World is restored to that Holiness which was lost by the Transgression of the Law and because no Man shall be compleatly and actually justified till he be so restored 2. Because the Expiation of our Sin by our Saviour and by consequence the Pardon of Sin by God is not Absolute but Conditional and because some of those Conditions upon which such Pardon does depend are to be performed by us such are our Repentance Conversion and the like and because lastly our Condition in this World is such that there will of necessity be required Time for our Performance of such Conditions Therefore we do conclude that as our Saviour has purchased for us such Conditions in order to our Redemption so has he also purchased for us a longer Term in which we may perform such Conditions For it is evident that the Denunciation of the Law upon the Transgression of it is In the Day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die And in strict Justice and Reason the Punishment is then to be inflicted when it becomes due and it then becomes due so soon as the Law is broken For were it not due then it would never become due at all Now because we find and that too by Experience that notwithstanding not only Adam's Sin but our own Sins too we do not presently die but that God waits our Return that he may be gracious to us and because we know that such his Patience and Forbearance is therefore extended to us that we may by our Repentance qualifie our selves to be made Partakers of that Expiation which is made by our Saviour for there is not Salvation in any other therefore we do at last conclude that the Grant of a Space for Repentance is the Purchase of our Saviour For it would have been the same thing for our Saviour to have made no Purchase for us at all if such his Purchase had been clogged with such Conditions on our Part which it was utterly impossible for us to perform And it had been utterly impossible for us to make out our Repentance and Amendment if we had not been allowed a competent Time to make them out in And what we have said concerning God's allowing of a competent Time in which Sinners may perform the Conditions of the Covenant purchased by the Saviour that we say also concerning the Means which are necessary for such their Performance Such are his Word the Succours and Assistance of his Spirit his Sacraments and whatever else does usually come under the Title of Means of Grace For it is not conceivable that our Saviour should purchase for us the End and yet leave us without the Means which are necessary for the bringing about such End But yet because the Means to enable us to perform the Conditions required of us in order to our Salvation are not nor indeed can possibly be that very Salvation for which they are designed or employed as means and because while we live in this World we are required and it is necessary in it self that we always have and also employ such Means to the purpose of our Justification and lastly because it is so far from being necessary that it is neither proper no nor wise to employ any Means for any End already attained therefore what we observed under our last Head will still remain true and that is That no Man is actually justified in this Life 3. From what has been said we take notice That tho' Afflictions in this Life are undoubtedly the Executions of Justice yet which is owing to our Saviour's Purchase there are always couched in such Afflictions Designs of Mercy For tho' as they look backward they have an Eye to our Sins yet as they look forward they have an Eye to our Amendment or at least to our Restraint For had we died for our Sins according to the Law we had been both immediately punished for our Sins past and had by the same Means been prevented from ever sinning for the time to come For a Death without a Resurrection had proved a sure and everlasting Prevention But as we have seen our Life being continued in consideration of our Saviour's Purchase tho' Afflictions are laid upon us during the Reprieve and tho' such Afflictions do confessedly come from the Hand of Justice yet they are never laid on without a Design and Mixture of Mercy And therefore as they are the Punishments of Sins past so they are designed as Means of Grace for the time to come And by the wise Counsel of our merciful and gracious God are employed chiefly indeed for our future Reformation but at least for our future Restraint and so are one and a great Branch too of what we call Restraining Grace As therefore we took notice under our last Head that the Reprieve of Man from the immediate Execution of the Sentence of the Law was the Purchase of our Saviour and that so Man's Life came to be continued notwithstanding his Transgression so under this Head we may observe that tho' Sin during such Continuance of Life cannot be restrained by Death yet the Just Merciful and All-wise God has not even in such Circumstances left it without all Restraint but has by Afflictions fitted such a Curb for it which notwithstanding the Saviour's Purchase is an irrefragable Proof of his Justice But tho' it be so does in no wise encroach upon such Purchase but rather promotes the Design of it For a Life continued in order to the Performance of those Conditions by the Performance of which Man in and through his Saviour may obtain Salvation A Life I say continued to such a Purpose is more likely to answer to such Purpose if its Attempts after sinful Commissions be restrained than it could be were such Attempts left free and at large For which Reason such Restraint tho' it be caused by Afflictions does rather fall in with than controul the Design of our Saviour's Purchase And tho' it be confessed that such Restraint is not so efficacious for the Prevention of future Sins as Death without any Reprieve had been for in the last Case the Prevention had been necessary whereas in the first it is at the most but possible yet it must be confessed also that it is most wisely suited to the Circumstances of those about whom it is employed and that for this Reason Because all Restraint being designed either to keep or to make them Good it is necessary in order to either that it be left to their own Choice whether they will improve it to either or both Designs or no For there can be no Goodness at all without such Freedom By all which we may at last understand that tho' Afflictions as well as Death are the Wages of Sin and tho' God does not let the reprieved Life of a Sinner pass on without the Tokens of his Displeasure that is in the present Case without Afflictions yet that it is owing to our Saviour that all such Afflictions are employed
Things required 1. An Expiation of Sin 2. A Restitution to Holiness Negatively the several Ways how such Expiation cannot be made from whence an Inference of the Doctrine asserted with some Practical Inferences Page 36 CHAP. IV. That Person to whom the Expiation of Sin is by the Scriptures ascribed is by the same Scriptures set forth to us 1. As God 2. As Man 3. As God and Man united in one Person or God Incarnate No Man a competent Judge of all possible Unions The Incarnation agreeable to the Sentiments of Mankind and variously foretold prefigured and suggested in the Scriptures Some Practical Inferences somewhat enlarged Pag. 57 CHAP. V. The Son of God by his Incarnation accommodated his Condition for the making good the Expiation of Man's Sin Pag. 96 CHAP. VI. The Divinity of the Son of God necessary for the Expiation of Man's Sin as well as his Humanity Some Doctrinal Inferences A general Proof That as our Saviour did actually die so that he might justly die for the Expiation of Sin Pag. 113 CHAP. VII Answers to Three Objections 1. The Punishment was in Justice only due to us not to him This Objection retorted upon the Socinians 2. That his Death was but a Temporal Punishment but the Expiation pretended to be made was of an Eternal Punishment 3. The Absurdity that God should suffer for the Satisfaction of his own Justice Pag. 134 CHAP. VIII Bare Pardon of Sin not sufficient for a Gospel-Salvation Some Reasons offered for it They who are entitled to the Reward of the Law must be entitled to the Obedience paid to the Law Such Obedience must be perfect Some Practical Reflections Pag. 160 CHAP. IX Whos 's that Perfect Obedience is in Consideration of which Eternal Happiness is given to Man That it is our Saviour's Some Objections answered and the Doctrine of the Imputation asserted 1. Against those who acknowledge the Expiation 2. Against those who deny it This Doctrine agreeable to the Scriptures Pag. 179 CHAP. X. Some Objections answered and some Practical Inferences made Pag. 216 CHAP. XI The First and General Proposition asserted from all that has been said That the whole Doctrine of a Gospel-Salvation as laid down in the Scriptures is agreeable to the allowed Practices of Mankind in their Legal or Judicial Proceedings and is worded in the Scriptures accordingly Pag. 233 CHAP. XII That besides the Saviour's Righteousness imputed God will after their Resurrection endow Believers with a perfect inherent and eternal Holiness How the Saviour did fit and prepare Men for such an Holiness Pag. 254 CHAP. XIII By what Means Men shall be put into the Actual Possession of Eternal Life Pag. 277 CHAP. XIV Wherein the Happiness of Eternal Life does consist Several Reflections and Considerations on what has been said tending to promote an Holy Life Pag. 297 ERRATA Page Line For Read 50 2 their Sons them Son 118 10 naturally actually SALVATION BY JESUS CHRIST ALONE The