the vulgar and since their very gods were represented to them as tainted with the same fault their ingenious Lectures and fine discourses against it were generally lost But when Christianity teaches the miserable natural condition of Men how they are all the heirs of wrath and just inheritors of eternal damnation because they broke an easie Law and forfeited their original Innocence when it shews how Angels those purer Spirits fell from that glory they were at first enstated in by a pride and haughtiness superiour to that of Man when it shews us how short and transient our life here is how uncertain and flitting all our comforts and enjoyments how little power we have to help ourselves under any extraordinary calamity or temptation and yet that we are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward when it represents us to our selves as too weak by any strength of our own to get the mastery of Innate lusts and sensual desires and God's anger as just hanging over our heads and extremely hard to be aton'd nay plainly impossible to be satisfied had not a very powerful Mediator interpos'd on our accounts all these things are so many mortifying considerations to the proud that whosoever allows himself but a few serious thoughts on these heads must certainly be very mean and humble in his own eyes looking upon himself as too inferiour for divine mercy to take notice of too unworthy to be partaker of any great hopes or extraordinary future felicities and such Humility is propounded to us as an excellent foundation for extraordinary grace and as the best way to be exalted by God in his due time Again Jam. 4.10 whereas Pagans recommend friendship and fidelity to all persons and give us a great many extraordinary examples of the noble effects of those virtues yet they commend revenge and applaud that internecine hatred which concludes in nothing but blood and therefore represent their greatest Heroes such as Achilles and Aeneas and Alexander as desiring only to live till they might throughly revenge the fair deaths of their friends and can scarce tell how to condemn their barbarous Tydaeus whom they make when dying of his wounds himself yet gnawing the bleeding head of his enemy Melampus who had hurt him in a fair war with an expiring rage Whereas we see Joab murdering Abner in cold blood on pretence of revenging the death of his brother Asahel whom Abner had killed purely in his own defence and find our Saviour reckoning it as a Jewish maxim Thou shalt love thy neighbour Matth. 5.43 and hate thine enemy Yet a good Christian looks upon revenge as so unmanly a humour and so disagreeable to those principles he owns that he scorns to be thought guilty of it for what advantage is it to me if one have killed my Brother or my Father to kill him for it will it restore any life to my dear departed relation will it contribute to the peace and satisfaction of the departed soul Or will it not rather shew a devilish temper only delighting in murder and committing that very crime my self which I think I can never punish with severity enough in another man are there not a thousand inconveniences attend such practices deadly and immortal feuds not terminating between particular men but legacy'd down to entire families and concluding at last in mutual utter excisions or by both of them falling under the impartial strokes of a superior's Law Revenge is brutish Dogs and Bears and Wolves and Tygers out-do Man at it but it 's noble and God-like to forgive and therefore our blessed Saviour teaches all men who expect pardon from heaven for themselves to be ready to forgive their brethren here i. e. those who are partakers of the same humane nature with themselves He commands us To love our enemies Matth 5.44 46. to bless them that curse us to do good to them that hate us and to pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us for if we love them that love us what do we more than others The meanest souls the greatest aliens to virtue are capable of such things Publicanes esteemed the meer scandal and refuse of mankind among the Jews could do them but those who followed Christ were to act in softer methods They may design to make the world their slaves but it must not be effected by rage and a studious revenge on every little supposed affront that sets men upon their guard and he that by such courses strives to subject me must expect the same measure from me if I can get him at advantage but He that studies to do good to all is consequently beloved and admired by all a forgiving and reconcileable temper obliges all mankind and every one is a willing servant or slave to him whom he loves How easily does this compassionate temper slide into a true and universal Charity and our Saviour plainly shews by the course of his doctrine that as it was Man's great ambition in his first sin to become like to God tho' he miserably mistook the way so he now accounts it the greatest honour to God that Man should indeed be what he then aim'd at that that Image of God which was imprinted upon the Souls of Men in their first Creation should be restored to its primitive perfection and lustre but there was no way to bring this about more effectually than by implanting this real and extensive Charity in the hearts of Men which makes them the true representatives of that God who is love and goodness it self It changes that state of war corrupt nature's ingaged in and diffuses a Catholick and agreeable serenity through the world it abolishes that Wolvish humour predominant among Men and makes every one a God to his fellow God makes his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends his rain upon the just and upon the unjust he allows means for the conversion of sinners to repentance as well as for conducting the righteous to that glory prepared for them and Charity teaches us to resemble him in this where he pardons and blesses that we should do so too and not neglect or despise or implacably persecute those of whom God himself is pleased to take care Intemperance in meats and drinks was one of those vices which Paganism very rationally condemned and exposed so far as to make wise Men asham'd of it They saw plainly how it impair'd mens reason how it engaged them in frequent and senceless quarrels destroyed health and confounded estates yet they had but very small apprehensions of the influence it might have upon mens future conditions how displeasing it was to Almighty God how certain an evidence of Mens brutish and carnal inclinations Our Saviour therefore heightens
enough to subject all things to himself by it Mat. 28.18 Phil. 3.21 Joh. 6.40 54. that by it he 's able to free us from death and to give us life and immortality 1 Cor 4.14 than which Power there can be none greater Again Christ is by his Father constituted our Saviour our Priest our King and our Head on purpose that he might manage the affair of our Salvation and help us at our need and lastly it 's plain say they he can understand our Prayers because He knows all things He searches the Hearts and reins He sees through the hidden things of darkness Joh. 16.30 Rev. 11.23 1 Cor 4.5 Joh. 14.13 In resutatione thesium Fra. Davidis p. 715. and he has told us that whatsoever we shall ask in his name he will do it for us whence it necessarily follows that he must know what it is we pray for thus far the Catechism to which Socinus agrees As for Omnipresence he denies the necessity of that since he may be present every where tho' not in his Person yet in his Power this they say but if they say true that He can do all things without exception that He knows all things without exception we are sure he must as God be Present in all places without exception for Power and Knowledge are different Attributes they cannot be one without another yet Power knows not every thing nor does Knowledge act every thing especially in a Man tho' in God all Attributes act all things because they are all one God If then all these Attributes belong to Christ he must be God not Made nor Created but Eternal for whosoever had not infinite Power Wisdom Presence from eternity cannot have them confer'd upon him in time such a One being a subject incapable and infinity not to be determined by time or place which both must be of a finite nature these things granted free all worship offered to Christ from being Idolatrous a charge which on the other hand if these things be denyed is absolutely inevitable He that shall seriously consider the many Incumbrances of Life and the greatness of that Duty towards God which is incumbent upon every Christian will easily find that it 's a full emyloyment for the life of any Man to give Almighty God those inward and outward Adorations which belong to him It 's with relation to these extreme and continual exigencies Humane Nature's lyable to that the Apostle requires of us that we should pray continually or without any ceasing or intermission 1 Thâ—ss 5 17. not that we are obliged continually to be in the very action of Prayer there are some particulars in the Calling of most Men which require for some time the whole Intention of the mind yet that earnest Intention of theirs is no