INTRODUCTION I. SAlvation implies in the very Notion of it either the Prevention of some Mischief to which we are obnoxious or a Deliverance from some Mischief which we actually suffer Now because it is our professed Design and Business at present to discourse of the Salvation of Mankind by our Saviour therefore in order to our so doing it will be proper first to consider what Mischief it is from which they are saved For the true Knowledge of the Occasion and Nature of the Mischief will very much assist us in our Enquiries into the Nature and Justice of such Salvation We must know therefore That when God who made Man and all Things beside had placed Man in this lower World as he did provide for his Well-being by his Bounty so he did provide for his greater Happiness by his Law For by the first he only put all Creatures here in subjection to Man but by the last he acquainted Man with his own Subjection to Himself For it is an undoubted Truth That it is a greater Happiness to be a true Subject to God than it is to be Tenant of the whole Earth and a deputed Lord over all the Creatures in it Now in order to some few Remarks which we shall make upon God's first Law given to Man and which will open a Way to our main Design it will be convenient that we lay down the Law as it was given forth Thus therefore it stands Of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil thou shalt not eat of it For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die or as it is in the Original dying thou shalt die The Reduplication in that Language being equivalent to an Asseveration in ours It has been a Doubt among Learned Men whether this first Law be a Moral or only a Positive Law Now for the Resolution of such Doubt it may not be improper to consider apart First What is expresly contained in the Law and Secondly What is implied under such Expression And first If we only consider the express Words of the Law which forbid the eating of the Fruit of the Tree specified the Law in such Case is therefore Positive not Moral because before the Prohibition there was no more Immorality in eating of that Tree than of any other But then secondly If we farther consider that tho' the Law as to the particular Thing prohibited was purely Arbitrary and therefore so far forth only Positive yet that the Prohibition did imply in it a Moral Duty grounded upon very equitable Considerations we may conclude that under this express and Positive Law there is implied and couched a Moral Law For First God gave Man not only his Being but also all Things for the necessary and convenient Support of such Being and from thence we may by our Natural Reason inform our selves that his so doing was a very equitable Consideration why Man should be bound up in Gratitude and that is as much as being bound up in Morality to acknowledge the Kindness and Bounty of his Great Benefactor Secondly Man being bound in Gratitude to acknowledge the Kindness and Bounty we may truly add that he was farther bound to acknowledge such Kindness and Bounty in such Way as such his Benefactor should appoint Thirdly God having made the Earth and all Things in it he might grant as many or as few of the Things so made to Man as he himself pleased And therefore might except any one or more of them out of such Grant Fourthly God having an undoubted Power of Reserving to himself what he pleased out of those Things which he had made he might in Justice and Equity require that Man should give one Testimony of his Gratitude by abstaining from what he should please so to reserve Fifthly God by singling out the Forbidden Tree from all the rest and by so doing reserving it to himself had made that a standing Mark and Signal of his own rightful and supreme Dominion over the Whole as also for the same
Reason of Man's Tenure and Subjection Sixthly As we may suppose the Forbidden Tree to have stood in the midst of the Garden from the Ninth Verse of the Second Chapter of Genesis so a Tree so placed was by its very Situation a very fit and proper Thing to be made use of for such a purpose because being in some measure at least equidistant from the Boundaries of the general Grant it must for that Reason be most likely to present it self to Adam's View to whatever Part of the Garden he moved and by so doing must constantly or at least frequently put him in mind of the Nature of his Tenure viz. that he held it of him who had setled him in the Possession and Use of all the rest So that as the Law is Positive if we only look upon the express Words of it so it is Moral if we consider what is implied in it And therefore as the immediate and direct Transgression of the Law was the eating the forbidden Fruit so the couched Immorality of such Transgression was an Usurpation upon God's Prerogative in this lower World and an Encroachment upon the reserved Rights and Demeans of the Supreme Lord. The Transgression of the express Law then was a Sin against God's Command But the Transgression of the implied Law was a Sin against his Natural and Supreme Right The first was a Sin because it did what God had expresly forbid The last was implicitly forbid because it was a Sin and therefore was a Sin tho' God did not expresly forbid it The first was therefore only unlawful because forbidden The last was unlawful in it self To sum up all in a few Words Tho' the Designation of the particular Thing viz. the Tree in the midst of the Garden was Arbitrary and therefore Positive yet the Designation of Something was as Just and Wise so I may add Moral and Necessary too at least so far as it is so that God's Supreme Right ought to be asserted and owned For so far forth the Prohibition given to Man of eating of the Fruit of any Tree marked out or of medling with any Thing else is grounded upon the Antecedent and Eternal Rules of Reason and Justice that is of Morality And therefore tho' the express Prohibition of the Law be only Positive yet the Reason of the Prohibition is at least so far Moral as it is so That Man by some Means or other should acknowledge God to be his Supreme Lord and that he receives from him whatsoever he enjoys and that if God do expresly appoint the Way and Means of his so doing he ought to do it by the Way and Means so appointed And I therefore say expresly because so far as the Words of the Law under our present Consideration do go it is notorious that what is expresly prohibited by it is only Arbitrary and Positive But that the Morality of the Prohibition is not expressed but at the most but couched and implied By what has been spoken we may learn 1. That the Sin expresly prohibited by the Law may therefore truly be esteemed a lesser Sin because it is only a Sin against a Positive Law For such a Sin is a Sin only against God's Authority Whereas a Sin that contains a Natural Immorality in it if I may so speak is a Sin both against God's Authority and against his Purity and Holiness too 2. That the express Penalty of the Law is only a Punishment threatned against the Transgression of the express Prohibition of the Law For it does not look like Justice to assign an express Punishment in the Law for the Transgression of any Thing which is not expresly contained in the Law 3. Such Punishment so threatned against the Transgression of the express Law is express absolute and peremtory Adam then did therefore fatally suffer the Penalty of the Law because he sinned against an express Prohibition which was ratified by an absolute peremptory and express Threat For God may therefore be thought to be obliged by his Truth to punish Adam's Transgression according to the express Threat of the Law because he had passed his more solemn Word that he would do so And as he was obliged by his Truth to punish it as the Law had threatned so he was obliged to punish it because it was a Sin For so undoubtedly is the Transgression of any of God's Laws From hence it may be concluded that we all die a temporal Death for Adam's Sin For as we were in the Loins of him in the day of his Transgression so God has not by any other Law assigned an Universal Mortality as the Punishment of Sin And so speaks the Scripture In Adam all died 4. As the Moral Law couched in the Positive Law is not express so neither is there any express Punishment threatned to the Transgression of such couched Law For while Man was in a State of Innocence as there was no need that God should prescribe him any express Law to guide him in such Things which were in their own Nature good because the dictates of his own reason were of themselves sufficient for such his guidance for Moral Goodness is nothing else but the Dictates of right Reason employed about the Actions of Rational Creatures So for the same Reason there was no occasion to threaten him in that Case with any express Penalty because the threatning of an express Penalty antecedent to the Commission of the Crime can only be proper there where there is an express Law commanding a Duty Whereas Man had never by his Reason known that it had been a Sin to eat of any Fruit which kindly offer'd it self to his View and natural Inclinations if such Fruit had not been forbidden by some express Law And therefore for the same Reason that it was necessary that such Law should be express it was necessary that the Penalty of such Law should be express too 5. As the Sin against the Moral Duty which is only implied in the Law were that Duty supposed to be express Law is greater than the Sin against the express but Positive Law so were there a Punishment to be expresly assigned to such Sin it must in Justice be greater than the Punishment assigned to the less Sin that is to the Transgression of the Positive Law The Punishment therefore assigned by the express Law to the Transgression of it being only Death and that too as appears from the Nineteenth Verse of the Third Chapter of Genesis a temporal Death our Reason and that natural Sense we have of the Proportions of Justice will assure us that the Law which forbids a greater Sin than this Law does must in Reason and Equity assign an heavier Punishment to such greater Sin 6. Such heavier Punishment must suppose a Resurrection For a greater Punishment than Death cannot therefore be inflicted upon a dead Man without a Resurrection because no Punishment at all can be so inflicted upon him For where there is no Sensation
that know that they all came from one single Fountain that is from one single Man and so that they are all but so many Rivulets from that Fountain And when moreover we are assured that our Saviour is One of those Rivulets For tho' our Saviour was only to be made of the Woman yet because the Woman was made out of the Man therefore our Saviour did by the Woman derive from the same one single Person with the rest of Mankind I say when we consider all this methinks it is no hard matter to conceive that God himself does in his Word lay the Ground-work of Man's Redemption by a Saviour if I may be allowed so to word my self in that near and intimate Relation which our Saviour by becoming Man has to all Mankind besides and that the Intimacy of such Relation consists in this that the Saviour and all Mankind do derive from one single and common Fountain And hence we are told in one Place that as by Man came Death there is the Sin of Adam and the Wages of such Sin by Man came also the Resurrection of the Dead there is the Redemption of our Saviour and his Purchase And more expresly still to our present Purpose speaks the same Apostle in the same Chapter the Fifteenth of the First to the Corinthians For as in Adam all died so in Christ shall all be made alive And to the same purpose again in the Fifth to the Romans and the Eighteenth Verse Therefore as by the Offence of one Judgment came upon all Men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of one the Free-gift came upon all Men unto Justification of Life In all which Texts and several others that might be named it is notorious that the Redemption of Mankind is so ascribed to the second Adam the Man Christ Jesus as the Sin and Death of Mankind is ascribed to the first Man Adam And I do not at all question but that those Hints which the Scriptures do frequently offer to us of our Saviour's taking the Humane Nature in order to our Redemption of his taking Part of the same Flesh and Blood with us of his being our Brother and the like I say I do not at all question but that when seriously considered they may mightily assist and facilitate both our Conceptions and Belief of the Wisdom Justice Reasonableness and Congruity of our Saviour's Incarnation Death Resurrection in one Word of that Redemption which he by being made one with Mankind by taking their Nature upon himself has purchased form them And may mightily conduce to the Removing of those Difficulties which the Enemies of the Cross of Christ have thrown as so many Stumbling-blocks in the Way of plain and honest Christians 4. The Wisdom Justice Reasonableness and Congruity of our Saviour's Incarnation in order to his Purchase of Man's Redemption does yet farther appear in that by becoming Man he put himself into a Capacity of suffering Death that is of suffering that Punishment which the Law had denounced against those that should transgress it For it is a gross Mistake and does indeed bring a Scandal upon God's Veracity to affirm That he threatens greater Vengeance in any Law before the Transgression of it than he will execute after the Transgression that so he may the more effectually prevent such Transgression For God never yet threatned any peremptory and unconditional Punishment in any Law which he has not or when the Time comes he will not as certainly execute In the Day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die says God The Threatning we see is peremptory and the Execution we find is so too and therefore all Sinners die And I cannot in the least doubt but that for the same Reason an eternal Punishment will be the certain Vengeance upon a final Impenitence But that is not so direct to my present purpose and therefore here I pass it by But to confirm what I am now upon I say that God does not pardon the Death threatned in his Law against Sin no not in Consideration of the Death of our Saviour and therefore notwithstanding his Death and that too in our stead we see that all Men and even those who hope for Salvation by such his Death do yet die What therefore our Saviour in this Case has puchased for us is not a Freedom but a Release from Death And therefore that Redemption from Death which is the Purchase of his Blood is to be accomplished after we have been dead by a Resurrection A Resurrection then is to make good the Purchase of his Death and therefore his Death purchased for us not a Freedom but a Release from our Death by such Resurrection Now as his Death was necessary for such a Purchase so his Incarnation was necessary in order to such his Death And he was therefore made of the same Blood with all Mankind that by shedding that Blood for Mankind he might after his own Resurrection restore the Lives of all Men which had been forfeited by Adam's Transgression So that as his Death was the meritorious Expiation of Sin and as a Resurrection is the Fruit and Effect of such his Expiation So his Incarnation was a necessary Forerunner of such his Death and therefore before he could possibly die for Man and so purchase a Redemption of Man from Death it was agreeable to the Laws of Wisdom Justice and Reason that he should become Man himself But then how his Death came to be of so valuable a Price as to make so glorious a Purchase we must leave to farther Enquiry For by that it will appear that as it was necessary that he should die the Death of a Man so it was necessary that such his Humanity should be united to the Divinity And by both it will appear that God was manifested in the Flesh to destroy the Works of the Devil and that therefore when the Scriptures tell us so much they tell us no more than what is agreeable to Wisdom Justice and Reason CHAP. VI. The Divinity of the Son of God necessary for the Expitation of Man's Sin as well as his Humanity Some Doctrinal Inferences A general Proof That as our Saviour did actually die so that he might justly die for the Expiation of Sin HAving therefore seen that our Lord Jesus Christ was qualified by his Incarnation to make an Expiation for Sin by the Sacrifice of himself and that such his Qualification is agreeable to the Laws of Justice and to the Rules of Reason and Wisdom Our next Enquiry must be How such his Sacrifice came to be of such a Value as to be justly sufficient to make good such an Expiation For because the Death of an Innocent Man if he be no more than a mere Man is but the Death of a Creature and because no Creature can by its Punishment in another Creature 's stead expiate the Sin of that other Creature for if it could then a Creature might by its own Punishment
expiate its own Sin both which we have already shewed to be impossible Therefore it was necessary that as our Saviour in order to his undertaking the Expiation of Sin should be a real Man a Creature so that he should be more than a Creature in order to the accomplishing of such his Undertaking For tho' by becoming Man he did accommodate his Condition to his Design of undertaking an Expiation as we have just now seen yet for all that his Humanity had sunk under but but had not taken away the Burden had it not been supported by his Divinity For that that crushes both Angels and Men and that too while they cope against it only with their own Strength beyond the possibility of a Recovery must for the same Reason have crushed him also when once he had put himself in Man's stead and by consequence into Man's Condition had he not been endowed with a Power superiour to both to enable him to subdue and conquer it And what Power but that of God can we think sufficient to conquer Sin and Death and that too when they had got to such an heighth as to have infected and over-run the whole Race of Mankind Can we think that when the Contagion and Mischief had spread it self so wide that even the best of Men and those whose Graces are chiefly celebrated by the Spirit of God himself could not preserve themselves from the overflowing Inundation I say can we think that in such a Case any one single Man were he no more than a Man could have saved himself from the universal Mischief by the Strength of his own Resolution or Vertue And if in Reason we must think that he could not then how can we in Reason think that his Strength should be sufficient to rescue and save all the Rest No! Such Salvation belongs only to the Arm of God and He who can save from Sin Death and Hell and can over and above extend such Salvation over all the Earth and that too through all the successive Generations of Mankind that ever did or ever shall live upon the Earth must be God and God alone The Extensive Merit therefore of the Death and Sufferings of the Man Christ Jesus derives it self from the Infinite Dignity of Jesus the Son of God For had not this Jesus been the Son of God