more a Sin than all lawful industry can be accounted so but the meaning of that expression is that We should always keep our souls in such a frame and temper as to be able on every emergency to apply our selves to our Maker with that Calmness Humility and Sincerity which he requires in those who come to him as Petitioners Now this temper of Soul being required in us and the real business of our proper Callings requiring so much of diligence and attention our time would certainly be very ill employed if we should propose to our selves various Objects of Divine worship when through the frailty of our Natures we are necessarily defective in our Adorations paid to One If we suppose our Saviour to be God of one and the same substance with his Father we meet with no difficulties in this point but if he be no more than a meer Creature whensoever we present our supplications to him we deservedly incur the Prophets reproach Jer. 2.13 forsaking the fountain of living Water and hewing out to our selves broken Cisterns that can hold none for let us put a meer Creature into the greatest circumstances imaginable either he is Omnipotent or he is not if he is Omnipotent I know no advantage the Supreme God can have over him the Creature must be able to do all things the Creator can be no more If he be not Omnipotent then I may often Pray to him in vain and if I may do so at any time what security can I have that I shall not do so always especially since there 's no Rule given me in Scripture whereby I may certainly know what I may Pray for to a Creature or what I may not pray for to him Nay Scripture is so far from giving any such Rule as might seem to leave the matter in suspence that it directly forbids all adorations to any Creature as a Creature but a Creature being no more cannot be considered under any higher notion than of a Creature therefore he cannot be adored at all And besides If there were no such Prohibition to be heard of in Scripture yet the Worship of a Creature how excellent soever would be very silly and irrational since we are sure that God can hear us and effectually answer us in any thing we pray to Him for but we are not sure that any Creature can do any such thing for us Again God having given several Prohibitions in his Word against all Creature-Worship and for ought we can find having left no intimation there that ever He himself would find out such a Creature for whose sake he 'd give us a full and free dispensation against all such Prohibitions We have a great deal of reason to suspect that whatsoever Worship we may exhibite toward any Creature may so far provoke the Jealousie of the Creator as to render by that very means all those Services we may offer to him useless and unacceptable and so while we play the fools with the Dog in the Fable grasping at the shadow of extraordinary assistances from more than One We may lose the substance of Mercy from One who is able to bestow it in deed in a case of extremity It 's not unusual in the Prophets to find Israel as a just judgment for their former Idolatries when they found themselves press'd by any extraordinary calamity and therefore sought to the God of their Fathers for deliverance to be remanded to their false Gods and ordered to try what great kindnesses those sharers in their Devotions could do for them so God by Moses Deut. 32.37 38. Where are their Gods the rock in whom they trusted which did eat the fat of their sacrifices and drink the Wine of their drink-offerings let them rise up and help you and be your protectors So the Prophet Jer. 11.11 12. Behold I will bring evil upon them which they shall not be able to escape and tho' they shall cry unto me I will not hearken unto them then shall the Cities of Judah and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry unto the Gods unto whom they offer Incense but they shall not save them at all in the time of their
Dead before that great day must be called the Sons of God in the same sence as our Saviour is and consequently our Savour cannot on account of such Resurrection be so the Son of God as to be his only begotten Son exclusively of all others tho' that title be so exclusive in it's own nature As for the three Reasons of his being called the Son of God derived from his Offices it 's true in the first place that God has sanctifyed our Saviour and sent him into the World but so he sanctified Jeremy and so he sanctified John the Baptist and the last in particular he sent into the World with an extraordinary Commission i. e. to Preach the glad tidings of Salvation and to prepare the way of the Lord against his publick appearance which Employs were both wholly extraordinary but as for that descent of the Holy Ghost upon him whereby say they he was anointed to his Office without measure there was no particularity eminently distinguishing Him in that from his own Apostles upon whom the Spirit descended in a visible manner at the feast of Pentecost and fitted them so for the same Office of Preaching and every way promoting the Salvation of Mankind Indeed we no where find the Apostles called the Sons of God on account of their being baptised with the Holy Ghost and with fire but we see our Saviour is declared the Son of God in whom he is well pleased on that occasion but he was own'd by the same title at his Transfiguration too when there was no effusion of the Holy Ghost therefore there was some peculiarly eminent reason for giving our Lord this Title which could not be applied on any account to any other Person If we reflect on the second ground of Christ's being called the Son of God which is because He is our Great High-Priest and so constituted by God himself our Author's proof of it is very strange viz. from that passage of the Psalmist Thou art my Son Heb. 5.5 this day have I begotten thee quoted by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews for tho' those Words are there repeated as well as in the first Chapter of that Epistle yet it 's not in a different Sence or to a new purpose but the Apostle there speaking of our Saviour's Priesthood and the greatness and excellency of that Office undertaken by him tells us no Man takes this Honour to himself but He that is called of God as was Aaron Now the Apostle shews that our Saviour had such a Call as well as Aaron for his Father who said to him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee shewed his Propriety in his Son and his Love to him by those words so that it could not be strange that his Father should lay so great an Honour upon him But then his title to the Priesthood it self is founded on that Thou art a Priest for ever ver 6. after the order of Melchisedec so then the Son-ship of Christ is antecedent to his Priestly Office and He was made a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec because He was the Son of God and not called the Son of God because He was our High-Priest As for the last reason why our Saviour is called the Son of God viz. Because he is exalted to the Supreme Power over all things and so is our King Hab. 1.5 which he proves again from the same words as quoted in the same Epistle to the Hebrews There yet again the same truth occurs that Christ was the Son of God before He entred upon his Kingly Office for by Him God made the worlds and our Saviour never had a being but that at the same time he was the Son of God but if God by Him made the Worlds ver 2. as the Apostle says and he could not be our King before the Worlds were made We who are a part of these Worlds being those Creatures over whom he was to be King then he was the Son of God before he was our King and therefore could not be his Son on that account Besides if we should allow all these things the whole grant would be useless for Christ is called as before we observed the only begotten Son of God in an eminent and distinguishing manner above all others but if upon account of his Offices Prophetical Priestly or Regal Christ be called the Son of God then all those who exercise the same Functions in the world may upon the same reason lay claim to the same title for of some of them we know the Psalmist says They are Gods and they are all the children of the most high but if they can all justly lay claim to the same Title then there 's nothing peculiar to our Saviour included in that being the Son the only begotten Son of God which yet the very Title it self imports All these Reasons then not being sufficient to give our Saviour the Title of the only begotten Son of God in a manner so super-eminent to all other Creatures and their Originals particularly to Angels who are of a Spiritual Nature and are called the Sons of God There must remain some other ground for our Saviour's being so called and that is his eternal generation of the Father which puts him into such a Relation to his Father as no other creature can possibly pretend to We have prov'd that the whole of his Five Precedent Reasons do not fill up the Idea or make good the full meaning of those terms wherein Christ is called the only Begotten Son of God his Beloved Son or his own Son for if I am Born of my Mother but not Begotten in his own Image by my reputed Father tho' my reputed Father were able after Death to raise me to Life again tho' he were able to confer upon me all the Authority in the Universe yet all this will be so far from giving Me justly the Title of my Father's only-begotten Son tho' perhaps he never had any other that by all these Reasons together I should be a putative Son but really no more related to my supposed Father than our Saviour was to Joseph the Husband of the blessed Virgin when before her Espousals he was begotten in her by the Power of the Holy Ghost Nay should we admit of the very unphilosophical Hypothesis of Ruarus Quid in eo absurdi si spiritum Dei venas in virginis uterum descendentes emulsisse atque ex sanguine coagulato Embryonem formasse dicam non aliter atque id fit spiritu in masculo semine latente Ruarus ad Mersennum Epistola Centur. 1. Num. 56. p. 262. the most modest of the Socinian tribe all would be too little to make good this glorious Idea of the only begotten Son of God But his eternal Generation answers all and makes our Saviour as properly the Only Begotten Son of his Heavenly Father as I or any other Lawful Son is the only begotten of his