as well as the Son of Man he had never been the Saviour of Man And if there be not Salvation in any other as in effect the whole Book of God does tell us it may seem inconceivable how this Seed of the Woman should extend this Salvation and so break the Serpent's Head from the Days of Adam to the Consummation of all Things unless all Things were in his Disposal that is unless he were God No! He who considers the Thing seriously and wisely may be satisfied not only by the Scriptures but by his own Reason also that there is the same Mercy and the same Power required to redeem sinful Man that was required to make Man and that He only who did the first can do the last And therefore as we are taught by God that all Things were made by his Word so are we also that this Word was made Flesh and that by being so made he became to us after we were dead in Trespasses and Sins the Word of Life From all which and a great deal more that might be offered both from Reason and from Revelation some of which Things we have already spoken to and some of which we shall have occasion to speak to hereafter we may be not only informed but assured That the great Merit of our Saviour's Expiation made for Sin by his Death and Passion did arise from hence that his Divinity was personally united to that Body which underwent such Death or that nothing less than the Death of the Son of God could expiate that Death which the Law had denounced against the Sin of Man But because these Thing will appear in a more full and clear Light in the farther Prosecution of our Design therefore we here leave them for a while and proceed For it having appeared as to Matter of Fact and that too by most express Declarations of Scripture that our Saviour was made an Expiatory Sacrifice for Sin and it having also appeared that he did by his Incarnation accommodate his Condition to the making good of such Expiation and that too in a Way very agreeable to our Natural Sense and Reason The next Thing to be spoken to is the Matter of Right or whether or no he could make such Expiation in Justice But before we proceed to speak to That it will be proper that we make some Inferences of weight and moment from what has been already spoken And 1. By what has been said it appears plainly That tho' our Saviour made good the Purchase of our Redemption by his Death and Resurrection yet that such his Purchase shall not be fully made over to us till our own Resurrection That he made good the Purchase his Resurrection is a Demonstration For because the Wages of Sin is Death and because he died for our Sins and not for his own and because after such his Death he rose again and because such his Resurrection was a Discharge from the Penalty of those Sins for which he died I say from all these Things it is evident that he accomplished his designed Purchase that is he made good his Expiation by his Death and Resurrection But then on the other side because it is most certain that we are not redeemed from the Curse or Penalty of the Law till we are redeemed from Death and because we are not redeemed from Death till we rise from the Dead that is till our own Resurrection therefore it is as evident that till such our Resurrection we are not put into the Possession of such his Purchase And therefore strictly speaking no Man be he who he will is â—actually justified in this Life For because every Man that lives shall certainly die and because Death is the Penalty threatned to Sin by the Law it therefore grates too hard upon our common Sense to tell us that any Man is then justified when he is not only liable to the Vengeance of the Law but when he is also sure in a little time to undergo such Vengeance If therefore any Man be according to a Gospel-estimate of Righteousness a righteous or good Man we may upon that Account say and we shall say true that he is in a justifiable Condition but we cannot truly say that he is a justified Person Justification then in the Execution belongs to a future Life and not to this And when we shall come to discourse on the second Thing contained in a Gospel-Salvation which is a Restitution to Holiness and the Consequent of it the Gift of Eternal Life we shall then be more fully satisfied that Justification cannot belong to any Man in this World because no Man in this
as Means of Preventing Grace Whereas otherwise the Prevention of Sin by a Death without a Reprieve that is a Death without a Saviour and so without a Resurrection had been no Means of Grace at all but only pure and mere Punishment 4. Lastly From what has been said I take notice that our Saviour by his Expiation of Sin did not purchase for us an Absolute Freedom from Death so that by vertue of such his Expiation we should not die at all but only a Release from Death so that after our Death we should be raised to Life again This I spake to before and the thing is as certain as it is certain that all Men do die and therefore I shall speak no farther to it at present Only one Quaere I would make upon it and that is this Whether because the Law required Death as the Punishment of Sin and because our Saviour for the Purchase of our Redemption and for the fulfilling of the Law was necessitated in his own Person to undergo Death I say Whether upon this Account God by a Mixture of Mercy and Severity might allow his Expiation to extend no farther than only to release us from Death after we had suffered it but not to prevent us from suffering it at all But as I said before I leave this as a Quaere because the Scripture speaks nothing to it and so the Resolution of it lies in the dark Only I thought it not amiss to mention it because it may help to instruct us in the very great Malignity of Sin As most undoubtedly that must be very pernicious to God's Creatures which is downright Enmity to him who made them and which is not wholly expiated by our Saviour himself However the Wisdom and Harmony of God's Truth Justice and Mercy do seem to me from what has been said to shine forth very conspicuously in his Counsel for the Redemption of Mankind For tho' God executes that Death upon Man fatally which upon his Transgression of the Law he threatned peremptorily and so notwithstanding the Death of our Saviour makes good the Truth of his Threat by the Execution of the Penalty Yet for all that he does not so execute such Penalty but that he first allows Man a Reprieve for a time to make himself a fit Subject for his Saviour's Purchase and secondly he grants him a Release from Death by a Resurrection to capacitate him to be put into the actual Possession of such Purchase Again tho' the Life of Man continued in Consideration of his Saviour's Merits be ever and anon overcast with Afflictions and tho' such Afflictions are a Punishment for his Sins and so a Proof of God's Justice Yet still those very Afflictions are in Consideration of his Saviour turned into Means of Grace and so are a merciful Discipline to secure him from those Mischiefs which otherwise might retard or defeat his Pursuit after the purchased Pardon and Inheritance These Remarks being left by the way we proceed to the next thing proposed and that is Whether our Saviour as he did in Fact so also might in Justice and Right die for the Sins of Mankind For because the Scriptures do lay down the Matter of Fact not only in express Terms but also in great variety of Expressions and because those who deny the Doctrine of the Expiation do in this Case as they do in most others oppose Reason to Revelation Therefore as by what has been said already we have made it out that our Saviour did die for our Sins so in what is to follow we shall endeavour to make it out also that he might so die For if the Matter of Fact be found to be the Declaration of God we may be sure that it will have the Approbation of Justice For Justice and Truth can never clash nor interfere But however before we begin I cannot but take notice in the 1. First place That the Redemption of Mankind by our Saviour is one of those Things of God which no Man knoweth but the Spirit of God and that upon that Account it is not so proper a Subject for the Deliberations of Humane that is of short-sighted Reason And my Warrant for so judging I therefore take to be good because it was a Thing as the Scriptures themselves tell us that was hid from Principalities and Powers from Ages and Generations till it was made known by God to his Church that is to those who were chiefly and as to their own Persons only concerned in it And therefore we are very sure that no Man by the Sagacity of his own Reason could ever have made any Discoveries of it 2. I cannot but be satisfied in the second place that any Man of an ordinary or of an extraordinary Understanding who is willing in honesty and sincerity of Heart to receive the Scriptures as the Revelations of God I say I cannot but persuade my self that such a Man and that too by the bare Conduct of his Common Sense would readily acknowledge and accept it for a Truth in those Scriptures revealed that our Saviour suffered and died to expiate the Sins of Mankind For the Texts that assert it are so often repeated and when compared do so mutually not only confirm each others Truth but also explain each others Meaning and the Management of the whole Thing is so exactly accounted for and that through all the Stages and Periods of it till our Saviour comes to offer his Sacrifice to God in the Heavens the Place of his more peculiar Residence and Abode as the High-Priest did typically in the like Case do in the Holy of Holies the more peculiar Discovery of God's Residence among the Jews under the Law I say all these Things are so categorically asserted and explained and so critically accounted for in the Revelations of God that I cannot as yet persuade my self that Common Sense and Common Sincerity will not oblige those to receive and believe them who are willing to receive those Books in which they are so laid down for the Word of God 3. Neither can I persuade my self that Reason if it be not spun too fine and what is so may easily break but I say I cannot persuade my self that Reason upon a sober Examination of the Matter as it is laid down in the Scriptures can in any wise call in question the Justice of it For as it is there laid down there are only three Persons more especially concerned in it and those are God our Saviour and Man Let us therefore take the Sum of the Business in these Three Propositions and then see if our honest and natural Reason can discover any Injustice in it And First God does forgive our Sins in Consideration of our Saviour's Sufferings Secondly Our Saviour did suffer in our stead in order to the obtaining of such Forgiveness Thirdly We do obtain such Forgiveness in Consideration of such his Suffering Now if we set our plain and honest Reason on work to examine