Obedience uninterrupted and universal at least it must be said He 's very unkind for He who can forgive and as Socinus asserts does forgive all our Sins without any Satisfaction tender'd to his Justice might as well forgive us without putting us to the trouble of informing our Minds or regulating and restraining our Actions for we cannot easily give any reason why he should exact such Duties of us as Conditions of our Salvation when if it pleas'd him he could give us Salvation without any Conditions at all If it be objected that He has declared otherwise in his reveal'd Will and it's Justice in him to be true to his own Declarations that Plea again reduces all to perfect Arbitrariness and he will be irrespectively Merciful merely because he will be Merciful and he will be irrespectively Vindictive merely because he will be so which things seem somewhat to contradict our common notion of Justice That it does suum cuique tribuere give to every one what 's due and proper to him We believe more safely that God lays those Duties which yet we are unable to perform in that perfect manner we ought upon us that they might be as continual Remembrancers to us of that Satisfaction which he really requires at our hands for could we perform all God's revealed Will without any failure either in Time or Circumstance God's Justice would be otherwise satisfied and employ'd wholly in distributing Rewards among us but since when we take the utmost pains our Duties are either at one time or other essentially or circumstantially sinful therefore we our selves ought to conclude some such Satisfaction necessary as may make up for our unavoidable defects and since we are assured by God's Word that One has undertaken that Work who was every way capable of performing it we are obliged in gratitude to so great a Benefactor to endeavour after all that Holiness and Perfection how little soever it is that we are capable of and we are oblig'd to do it for our own sakes because it 's no way reasonable those should be Partakers of any benefit from Christ's Satisfaction who do not perform those Conditions upon which only that Satisfaction can be any ways beneficial to us To this we may add yet further That if God can forgive Sinners without Satisfaction made for their Sins without any derogation from his Justice how merciful soever God may seem to Mankind yet he seems wholly to have forgotten all that Mercy with respect to the fallen Angels for if no Satisfaction was needful for Sin why could not their Maker forgive their Transgressions too without it as well as Men's there might have been a thousand Means doubtless found out to confirm a Covenant of Grace with them as well as that of the Death of Christ to confirm the same Covenant with Men but it seems God would not so forgive them though he could they could offer no Satisfaction for themselves therefore they are eternally and immediately damn'd these Conclusions are necessary and inevitable from Socinian Principles but in themselves are detestable and damnable But what the Socinians fail to effect by God's Word they make no doubt of making good by dint of Reason in which they look upon themselves as wholly invincible Here then they assert That if Christ have made Satisfaction for us and that suitable to our Necessities then Christ must have suffer'd the pains of Eternal Death because Mankind by Sins were liable to such Eternal Death but here we may observe that they fasten upon that single Instance of Christ's Sufferings viz. his Death in the matter of Satisfaction for Sinners onely whereas our Lord was a continual Sufferer on that account from his first Condescension to take our Nature upon him to his Crucifixion and I make no question but what he underwent when he bore humane Infirmities when he was in that bitter Agony in the Garden when he cry'd out upon the Cross My God My God why hast thou forsaken me I make no question but his Sufferings in those Instances were much greater than what he underwent in Death it self and so the very Story of his Passion represents things in relation to those latter Scenes of his Life on Earth for what prodigious Cause must we imagine there was that he declar'd to Peter and the Sons of Zebedee Matth. 26.38 My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Soul is compass'd round about or even overwhelmed with Sorrow for so the Original imports In his Agony in the Garden what through a clear Apprehension of that dreadful Task he was then to set about more immediately what with the Fervour and Earnestness of his Prayers to his Father either that if it were possible that Cup that bitter Cup he was then to drink might pass from him or that what he was then suffering might be truly effectual to that great End for which he suffer'd Luke 22.44 his Sweat was as if it had been great drops of blood falling down to the ground the Terror of his instant Sufferings to that Flesh and Blood he had assumed as well as the Strength of his Enemies and the greatness of the Conflict he was then engaged in might be the occasion of that stupendous Sweat for experience tells us that Fear opens the Pores of the Body and emits as grumous Sweats as the most earnest Intention whatsoever of the Body or the Mind and the Angel appearing to Christ in the Garden and strengthening him seems more necessary with respect to those Terrors ready to seize on Flesh and Blood engaged in mighty Sorrows and oppressing Woes than meerly to re-inforce that Earnestness in Prayer which the greater the Danger is so long as the Soul is consistent with it self will naturally be the more earnest and importunate for Assistance or Deliverance His Sufferings yet seem to work more violently upon him when he comes to that bitter Cry My God My God why hast thou forsaken me why dost thou seem to hide thy Face from me and to leave me wholly to the barbarous Cruelties of wicked and malicious Men the Complaint was more natural and carried with it a greater Emphasis when proceeding from that Son of God that onely that beloved Son in whom he was well pleased so far his holy Soul seems to be upon the rack but when he receives his last bitter Draught and owns the mighty work as well as the Types and Predictions relating to him were finished the Storms that ruffled him before seem to sink into a Calm and he breath'd out his Sacred Life with those charming eruptions of unbounded Love Father forgive them Luke 23.34 for they know not what they do and those full expressions of absolute Satisfaction in what he had undergone Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit v. 46. Our Lord's Sufferings ended there and there with his dying Breath he rais'd to himself the first Trophies of his glorious Victories for though
offered both Gifts and Sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as concerning the Conscience but Christ being come an High-Priest of good things to come not by the Blood of Goats and Calves but by his own Blood he enter'd in once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal Redemption for us that eternal Redemption is an absolute Freedom from the Punishment of Sin effected by Christ but only signified by Jewish Institutions the utmost of the virtue of those Symbolical Rites The same Author presently subjoins the Blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the Vnclean sanctified to the purifying of the Flesh i. e. God having for the use of the Jews ordained those Rites and Sacrifices and promised to receive them as Clean who punctually observed his Institutions they were consequently Legally clean who so observed them but otherwise than in the Sense of the Law no cleaner than the rest of Mankind who never heard of those Institutions but the Argument follows à fortiori How much more shall the Blood of Christ v. 13 14. who through the eternal Spirit offer'd himself without spot to God purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the Living God The Difference then between the Sacrifices is apparent enough those could only give a Legal Purity to Jews and that only to their Flesh without which Ceremonial Purity Men may be saved but the Sacrifice of Christ reaches the Pollutions of the Soul takes away the Defilements of the Mind and opens a free passage for us to the throne of Grace without which means Remission of Sins and eternal Salvation are never to be obtained Again the Apostle speaking of that Blood which according to the Levital Law was to be sprinkled upon several things adds It was necessary that the Patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these or rather the Patterns of Heavenly things for so the following Words explain the Phrase but that the Heavenly things themselves should be purified with better Sacrifices than these for Christ is not entred into the Holy places made with hands which are the Figures of the true but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us i. e. as a Mediatour on our behalf but he enter'd not there that he might offer himself often as the High-Priest entred into the Holy place every year with the Blood of others for then must he often have suffered since the foundations of the World v. 22. ad 27. but now once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the perfection or completion of Ages i. e. in the fulness of time hath he appear'd to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself The same Divine Author urges the matter further in the following Chapter and directly confirms what I before asserted That the Law having a Shadow of good things to come and not the very Image of the things can never with those Sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect for then they would not have ceas'd to be offered because that the Worshippers once purged should have had no more Conscience of Sins and if the Worshippers could have been so purged at once by those Legal Sacrifices the successive continuance of them would in the same manner have purged all those concerned in them and then another and a better and greater Sacrifice would have been altogether needless but alas in those Legal Sacrifices there was every year made a Remembrance of the same Sins and of the Guilt of the same Sinners Heb. 10.1 2 3 4 10 11 12 14. for it was not possible that the Blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away Sin But now by the will of God we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all Every Jewish High-Priest stood daily ministring and offering the same Sacrifices which can never take away sin but this Man after he had offered one sacrifice for sin for ever sat down on the right-hand of God nor did he need to offer oftener for by one Offering he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified The Difference then between the Sacrifice of our Saviour and those of the Law is notorious but now if Remission of Sins could be granted to the Offerer of a Legal Sacrifice and yet a Legal Sacrifice could not take away the Sins of the Offerers and if the single Sacrifice of Christ did really take away Sins both which things are asserted in the Texts now cited then a great deal more must be meant by Christ's Sacrifice taking away sin than the bare Remission of Sins amounts to It must signifie taking away that Guilt of sin by which Men are render'd obnoxious to Punishment which considering that Justice inherent in Almighty God cannot be removed but by substituting somewhat so innocent in the Sinner's room that the Sufferings of that Innocent may satisfie for the Impunity of the Sinner but it being inconsistent with Justice to punish the Innocent for the Sinner if the Innocent be unwilling or depend upon his Innocence as his Security from Punishment therefore our Saviour for the acquittal of Divine Justice offer'd himself voluntarily to die for us and that when no Power on Earth could have taken away his Life from him which Offer of his being the effect of his eternal Will and his eternal Will the same with that of his Father Eternal Justice required his Sufferings and accepted those Sufferings though to be undergone in time as really and in their own intrinsic Nature equivalent to those Punishments otherwise due to a sinful World Upon the whole Christ died for or in the room of Sinners not to prevent their temporal but their eternal Death and by his Humiliation and his Death who was so Innocent and so Great gave eternal Justice as absolute Satisfaction as the eternal Punishment of all those who are now saved through Him would have done and therefore when Socinians seek for a reason for their denying Christ's Death to have been in our stead and fly to that of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ died for our Sins 1 Cor. 15.3 and plead from thence that since it cannot be said that Christ died in the room of our Sins no more can it be said that he died in the room of Sinners this is meer Stuff and Cavil for if Christ died on account of our Sins which is the direct English of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it 's then the more probable He died in the room and stead of those Sinners or suffer'd a vicarious Punishment for them for or on account of whose Sins he resign'd himself to the Death upon the Cross Or they know it 's no uncommon thing in Scripture to put Sin for Sinners and they 'll confess though not in that sense which we do that He who died for Sin died for Sinners they being inseparable from one another But
to have carried Mens sins or to have born them in his own Body at the place of Execution and it would be absurd and ridiculous to apply any such passages to him and yet as they say the Sins of Men were the cause of the death of those Victims offered to Almighty God by the Sinners and in the same manner were the cause of our Saviour's Death so the same Sins may truly be said to have been the cause of the death of St. Stephen and every Martyr yet the former Expressions being inapplicable to them and they contributing nothing to the Remission of Mens sins Christ onely being that Lamb of God who takes away the Sins of the World those Scriptural Expressions concerning the Death of Christ must signifie a great deal more than bare Dying upon Common Reasons can amount to But to answer this they tell us that whereas God proclaims himself Exod. 34.7 a God keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving Iniquities Transgressions and Sins according to the Hebrew Original it ought to be bearing or carrying Iniquities c. which is the same attributed here unto Christ and yet we cannot say that God as there named has satisfied for any sins therefore neither can Christ have satisfied for sins notwithstanding any such passages concerning him but this the Ancients easily answered by asserting our Jesus the Son of God to have been that very Being so often and emphatically called God who all along convers'd with the Israelites during their wandrings in the Wilderness as I formerly shewed and that Testimony given to their Opinion by St. Paul when dehorting the Corinthians from several Sins by the example of those Israelites 1 Cor. 10.9 he inserts Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted i. e. the same Christ and were destroyed of Serpents where Moses tells us they tempted God when they fell under that Judgment therefore that God was Christ therefore he really did converse with Israel in those days otherwise he could not have been tempted that Testimony for any thing I have yet seen may pass for unanswerable But with all respect to their Critical Skill we must assert they are mistaken the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the cited Text not signifying to carry in its primary acceptation but levare to ease or to take away Marin Brinxia in verbo and so Marinus in his Arca Noe translates this very Text by levare or tollere and so God when he pardons or forgives sins is rightly said to ease Men of that burthen they bear or to take them away and consequently our translating the word by forgiving is true and agreeable to the general sense of Interpreters hence the Authors of the Septuagint Translation as good Criticks as our Socinians render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking away not carrying Sins and they could scarce be suspected of being Athanasians no more could the Chaldee Paraphrast who interprets it by those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leaving or remitting Iniquity the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never signifying Carriage or any thing of that Nature but only leaving or remitting with what else may be genuinely deduced from that Interpretation Vid. Castel Lex Hept in verbo so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Syriack Version signifies leaving remitting pardoning sparing but no where signifies supporting or carrying the Samaritans use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word signifying easing and pardoning too the Arabic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking or driving as a flying Enemy is driven away by a pursuing Army So that for them because in a foreign sense the Hebrew word sometimes signifies to carry to interpret it so in this place contrary to the sense of all the World beside themselves is absurd and only shews what mean Shifts they are put to to find some Parallels to their abusive Constructions of Plain Scripture As for the Evangelists application of that Text Isa 53 4. He hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows to our Saviour Matth. 