general that it is founded in our Saviour all the Debate at present is Whether the Promise of the Gospel-Reward be founded in that Saviour's Obedience or in his Death or in other Words Whether the Promise of the Reward be not so grounded upon our Saviour's Obedience as the Promise of Pardon is upon his Expiatory Sacrifice And if those Reasons which we have already or shall hereafter offer do prove that in Justice and Reason it is so then the Objection vanishes I may add That the Objection only speaks to the Matter of Fact that there is a Promise made in the Gospel to an Imperfect Obedience which no one so far as I know denies But it does not speak as to the Matter of Right and Justice how such a Promise can be justly and reasonably made without any Violence offered to the Law of Works which is God's Law as well as the Gospel is so And we may be sure that God's Laws do not either contradict each other or controul any the Laws or Rules of true Justice or Reason That then which is the only Thing which is at present maintained is That the Promise of the Reward in the Gospel to an Imperfect Obedience had never been made to Man at all because it could not have been made justly if the Law of Works given to Man had never been fulfilled by Man and that the Gospel-Promise was granted in Consideration that our Saviour fulfilled that Law And to this the Objection so called is really no Objection at all It is confessed indeed that the Eternal Life promised to Believers in the Gospel will be attended with an Happiness inconceivably greater than the Eternal Life promised in the Law to Adam and it may be thereupon surmised that the Reward promised in the Gospel has no Eye to the Obedience required in the Law and if it has not that then the Eternal Happiness of Believers cannot be the Purchase of our Saviour's Obedience to the Law To which I shall say no more at present than this viz. That it is agreed that our Saviour by his Death took away Death the Curse of the Law and made good such his Atchievement by a Resurrection Now the Life after the Resurrection is a Life in a Spiritual Body not in a Natural I speak the Apostle's Words And our Natural Reason tells us that a Life in a Spiritual Body is a more refined and exalted Life than a Life in a Natural Body and that in multitudes of Circumstances it must needs differ from it perhaps in so many that it may be as inconceivable to us now as the future Happiness of the Saints And yet this refined and exalted Life is no good Argument that it was not purchased by our Saviour's Death nor that such his Death had no Eye to the Law of Works in such Purchase And so say we Tho' the Happiness of the Blessed be greater vastly greater than what was by the Law of Works promised to Adam upon his Obedience yet that can never make it out that such Happiness is not the Purchase of our Saviour's Obedience or that such his Obedience was not an Obedience to the Law of Works It may indeed convince us of the super-eminent Dignity of his Person and of the inconceivable Value of that Reward which by being purchased by him derives such its Value from such his Dignity as we observed before and which is directly to our present purpose it may furthermore convince us that the Reward of Believers is the Reward of their Saviour's Obedience made over to them but not a Reward that does or can belong to their own at the very best Imperfect Righteousness I know very well that this Doctrine is denied by many Divines and other Learned Men and those too not only such who do utterly deny that God bestows Salvation upon Men in consideration of their Saviour's Merit and Purchase but even by the generality of those who yet do ascribe the Salvation of Man to such Purchase and Merits What Reasons they offer for such their Denial we shall speak to hereafter But in the mean time we shall go on to make good the Imputation against each Party that denies it and after that shall shew that the Reasons of such their Denial have not that weight which they seem to have 1. And first we shall speak to them who do not barely acknowledge but even contend that the Salvation of Man is obtained in Consideration of the Merits that is in Consideration of the Death of our Saviour And the Men of whom we now speak do maintain That in order to Man's Redemption our Saviour died for Man's Sin and that by such his Death he puchased for Man a Freedom from that Vengeance which is the just Wages of such Sin Now what they so maintain we believe to be true and are ready to join Hands with them to make it good against all the Adversaries of the Cross of Christ So far therefore we are agreed But then it may be demanded How our Saviour can possibly suffer for Man's Sin if the Sin of Man be not imputed to him For in order to his suffering for Man's Sin he must take upon him such Sin and the taking upon him Man's Sin is the having Man's Sin accounted as his own that is in effect and in other Words the having Man's Sin imputed to him And then on the other Side how can Man have any Pretence of Benefit from his Saviour's Sufferings if the Merit of such Sufferings be not imputed to Man For without such Imputation the Merit be it what it will can only belong to the Saviour himself It is evident therefore by what has been said in short but might be made out in more Words that they who assert the Expiation of Sin by our Saviour's suffering in Man's stead do therefore entitle Man to the Benefit of such Expiation because Man's Sin was imputed to his Saviour and the Merit of his Saviour's Sufferings at least imputed to Man Things therefore standing thus in the Case of the Expiation it may be reasonably and further demanded Why our Saviour's Righteousness or Obedience may not as warrantably be imputed to Man as Man's Sin may be imputed to his Saviour or Why the Eternal Happiness which is assigned as the Reward of Obedience by the Law may not be bestowed upon Man in Consideration that the Merit of his Saviour's Obedience is imputed to Man as well as a Release from Punishment may be granted to Man in Consideration that the Merits of his Saviour's Punishment are imputed to Man For there is the very self-same Reason why the Obedience of our Saviour should be imputed to Man in order to Man's Salvation that there is that the Sin of Man should be imputed to our Saviour in order to such Saviour's Condemnation And there is the self-same Reason why the Merit of our Saviour's Obedience should be imputed to Man in order to Man's obtaining Eternal Life as there is
whereof we are capable does so too And we are moreover sure in Reason that God will more freely bestow his best Gift there where it is most heartily desired and therefore also most kindly received And we are the more sure that he will do so in the present Case because the Will of Man must in this Case concur with the Grace of God or else it is impossible that the Holiness to be bestowed should ever become his own For no Man can in Reason or Nature be holy against his own Will He then who by the Means of Grace has advanced so far as to hunger and thirst after Righteousness shall be sure to be filled We have his Promise for it who is able to make it good and we have his Promise for it whose Promise cannot fail And then we cannot but be sensible that he who is filled with Righteousness cannot want that Holiness which accompanies Salvation And truly when I consider how these lower good Things the Blessings of Nature which are confessedly the Bounties of the God of Nature do freely flow in upon all his Creatures where their natural Appetites or Wants do desire or require them and where their Powers and Faculties are such in pursuit of such their Desires they endeavour to obtain them it mightily inclines me to think that his Blessing of Holiness will also there flow in where the moral Appetites of his Rational Creatures do sincerely desire it and where they are so sensible of their Want of it as to endeavour after it 4. We proceed and add in the fourth place That we are instructed both by God's Word and by our own Experience that tho' a perfect Holiness may be heartily desired and sincerely endeavoured after yet that it is never attained by any Man in this Life and therefore so neither is a perfect Happiness The