8.17 upon healing all the sick that were brought to him he only applies that to a particular there which really is of a general Import therefore what he applies to the removal of bodily Diseases St. Peter applies to Sins the Diseases of the Soul our Saviour visibly and openly removing the former as a sign of his removing the latter but not doing both in the same manner he cured bodily Distempers by a Word a Touch an Application of outward though seemingly unpromising Means but removing the Distempers of the Soul only by his Death and so by his blood cleansing us from all Sin satisfying his Father for all our Sins by his shedding of it purging our Souls from all the Filthiness and Corruption of Sins by the Application of it and by Faith in it and that Blood-shedding of our Saviour as tending to his Death prov'd it's infinite Price and Value so often taken notice of in Scripture by being equivalent to those Punishments Divine Justice might and must have laid upon Transgressours the Socinians indeed say He takes away our sins i. e. He makes a shew as if he died and bore the Punishment due to our Sins eorum quasi poenam in se recepit so putting a sham upon the World pretending or seeming to do what he never did from which if the World were convinced of the Truth of what they assert it would be very hard to persuade them that he did by such seeming Means eos à vera eorum poena exsolvere discharge Mankind really from those certain Punishments attending upon Sin so for that further put off That our Saviour may justly be said to procure Salvation for us by his Death because by that Obedience show'd to his Father in dying at his Command he had all Power conferred upon him both in heaven and earth and so had power to forgive our Sins and to confer eternal Life upon us It 's against Reason to believe it for all Power in Heaven and in Earth is infinite Power infinite Power must have an infinite Subject to reside in Christ being meer Man can be no such infinite Subject therefore no such Power can be confer'd on him on account of his Obedience for he cannot receive an impossible Reward but that infinite Power being essential to him as an infinite and eternal Spirit his Humane Nature as united to that is made Partaker of that infinite Power and consequently Christ God and Man can indeed bestow on us those mighty Blessings To fix in our Minds the Notion of Christ's Satisfaction for our sins the more we are told by the Apostle as I formerly cited him That we are justified freely by his Grace Rom. 3.24 25 26. through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of sins to declare at this time his
Righteousness that he might be just and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus the last Verse teaches us that Care taken to vindicate Divine Justice in the World's Eye by the Death of Christ which could scarce have been done had not Christ laid down his Life for us and in our room so satisfying the Justice of his Father and so the Justice of accepting as righteous every Believer in Christ is apparent too for if he have paid an entire Satisfaction a full Redemption-Price to his Father for our Sins on that Condition that those who believe on him should be Partakers of the Advantages flowing from thence God then could not be just should he refuse to justifie such Believers so that God's Justice is as deeply concerned in the Pardon of Believers as in the Punishment of Infidels Again St. Paul tells the Elders at Miletum Acts 20.28 that God had made them Overseers of that Church which he had redeemed with his own most precious Blood Now whereas God is said to have redeem'd his People Israel from their Aegyptian Bondage that Redemption being really effected by Jesus Christ who was that great and powerful Agent in that mighty Work what was done for Israel then was but the pre-signification of what he intended in due time for all Mankind so that he is called their Redeemer especially with respect to that future Design though the rescue of them from the Power of their Enemies be a Metaphorical Redemption and applicable in such a figurative sense to all those who even by an unjust Violence set open the Prison-doors and make a way for the escape of the most notorious Criminals Again Acts 7.35 it 's true Moses is stiled a Redeemer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a Leader to Israel God making use of him as his Instrument to execute Vengeance upon rebellious Aegypt and to lead out Israel from thence with a mighty Hand and a stretched out Arm but we no where find that the Israelites were redeem'd by the Blood of Moses from their Slavery We find not that the Sins of the Israelites were forgiven on account of that deliverance God indeed sometimes heard the Intercessions of Moses for those ingrateful Wanderers and for his own Name 's sake was pleased to pass by their Offences and to glorifie his own Name in that constant protection he afforded them among their observing Enemies but the deliverance it self was no cause of God's remitting the Punishment due to their Trespasses nay their Ingratitude for that Mercy was a frequent reason of their Sufferings and amongst the rest of the total Destruction of that Generation of People who came out of Aegypt it 's further observable that that God who convers'd with Israel in their passage to Canaan calls them his Son his First-born and threatens Pharaoh that if he would not let them go He would destroy his Son his First-born Exod. 4.22 besides He required the Sanctification of the First-born of all Israel to himself which requiry of his obey'd together with the exact execution of his former Menace was a kind of Redemption-Price accepted by God on account of which he gave them deliverance from their Enemies Nor was the Blood of the Paschal Lamb insignificant in the case that Blood prefiguring the Blood of the Lamb of God which did really atone for the Sins of the World Upon the whole howsoever we may allow others besides our Saviour to be called Redeemers yet so long as there is no Parallelism between the Circumstances of those Redemptions they have wrought and the Circumstances of Christ's we must of necessity conclude that Scripture means a great deal more by naming Christ a Redeemer than by giving Moses or any other eminent Person the same Character that Name is figurative as applied to all others it is proper as applied to Christ we may illustrate the Case by such an Instance as this A Soveraign Prince blest with One onely and infinitely beloved Son having in his power a Capital Offender against his Laws in concert with that Son determines that such Punishment as is proportionable to his Crimes ought to be inflicted on him yet pitying the Weakness and deplorable Condition of the Criminal and designing to make his Clemency towards the Offender evident He in concert with his own Son orders it to be proclaim'd every where that if any Person not obnoxious to the same Punishment by reason of personal Guilt loves the Condemn'd so well as to offer himself freely to undergo proportionable Penalties to what the Law would have inflicted upon him the Criminal acknowledging the Kindness offer'd and his mighty engagements to his Deliverer shall be free this Condition once propos'd the Prince's Son lays hold on the Opportunity to express his Love to the Offender offers himself to die for him and since the Law requires it and must be satisfi'd really does so the Prince according to his Proclamation accepts of his Son 's vicarious Punishment the Law and Justice have their Course and the grateful Criminal obtains his Freedom thus are Believing Sinners redeemed from that Punishment they are obnoxious to with respect to infinite Justice The Socinians tell us indeed That Christ's Obedience to his Father even to Death was no more than was due on his own account and that though it was perfect and blameless yet he received Rewards for it infinitely beyond what he could merit by such Obedience This is to put our Saviour into the State and Condition of the common World for all those Glories promis'd to repenting Sinners are infinitely greater than they by any personal merit can pretend to but it seems very unreasonable that he should take upon him as a Mediator between God and man or that his Name should be so powerfully influential for the advantage of others who had just cause to be wholly employ'd in expressions of Gratitude for his Father's Kindness to himself or to be wholly ecstasi'd with Admirations of that unbounded Goodness which had confer'd such mighty Blessings on him beyond his deserts this we rationally suppose will be the Employ of beatified Souls and ought to be Christ's too upon the Socinian Hypothesis we own Christ's Obedience as he was Man to his Father's Will to have been most perfect and absolute his Original Divine Nature never knew any thing of dissent with his Eternal Father therefore that Humane Nature he assum'd could not be liable to Disobedience 2 Cor. 5.21 It 's observed of him that He knew no sin he neither had nor could have so much as a deprav'd Inclination he had no strugglings within himself between the Law of his Members and the Law of his Mind which yet he could not have been without had he been a meer Man a Partaker of Flesh and Blood at the same rate as the rest of Mankind were but the Deity assuming Humanity and so being naturally incapable of Sin we are not wont to assign Merit to his Life and Conversation any
Body therefore it could not be presented so as the Blood of the Annual Sacrifice was by the Jewish High-priest nor could the Blood of Christ be so sprinkled as that was towards Heaven or toward the Mercy seat but our Lord's Ascension into Heaven and sitting at the righ-hand of God were one continued uninterrupted Act and that Blood which had been once offer'd upon the Cross needed not to be offer'd again he was made a perfect Messias a real Saviour through Sufferings a Saviour every way sufficient for those who should believe on him and having through his own Blood made way to the Exaltation of his Humane Nature he had no more to do but to satisfie his Followers in the truth of his Resurrection and to give them proper Instructions with respect to their future Employs and so immediately to ascend to and to sit on the right hand of the Majesty on high i. e. to exercise that absolute Dominion and Soveraignty over Believers as Man which as Man he had purchas'd at the dearest rate and as such we find him appearing in Apocalyptical Visions though at the same time bearing that Title King of kings and Lord of lords and thus have we cleared those Proofs justly alledged for our Saviour's Satisfaction for Humane Sins from Socinian Glosses and irrational Interpretations I shall now add only some short positive Evidence of the same Truth from particular Circumstances attending his Death and so conclude this particular It must therefore be remember'd That one End of our Saviour's exact fulfilling the Law was that he might be an example of Holiness and Obedience to us but if our Saviour's Sufferings were of such a nature as to import a great deal more than barely such an Example then it was really to be considered further and the Reasons of that Import to be enquired into Holiness includes all sorts of Vertue amongst the rest Patience Fortitude Courage and the like supposing our Saviour to have satisfied our Heavenly Father for our Sins to have atoned that Anger justly excited against a Rebellious World these Vertues were prodigiously eminent in him the weight of God's Wrath against Sin and Sinners was enough had it been permitted to take its course to have crush'd a world of miserable Wretches therefore it had been impossible for a meer Man to have struggled with and to have averted that terrible Indignation from us but if we take away this particular Consideration of his treading the wine-press of his Father's Indignation alone nothing seems more mean among the various accounts of the Sufferers for Truth than the Carriage of our Blessed Saviour that Man whom yet Socinians themselves acknowledge to have moved in a Sphere superiour to the rest of Adam's Race If we look upon that Death our Saviour dy'd it must be own'd it was grievous and painful yet when we consider it duly the Shame and Ignominy in it was the heaviest Circumstance attending it otherwise when we come to compare his Death as to its outward Circumstances with the Sufferings of Prophets and Martyrs of old they were meerly Trifles and inconsiderable The Apostle tells us among Faith's ancient Heroes of those who were sawn asunder so we are told in particular that great Prophet Isaiah was sawn with a wooden Saw the more dull the more lingring the more tormenting so the three Children were cast into the burning fiery Furnace by Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel into the Lions Den to have been torn in pieces under the cruel Paws of ravening Beasts where we are not to look upon the Miraculous Deliverance those illustrious Sufferers met with but upon the barbarous Cruelties intended against them but if from them we come to view the cruel Subtilties of Heathen Persecutors there we find all the variety of Tortures exquisite Malice could invent executed upon poor Christians the terrible Racks stretching their disabled Limbs and leaving no sound Joint in their Bodies a Torment terrible indeed to the strongest natural Constitutions they out-living their Pains and recovering Strength only to enable them for renewing Miseries some broken upon the Wheel dying piece by piece and Nature in the mean time sustain'd by Puddle-Water and Excrement some burnt alive in scorching Flames some broiled or roasted before lingring Fires some worried to Death by enraged Wild Beasts others cloath'd with Pitchy Vestments and so set on fire to fry away in inexpressible Pains meerly to make sport or to serve for Flambeaus to midnight Wanderers What should we descend lower to the poor persecuted Protestants in Merindo and Chabrieres or the unhappy Piedmonteses of late Years to see Mens Mouths and Womens Privities stufft with Gun-powder by barbarous Villains and so their Bodies or their Heads blown in pieces by that murdering Artifice to name no more of those inhumane Cruelties managed so that Holy Men admirable Christians have been Days and Months and Years a dying and beside all this it was oft-times the Aggravation of their Sorrows to see their Friends and nearest Relations murder'd first before their Eyes to have all the unjust and scandalous Reproaches in the World fixt upon them for Women to see their sucking Infants thrust through with Swords their own Blood and their Mothers Milk flowing from their bleeding Wounds together to see them tost and carried triumphant upon their Spears torn from their dying Mothers ript up Wombs and thrown immediately into consuming Flames these Sights such as might rack the most resolute Soul and almost squeeze sympathizing Tears from brute Beasts or insensate Rocks the very reading those dismal Tragedies are enough to make Men shiver with Horror and survey the Bloody Scene with Amazement and Consternation yet after all we find those glorious Martyrs so far from Fear or Apprehensions of their approaching Fate that never Happy Pair went with more cheerful Looks to the Bridal Bed than they went with to Racks and Wheels to Flames and Gibbets or whatever else their angry and malicious Enemies could inflict upon them nay they were so far from being daunted with the cruel Executions of their Fellow Saints that ambitious Princes were not more active to grasp at Crowns and Sceptres than they at the more splendid bloody Crown of Martyrdome nay so desirous were they of that Honour that whole Multitudes made up of Men Women and Children readily without being sought for or accus'd offered their Throats voluntarily to Pagan Governours to the Amazement and Confusion of their most violent Persecutors If we observe the Behaviour of those admirable Persons under their Sufferings their Management is all of a piece though they were all the day long as Sheep appointed to be slain though they found their Portion in this World never so severe or uncomfortable yet in all these things they were more than Conquerours through Christ who loved them they fear'd not the Cruelty of their Enemies but the Kindness of their Friends lest out of Compassion to them they should find out any means to rob them of that Crown they
long'd for Death though in its most dreadful shape was never half so terrible to them as such a Disappointment in the midst of all their Pains not Victors in the fam'd Olympick Games not young Generals after mighty and unexpected Victories were possest with a more exulting Joy than those triumphant Saints on their Natalitial days for such they accounted those times of their Sufferings then happy Visions pleas'd their parting Souls and an expiring Stephen could see the Heavens opened and the Son of Man his glorious Redeemer sitting at the right-hand of God Flames were to them so many Beds of Roses Racks and Wheels like yielding Down or soft as Fanning Briezes on a Summer's Evening no Mournings no Complaints were heard no Tears were seen among them but Songs of Joy and Praise and Triumph were the Exercise of their suffering Hours and their aspiring Souls mounted on them as on Seraphic Wings to Abraham's Bosom and what was the original Ground and Reason of all these Joys but only the certain Goodness of their Cause the extraordinary Assistances of their King and Saviour and an infallible Assurance of God's Love to them and consequently of their future and eternal Happiness Rom. 8.18 They reckoned that the Sufferings of the present time were not worthy to be compared to the Glory which should be revealed in them and therefore Heb. 11.35 though they were tortured yet they accepted not of Deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection and all this was agreeable to the Doctrine of the Cross as laid down by the Apostles in Scripture here then was the Faith and Patience the Courage and Resolution of the Saints these