Evidence for the first is because all Men in this World are Sinners and the Evidence for the last is because all Men in this World are Mortal Now as Sin is an infallible Confutation of a perfect Holiness so Mortality is an infallible Confutation of a perfect Happiness We are therefore at last arrived thus far that no Man shall arrive at a perfect Holiness till he is translated to another World And because it is difficult if not impossible to conceive how any Man should arrive at a perfect Holiness in the Grave therefore we may go one Step farther and add that no Man shall attain to such an Holiness till the Resurrection And we may very fairly and rationally conjecture I may say infer That then the Faithful shall For we know that by the Resurrection we shall be released from the Curse of the Law on the one Hand and shall enter upon the Reward of Obedience and Holiness on the other 5. And then lastly Because that Happiness which our Saviour has purchased for Believers is an eternal Happiness and because as we have seen it is impossible that there should be any such Thing as an eternal Happiness without an eternal Holiness and because to pretend to bestow an everlasting Happiness upon Man and not an everlasting Holiness without which such an Happiness is impossible is to mock Man and not to save him and because lastly we cannot without Blasphemy and Absurdity tax the Counsels and Purposes of our Saviour in the Business of Man's Salvation of such gross Prevarication therefore we do at last conclude That God in our Saviour will endow Believers at or upon their Resurrection with an Inherent Immutable and Eternal Holiness Now we have observed before That the Punishment threatned by the Gospel against those who shall refuse their Salvation by the Neglect of the Conditions of the Gospel is greater than what was threatned against the Breach of the Law of Works the Law given to Adam And that the Reward proposed by the Gospel to those who shall admit the Conditions of it is greater than what was by the Law proposed to Adam upon his Obedience And we have observed in this Chapter That that Inherent and Indefectible Holiness which is a Part of such Reward is greater and nobler than Adam's Holiness before the Fall because it is more lasting than that of him or indeed of the faln Angels Now it is certain that the Degrees of the Punishments are by Justice proportioned to the Degrees of the several Sinners own Deserts And it is certain that the Rewards of eternal Life and of an Indefectible Holiness do in Justice exceed the Deserts of all that are saved for they have been all Sinners And then what Grounds these Considerations may afford for the magnifying of God's Grace and the Merits and Dignity of our Saviour's Purchase and Person may be a Matter worthy our Meditations But I shall not pursue it here because tho' there be an Occasion for me to enlarge what has been said already yet I am unwilling to repeat CHAP. XIII By what Means Men shall be put into the Actual Possession of Eternal Life HAving thus far discoursed First Concerning the Pardon of Sin and Secondly Concerning the Gift of an Happy and Eternal Life the Two Things in which a Gospel Salvation does consist And having made it good That Believers do obtain both the one and the other only in Consideration of our Saviour's Merits and that their so doing is agreeable to Reason and Justice Two Things do still remain to be examined 1. By what Way or Means they shall be put into the Possession of such Eternal Life And 2. Wherein the Happiness of such Life does consist 1. And in order to the Resolution of the first Thing we lay it down as a certain Truth in the first place That Man in order to his entring upon the Possession of Eternal Life must first rise from the Dead For all Men die because all Men are Sinners And because it is absurd so much as to imagine that Man can enter upon the Possession of Eternal Life while he remains under the Power of Death therefore without any more ado we shall take it for granted that Man must be freed from that Death which is brought upon him by his Sin before he can obtain that Eternal Life which is purchased for him by his Saviour 2. We lay it down in the second place as a certain Truth That because our Saviour underwent Death himself for the Expiation of Man's Sin and because our Saviour could not in Nature or Possibility be qualified to bestow upon Man the Purchase of such his Death till he himself should rise from the Dead That therefore in order to Man's entring upon the Possession of an Eternal Life it was necessary that our Saviour himself as well as Man should first rise from the Dead 3. We lay it down in the Third place That if the Merits of our Saviour's Death were of Value sufficient to make good the Expiation of Man's Sin that then in Reason and Justice he ought to rise again from the Dead For
because in the Case so put he could have no Concern with Justice but what was his own and because he himself had paid an exact Obedience to the Law and because Life is the Reward of such Obedience as Death is the Wages of Disobedience Therefore if we do allow him to have unloaded himself of the Sin of Man which he had taken upon himself by his Death we must and do by so doing reinstate him in his own Right that is we must allow that he had a Right to be and therefore in Justice ought to be restored to Life again And therefore it is not at all to be questioned but that our Saviour had never died at all if he had never taken upon himself the Sins of other Men. But of this more by and by In the mean while these Things being laid down we proceed and 1. Observe in the first place That our Saviour's Resurrection is almost constantly by the Scriptures of the New Testament ascribed to God the Father And Multitudes of Texts might be quoted for it as the Second of the Acts ver 24 30. The Fifth Chapter of the same ver 26 30. The Tenth ver 40. The Seventeenth ver 31. The Tenth to the Romans ver 9. The First to the Corinthians chap. 6. ver 14 c. We know well enough that they who make it their Business to degrade our Saviour below his most exalted Dignity and Station do make use of these Texts for such their Purpose But we know withal that there are other Texts tho' indeed not so many and some of them when compared with their Context not so Categorical which yet ascribe his Resurrection to himself Such is that in the Second Chapter of St. John v. 19. Destroy this Temple and in three Days I will raise it up And so again in the Tenth of St. John v. 18. No Man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Now as we made it out just now that after the Expiation finished he had a Right to rise from the Dead so we do not at all question but that he had a Power to raise himself too But tho' it should be allowed as we do not at all question and that too from several Things already laid down and made good but that it may be proved But I say tho' it should be allowed that he had both a Right and a Power to raise himself from the Dead yet notwithstanding that it was not altogether so congruous or agreeable to the equitable Proceedings of Justice that he should exercise such his Power or put himself into the possession of such his Right in the present Case For because he had submitted to offer his Life an Expiatory Sacrifice to the Divine Justice for the Sin of Man he had by such his Submission so far resigned such his Right and Power into the Hand of God as that both by the Laws of Reason and Justice as well as by the Rules of Decency and Congruity God was now become the sole Judge of the Validity of such his Sacrifice for the Accomplishment of the designed Expiation And if God was the sole Judge of the Validity of his Sacrifice he had by the same Means the rightful and I may add the sole Power of declaring such Validity And because the Resurrection of our Saviour from the Dead was in effect such a Declaration therefore we may now be satisfied why the Holy Ghost does so very frequently and in a manner constantly ascribe the Resurrection of our Saviour in the Scriptures to God alone To which we may add That the High-Priest under the Law who in this very Case was a Type of our Saviour was obliged once a Year to enter into the Holy of Holies but as the Author to the Hebrews words it not without Blood which he offered for himself and for the Errors of the People In which Case it must be confessed that the offering of the Blood to God was in order to his acceptance and that God's acceptance of the Blood that is of the Life of the Sacrifice was the Ratification of that Expiation that was made by such Sacrifice And in deed and truth our Saviour in the Business now before us being both the Priest and the Sacrifice to God for the Sins of Man and his Resurrection being the first Testimony or Declaration of the Acceptance of such his Sacrifice We cannot in any Congruity suppose that such Testimony or Declaration should be ascribed to any other but to God alone And therefore as all those Texts which ascribe our Saviour's Resurrection to God do in this Case speak strictly and properly so we may now by what has been said perceive that they are no Prejudice to his Divinity because he having obliged himself to offer that Body to which his Deity was united a Sacrifice for Sin he had by the same Act obliged himself to expect from God the Approbation and Allowance of such his Sacrifice and therefore also to receive from him his Resurrection which was an effectual Declaration of such Allowance And therefore 2. I do offer it to