were indeed to be imitated the Spirit and Power they acted with was wholly Divine and irresistible but if after all this gallant Prospect of the noble Army of Martyrs we turn our Looks upon the dying Jesus or his behaviour of himself under his Sufferings things will look very differently we find in him all the evidences of Fear and Sorrow and cruel Apprehensions of that Death he was to undergo His Soul was exceeding sorrowful even to death he beg'd of his Father if it were possible that that bitter Cup might pass from him and though he concluded his Prayer with that resigning Expression nevertheless not my will but thy will be done yet he repeated his deprecatory Prayer three times to shew how earnest and real he was in his Requests his Fear and Earnestness produced that Bloody Sweat and brought down the Angel from Heaven to strengthen him all these were Prefaces to his Sufferings of a very disagreeable Nature to the sacred Ambition of his own martyr'd Followers when he was in the Agonies of Death he was so far from any Triumphant Expression on the occasion that he vented his sorrowful Spirits in that despondent Cry My God my God why hast thou forsaken me we cannot pretend the Blessed Jesus at this time was under any alienation of Mind under any distraction of Spirit by reason of the extremity of his Pains we have shewn before that many suffered much greater Cruelties for his sake than the pains of the Cross amounted to consider it only as the Roman Method of putting Slaves to death and even Pagan Philosophers have suffered much more to the World's eye voluntarily and involuntarily without any such inward distemper as Anaxarchus and Calanus the Indian the former being beaten to pieces in a Mortar by Nicocreon the Cyprian Tyrant the latter walking gravely into the Fire prepared for that purpose before Alexander the Great and there Philosophizing seriously and rationally till his Breath was stopt by Smoke and Flames and our Saviour shew'd as great a Mastery of his own Thoughts and as undisturbed Apprehensions of things when upon the Cross as at other times as in refusing Gall and Vinegar in discoursing with the penitent Thief in taking care for his blessed mourning Mother c. we cannot pretend it was the Delicacy of our Saviour's Body who being conceiv'd in an extraordinary Manner was accompanied with a preternatural Tenderness for we know its the Soul that sees in the Eyes feels in the several Members hears in the Ears suffers in every bleeding Wound the Body without its Activity being only a stupid and insensible Lump of Earth and the Soul of our Saviour being according to the Confession of all of a Nature far exalted above the common Standard of Mankind having no Guilt to clog it no Sin to render it uneasie and therefore could not be but far above any groveling Earthy Thoughts infinitely sensible of the Advantages of Death to those that died in God's Favour and therefore would more perfectly despise all the Effects of humane Rage or Malice we cannot say our Saviour was the first that suffered under the Inhumanity of Persecutors so many of the Prophets had been brought to violent Deaths before not to mention that Persecution the faithful Jews underwent from the Tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes it cannot be alledged that Sufferings were the more heavy and insupportable to our Saviour because he was conscious of his own Purity and Innocence such a Conscience of inward Integrity must needs be the most comfortable Circumstance in the World for a dying Man such an Innocent being infallibly certain of eternal Rest and Happiness in a future World and it was among other things a clear Sense of their peace being made with God which those who are holy and harmless can never want that made those eminent Servants of God so eager to be Martyrs knowing it was better for them to be dissolv'd and to be with God than to linger upon Earth though compassed about with all the Grandeur and Felicity a state of Infirmity can be susceptible of nor can it be supposed that the Ingratitude and Baseness of the Jews among whom he had preached and for whose Conviction he had done so many mighty Miracles could work upon him so much as to press him with such exceeding Sorrows it 's true indeed Ingratitude to Benefactors is a Crime it 's a very pungent Thought to Men in Adversity to see those on whom they have laid the greatest Obligations stand among their Enemies and promote their Ruine and it 's further true that never were any Generation of Men more unworthy or more insensible of the most powerful Obligations than the Jews contemporary with our Saviour but after all this granted why should our Lord at that time more particularly pray to his Father that the bitter Cup might pass from him when he had all along through the whole course of his Life found the Jews as ill inclin'd to him as then but only wanting proper Opportunities to shew it or why should the Blessed Jesus cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me only because the Jews had repay'd his Goodness with Ingratitude and Cruelty besides this was the Case of our Lord's Disciples and Followers as well as of himself they preached among both Jews
and Gentiles the glad Tydings of Salvation they assisted by the Influences of the Holy Spirit did a great many Miracles among them both yet where they were most venerable for their Miracles where most zealous to spend and to be spent for the propagation of the Gospel they met with very unkind Returns and commonly seal'd those saving Truths deliver'd with their own Blood so that when we have turn'd our selves which way soever we can we must of necessity conclude either that the Martyrs were abundantly more exemplary in their Deaths than Christ himself their Lord and Master which is either Blasphemy or very like it or else we must conclude there was somewhat distinct from any thing yet mentioned in the Death of that Lamb of God which made it more terrible and heavy than all those exquisite Tortures expiring Martyrs underwent for is it possible that without any such Circumstances He who was emphatically stiled the Son of God the Son of his Love that Son in whom he was well pleased He who was One with his eternal Father should be afraid of Death of Humane Cruelties or complain of Dereliction is it possible he should be able at any time to send such Assistances to those who believed on him as should make them despise all the Terrors and Furies of a malicious World and yet himself be weak and timid start at the sting of that Death which dying Martyrs smiled at is it possible that He who knew no sin nor had any guile found in his Mouth should tremble before that King of Terrors over whom his own Followers and only by Faith in him so gloriously triumph'd these things are incredible But let us again consider our Dearest Lord as appearing as our Pledge and Surety before his Father as paying in his Death a satisfactory Price to his incensed Father for the Transgressions of Mankind let us consider him as dying for our Sins as being made a Curse for us therefore apprehensive of Divine Displeasure on our behalf as being made Sin for us as being made by God Justification and Redemption for us as having redeem'd us by his most precious Blood as having reconciled us to God by his Death let us remember that he is a Propitiation for us through Faith in his Blood that He bore our Sins in his Body upon the Cross that he was sacrificed for us to take away our Sins for all which Considerations we have the undeniable Warrants of Scripture in short let us consider our Saviour as undergoing those bitter Pains in his last Sufferings which for the Quality of him the Sufferer and for the Immensity of the Sufferings themselves being internal as well as external were equivalent to those eternal Punishments prepared for Impenitent Sinners let us but seriously weigh these things and that the Humane Nature of him who was the Son of God himself should startle and recoil can never be incredible if we look'd upon him as engaged in this dismal work how prodigious was his Patience how inexpressible inconceivable his Charity for him that was originally undefiled to be made Sin him that was the well-beloved Son to be made a Curse him whom an ungrateful World rejected to become an expiatory Sacrifice for that World for him who had never done any Sin nor deserv'd any Punishment to undergo the severest Agonies and Death it self for the sake of obdurate and unconsidering Sinners these are the stupendous Effects of inscrutably mysterious Love such as the more a pious Man meditates on the more he is rapt into Amazement and the more closely he reflects on Humane Demerits his Astonishment grows the more profound that Man so miserable should be consider'd that the Son of Man should be so mercifully visited these things observ'd the sufferings of Martyrs were not worth the naming on the same day with the Sufferings of the Son of God their Agonies were sports compared with his and he dearly purchas'd by taking off that bitter Cup all those Comforts and Joys and Triumphs which they afterwards pretended to He in his own Person conquer'd first those gigantic Monsters Sin and Death and Hell in open field he triumph'd over them upon the Cross He led Captivity captive and how easie was it then for the Sons of Faith to follow the Captain of their Salvation and to wear those Crowns of Righteousness which he had purchas'd for them with his own most precious Blood when they knew God's Anger was aton'd that they had One able to save continually sitting on the Right-hand of God as an Intercessor for them when they were infallibly assur'd those Persons were blessed who were persecuted for Righteousness sake for that theirs was the Kingdom of Heaven it was no wonder that they rejoiced and were exceeding glad nor was it strange that those who suffer'd for the sake of Truth before the Incarnation of our Saviour should express the same Courage they being Partakers of the same Faith and depending as unmoveably upon God's Promises made to them as if they liv'd upon Earth to see their utmost accomplishment so that they too had the same Mediator the same Redeemer the same Saviour the same glorious Hopes and Expectations Having thus largely insisted upon some reasons why it was necessary that God and particularly God the Son should be incarnate and consequently suffer for the Salvation of Mankind we are now to consider the Force and Import of those Arguments as laid together That a Messias was to be sent and on such a saving Errand is a Truth questioned by none but that in a meer Man such things should be made good as were foretold concerning him was impossible for in a meer Man all the Families of the earth could never have been blest though they were all ruin'd in one that was no more for the Repairer of Breaches the Restorer of Ruines the Raiser to Life ought to be greater and more powerful than the ordinary Instruments of procuring one or taking away the other for we see how every little Creature can do mischief where it requires a greater Care and extraordinary Industry to repair that Mischief when once done it was no meer Man who should reign for ever and of whose Kingdom there should be no end for such a Kingdom requires Eternity in the Administration the story of Scripture tells us that when Solomon had finished and dedicated his Temple and the Ark was carried into the Holy of holies upon the Priests coming out from thence 1 King 8.10 11. the Cloud filled the House of the Lord so that the Priests could not stand to minister because of the Cloud for the Glory of the Lord had filled the House of the Lord We meet with no account of any such Glory filling the Second Temple built after the return from Babylon yet the Comfort given by the Prophets to the mournful Elders of Israel when they were dejected on account of the Meanness of that Second Building was that the Glory of the
most incident to the Person who stands in the Relation of a Son therefore it was necessary that the Son of God should take upon him our Nature and pity us and plead for us that how deplorable soever our Condition might be in it self we might be in a Capacity of Eternal Salvation It was proper that He who first gave a Being to all things by his Power should when the Work of his hands was decay'd if he design'd Mercy for them rectifie their Disorders and resettle them in such a state as might in some measure answer the original Design of the Creation that our Saviour the Eternal Word of God was the Maker of all things we have formerly prov'd at large from the beginning of St. John's Gospel and several other Scripture Passages and it 's a Truth which even Arians themselves acknowledge In that first Creation as the wise Man observes Man was made upright Eccles 7.29 but he has now sought out to himself many Inventions were he but left a little to himself he would need no other Vengeance to be poured upon him but what he 'd soon draw down on his own Head but God in pity to him was pleased to determine otherwise but as we observ'd before though an inferiour Creature was able to bring one in a happy state before into a ruinous Condition as any little mischievous Agent may yet those Ruines so easily procured could not be so easily repair'd again We are taught in the History of the Creation that Man was created at first in the Image of God that was his Glory and Excellence beyond the other Members of the visible Creation but that Image of his Maker was miserably defaced in him by Sin the Blessed Jesus the Eradiation of God's Glory Heb. 1.3 and the express Image of his Person therefore the most proper to renew in Obedient Man the blotted Image he had at first created him in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Athanasius whom we may justly alledge now in a matter little controverted Athan. de Incar T. 1. p. 72. It was not in the power of any other but him who was the Image of the Father to create again or resettle that Image in Men. It 's true the Socinians would persuade us the original Image of God consisted in nothing but Dominion over his Fellow-Creatures but that Dominion over the Creatures could not answer that Perfection the Wise Man adverts to in Man's first Creation no more than we can prove Kings and Princes the more Perfect because of that Dominion God entrusts them with or that among Princes those who command the largest Empires should be the best and most compleat Men but the original Image of God in Man consisted in that Purity and Holiness which Man was adorned with in his first Creation and in that vast Wisdom and capacious Understanding whereby he knew every thing that was necessary to his own Happiness this Purity and Wisdom was ruined by his Fall and this our Saviour came effectually to restore by making such as believe in him new Creatures by which they are again renewed in Knowledge and in Righteousness Col. 3.10 Eph. 4.24 and true Holiness after the Image of that God who created them now when we speak of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Renewal of any thing we refer to somewhat that was before for that cannot be renewed now that never was formerly but if the Knowledge and Righteousness and Holiness in the new Man be the Image of God at present and there was such Knowledge and Righteousness and Holiness in Man before his Fall without which it could not be renewed by him who came to repair the ruines of that Fall then that Knowledge and Righteousness and Holiness was originally the Image of God in which Man was created and we need not fly to Dominion as the sole Instance of God's Image in Man especially since his Dominion was no more an Image of God's Soveraignty than the Government of all Princes since has been an Image of that for God was Lord of all things Man was not and yet Princes as well as others have had their shares in the Mischiefs arising from Man's Fall though their Governments be as absolute as ever To this we may add that Regenerate Persons being ordain'd to that Title of the Sons of God it was most proper that he who was the Son of God by Nature should be their great Guide and Conducter to that Honour this we learn from St. Paul who laying down that mysterious Doctrine of God's Prescience and Predetermination as to the future state of Men Rom 8.29 tells us that whom God did foreknow he did also determine beforehand that they should be conform'd to the Image of his Son that he might be the First-born of many Brethren where by the way we may observe that those Persons who by this very Apostle are elsewhere said to be renewed according to the Image of God are here said to be conformed to the Image of his Son therefore the Image of God the Father and of God the Son are the same thing and those whose Image is the same must be One not metaphorically but really One our Lord became our Brother by assuming our Nature by submitting to all the Infirmities of Humanity Sin onely excepted and he was the kindest and the tenderest Brother who laid down his own sacred Life to restore a crue of wretched Prodigals to the embraces of their Father he envied not that where there were many Mansions repenting Sinners should be admitted to them but after his Death and Resurrection he ascended to his Father and our Father to his God and our God that he might prepare those very Mansions for those who believe in him Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed on us that we through the Mediation of his onely begotten Son should be called the Sons of God that I insert that on good reason will appear to any one who considers with the Apostle That Gal. 4.4 5. when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were in Bondage in general and that they might receive the Adoption of Sons this then was the reason of the incarnation of God the Son and the reason of his Sufferings we have from an equally authentic hand the Blessed Jesus by the grace of God Heb. 2.9 18. tasted death for every Man He was the Captain of our Salvation being made perfect thro' Sufferings is not ashamed to call us Brethren Forasmuch then as the Children are Partakers of flesh and blood he also himself took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil And deliver them who through fear of death were all their life subject to Bondage wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a