Consideration That the Resurrection of our Saviour from the Dead was an undoubted Argument that he had finished and compleated that Expiation which he had undertaken to make by his Death for the Sins of Men. For as we are assured by the Scriptures that he was crucified dead and buried and so that he died the Death of a Criminal So we are assured by the same Scriptures that he did not die for his own Crimes For it is utterly impossible and that too in the Nature of the Thing that he should die for his own Sins who yet did no Sin neither was Guile found in his Mouth that is who had no Sins of his own to die for Now because we are taught by the Scriptures and as we have already made it out because our Reason guided by them does fall in with them and so both do tell us that the Wages of Sin is Death that is that there is a Natural Justice in the Case that Death should be inflicted as the Punishment of Sin And because we are assured by the same Natural Reason that it must needs be unjust to inflict the same Punishment upon an Innocent Person which is the just Punishment of a Criminal I say for this Reason we may be satisfied that our Saviour tho' he was in himself a Lamb without Spot yet did die for some Sins or others be those Sins whose they will at present And therefore because the Spirit of God has by his express Word told us that he died for our Sins we may upon his Testimony rest satisfied that so he did Thus far therefore we have advanced towards our present Purpose and Argument That Death was what the Law threatned for our Sins and that we being Sinners and so having incurred the Vengeance threatned
our Saviour who as we have shewed had an absolute and uncontroulable Power to dispose of his own Life as he himself pleased did put himself in our stead became a Sacrifice for us and so in his own Person suffered that Death which we by our Sins had deserved But then to the making good of our present Proposition we add That as he suffered Death for the Expiation of our Sins so if he had not finished and compleated such Expiation he had not rose again For so long as the Guilt remained so long the Punishment was and that too in Justice to be continued For in such Case there had been the same Reason for the Continuation of the Punishment that there was for its first Infliction And therefore as it was first inflicted for a Guilt so it must have been continued for the Continuation of such Guilt From which we do infer That if he was justly acquitted from the Continuation of the Punishment then he was also acquitted from the Guilt and if he was justly acquitted from the Guilt that then he had by his Punishment made a sufficient Expiation for it And that he was acquitted from the Punishment due to the Guilt and that he was justly acquitted too the Resurrection singly and by it self will make out an undoubted and uncontroulable Argument For our natural and common Sense does assure us that a Resurrection to Life is an Acquittance and Discharge from Death And Reason will tell us that because a Discharge from Death can only come from God and because God cannot but be just therefore that Acquittance and Discharge that is made by a Resurrection must needs be just too And therefore from the Whole we may infer That the Resurrection of our Saviour from that Death which he suffered as the Punishment of our Sins was a demonstrative Argument and Proof that by his Death he had paid a sufficient Ransom and had made a sufficient Expiation for such Sins So that strictly speaking in his Death consisted the Punishment of our Sins in the Infinite Value of his Death consisted the Expiation of our Sins and in the Resurrection appears the full Proof and Evidence of such his Expiation Before we part with this Head it may not be improper to take notice that because his Death was of infinite Value that therefore there was a sufficient Ransom paid for our Sins by that Death so soon as it was suffered For it must be confessed that the Ransom was then made when the Debt was paid And because that is Truth and Justice we do from thence infer That our Saviour might and that justly too have resumed his Life so soon as he had laid it down And so he might for any thing that Justice can offer to the contrary have descended alive from the Cross after he had once died upon it Nor needed his Resurrection in point of Justice to have been deferred to the third Day but might had God so pleased have been caused on the first But tho' it might justly have been done so yet we do not find that it was actually so done for the Scriptures tell us that he did not rise till the third Day From whence we observe That as he died to save Man from Sin so he did for some time continue in a State of Death to satisfie and assure us that he did so die And so as his Death had a regard to God's Justice so his Continuance so long under the Power of Death had a regard to our Faith The first was the Purchase of our Salvation The last was our Assurance of and therefore also our Comfort in such a Purchase By which we may understand that his Love was expressed to us even in the Grave and tho' as the Psalmist speaks no Man remembreth God in the Pit yet we may hence learn that even in the Pit our God both can and has remembred us We may also under this Head take notice That as our Saviour had never died at all as we observed before because he himself was perfectly Innocent if he had not by his own Choice put himself in the stead and so exposed himself to the Punishment of the Guilty so we may be confident that he whose Innocence was so singular and illustrious as not to be in the least tarnished whilst he inhabited in mortal Flesh and Blood must now that Flesh and Blood is spiritualized see the First to the Corinthians chap. 15. ver 44. be rather the more free if that were possible from all possibility of Stain or Guilt And we may be secure that if his glorified Body shall ever live free from Sin it shall for that single Reason if yet there were no other live free from Death too So true is that of the Apostle in the Sixth to the Romans ver 9. that Christ being raised from the Dead dieth no more Death hath no more Dominion over him and that in the Revelations I am he that was dead and am alive and live for evermore So that the Victory which our Saviour obtained over Death by his Resurrection cannot so well be looked upon as a single Conquest since it is to extend it self to all Successions of Ages and Time and is to last when Time shall be no more that is for ever and ever 3. As our Saviour by his Resurrection did so far subdue Death as to obtain to himself a future and secure Immortality so also he did by the same Resurrection so far subdue Death as to secure a future and glorious Resurrection to all those who are so far planted into the likeness of his Death as to be dead to Sin and alive to God For if we live to him while we live here we may from his Resurrection have a comfortable Assurance that notwithstanding we die for a time as he did yet we shall be raised again and live with him for evermore To this purpose we must recollect that when he died he did not die for his own Sins but for ours And then if in his Death he laid down his Life in our stead we may be easily satisfied that it was in our stead that he took it up again at his Resurrection For if our Guilt had not been cancelled and so our Debt discharged by his Death then his Death as we observed under the last Head had been continued still And as then we did conclude that he had therefore satisfied the Debt because he was released from the Penalty so now we do conclude that because the Debt so discharged was ours and not his own therefore the Benefit of the Release must redound to us as well as to him For it must needs be unjust in the Creditor to detain us in Prison for that Debt which our Surety has paid And because we know that the Creditor in the present Case is God himself and because we know also that such a Creditor can do no Injustice therefore we know that as when our Saviour laid down his
of Sin Let us first hear what the Spirit saith who in the Fourth to the Ephesians the Fourth and Fifth Verses tells us That when the Fulness of Time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law that is his Son was Incarnate and was under the Law and therefore made so as to be obliged to be obedient to it to redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the Adoption of Sons And when we are told in one place That the Son of God was manifested for this very purpose that he might destroy the Works of the Devil and in another That he was manifest to take away Sin And when to answer to and explain the Meaning of these Places we are assured from other Places that at least one Way of his taking away Sins was by the Sacrifice of himself as in the Twenty sixth Verse of the Ninth to the Hebrews and that he appeared for that very purpose in the same Place And when we add to all this what we find in the Fifth Verse of the following Chapter that God had prepared him a Body and in the Tenth Verse that we are sanctified that is our Sins are put away through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all who as St. Peter speaks his own self bare our Sins in his own Body on a Tree I say when the Spirit of God does all along in the Scriptures expresly and categorically tell us That our Saviour suffered in his Body shed his Blood lost his Humane Life for our Sins for the Remission of Sin for the Redemption of Sinners when it does in several Places compare his Death to the Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law when it calls him the Lamb of God alluding to the Paschal Lamb that taketh away the Sins of the World when it tells us that he is the Propitiation for our Sins and the like It does by these and such like Expressions as much as Words can do it acquaint us at the same time that he suffered in his Body and died to atone for and to expiate our Sins And therefore all the uncouth and forced Interpretations of these and such like Texts which yet are a multitude that attempt to evacuate their plain Meaning may as soon persuade an honest and sincere Man that the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament are a Book full of Collusion and Prevarication as they may that Jesus Christ our Saviour did not die to expiate the Sins of Mankind And were I not assured of God's Providence I should be apt to fear that the Devil might in time so bring Things about that if he could upon Pretences of Reason wipe away that Part of the Bible that concerns our Saviour's Incarnation and the Relation which that has to Man's Redemption that he might at last raise his Hopes of blotting out the whole Christian Religion For to tell us that our Saviour is only such a Man as other Men are but only conceived in a different and therefore more wonderful manner to tell us that he died patiently tho' wrongfully only that he might give us an Example of an exact Patience and of an entire Submission to God's Providence to tell us that he was slain a Sacrifice only to confirm the Covenant of Grace but that there was no such Design in his Death as to suffer for or to expiate our Sins as it is a notorious Contradiction to and not an Exposition of the Scriptures so for that very Reason it will appear to have a direct Tendency towards the overthrowing the Grand Design of the whole Book of God All which to them who shall scan the Scriptures exactly is directed to and does center in the Saviour and that Redemption which he purchased for Mankind by his Death and Merits Having therefore thus in short taken notice of what the Scripture tells us concerning the Expiation of Sin by the Susserings of our Saviour and having already made it out 1. That no Creature can by any means expiate the Sin of Mankind and 2. That our Saviour is God Incarnate or God and Man united in One Person we do in pursuit of our main Design lay it down in the 3. Third place That the Way and Method of Man's Salvation as it is expresly and frequently laid down in the Scriptures which is by the Sufferings and Death of the Son of God manifested in the Flesh is agreeable to right Reason and exactly congruous to the Measures of Truth and to the Rules of Justice And in order to our making this plain and clear we take notice 1. That that Law about the Transgression of which and the Release from the Penalty of such Transgression the Gospel-Forgiveness is only concerned was given to Man For the Scriptures give us no Account of the Forgiveness of the Breach of any other Law but only of that Law which God had prescribed to Mankind And therefore tho' in the Scriptures we have several broad Hints of the Fall of the Angels and tho' our Reason tells us that that which put them under the Displeasure of God must needs be Sin in the general yet we are therefore ignorant what their Sin was because we are ignorant what that Law was against which they sinned 2. We take notice That as that Law about which alone the Gospel-Forgiveness is concerned was the Law given by God to Man so the Gospel takes no other or farther notice of the Transgression of that Law than as that Law is broke by Man From whence we infer in the 3. Third place That that Punishment which the Law threatens against those who transgress it can only in Justice belong to those to whom the Law was given and directed For they can never transgress a Law who have no Law assigned them and they can never be justly punished for the Transgression of the Law who can never transgress the Law The Law therefore about which alone a Gospel-Forgiveness is concerned being the Law given to Man and transgressed by Man Man alone can justly suffer the Penalty of such Transgression From whence we infer in the 4. Fourth place That if any Penalty can ever justly expiate that Guilt which is contracted by the Breach of the Law that Penalty that must make such Expiation must be a Penalty laid upon Man And therefore our Common Sense of Justice will not allow us to think that either Angels which are ranked above Mankind nor Beasts which are ranked below them can by any Sufferings whatsoever expiate or atone for the Breach of such Law which being given by God to Man does so far forth concern Man alone And tho' we have before made it out that neither Angels on the one Hand nor brute Beasts on the other can expiate the Sin of Mankind as both the one and the other are Creatures yet what we now say is that they cannot do it as they are different Creatures For it seems necessary and that
must principally and in the first place design their Obedience and not their Punishment and therefore not their Forgiveness neither it would be in effect to contradict his own Design in giving forth his Law For the Design of his Law being the Holiness of his Creatures resulting from their Conformity to the Directions of such Law if he should so pardon their Neglect of such Conformity that is the Neglect of their Obedience as to make no Provision for such Obedience it is evident that by so doing he would have no more Regard to the Directive Part of his own Law than they have had and so the Manner of Forgiving the Transgression of the Law would unravel the main and principal Design of making the Law But we know very well that such a Way of Proceeding is neither agreeable to Wisdom nor to Holiness and therefore much less to Infinite Holiness and Wisdom And therefore if the Ever-Holy and Wise God gave up his beloved and only begotten Son to Death for the accomplishing the vindictive Part of the Law and if for the same purpose he punishes all Mankind not only with many Miseries in this World but also with Death in their going out of it I say if he does all this which yet he himself tells us is his strange Work that so the vindictive Part of the Law may not fall to the Ground shall we think that he will do less or indeed shall we think that he will not rather do more to make good the main and grand and I may add the more natural Design of his Law which is the Holiness of his Creatures No! we are sure that no Word of God shall return empty and that therefore his more solemn and express Declarations and such are his Laws shall be sure to have their Accomplishment and shall be fulfilled in their due time notwithstanding the counter-Endeavours of Hell and Wickedness For it shall not be in the Power of any Enemy to defeat the Counsels or evacuate the main Design of that Law which proceeds from Eternal and Essential Holiness and which moreover is backed with Omnipotence We may therefore very well be satisfied that God has made Provision for the Performance and fulfilling of the Directions of the Law as well as of the Vengeance of the Law 2. And we may be satisfied in the second place that such his Provision does and must extend it self to Man to whom the Law was given For it would be unreasonable to imagine the Design of any Law to be fulfilled when such Law is not obeyed by any of those for whom it was proclaimed and to whom it was given And therefore because the Law was given to Man and requires Obedience from Man we cannot say that the Design of the Law is fulfilled unless Men do obey it 3. We may be satisfied in the third place that no Man in this World except our Saviour alone has obeyed the Directions of the Law from the Days of Adam's Transgression to this very Day And we may be satisfied moreover from so long an Experience of the Thing and from Reason grounded upon such Experience but if both will not do we may be satisfied from Scripture that no Man ever will or shall pay a perfect Obedience to such Directions Nay it is notorious that no Man does so because we know that every Man in this World is under the Curse of the Law and we know that every Man is so because we are assured that every Man in his going out of the World shall undergo such Curse that is that every Man shall die Now Death being the Penalty expresly assigned by the Law to the Transgression of the Law we may be sure that those who are not only liable to such Penalty but who shall also certainly undergo it are Transgressors of the Law And then because that is the Case of all Men in this World we may from hence also conclude that all Men in this World are Transgressors of the Directive Part of the Law 4. We may be satisfied in the fourth place both because it is the Object of each good Christian's Faith and Hope in particular and because it is an express Revelation of the Will of God in general that some Men shall be saved that is shall obtain an Eternal Happiness in another World tho' we know most assuredly that all Men do transgress the Law in this World Now because it is impossible in Justice and absurd in Reason that Vengeance and Salvation should both be the Recompence of the Transgression of the Law and because tho' all Men are Transgressors and some of those Transgressors shall be pursued with Vengeance yet others upon the Account of their sincere tho' imperfect Obedience shall be rewarded with Salvation Therefore we do infer in the 5. Fifth place That those who shall be so rewarded shall in order to such their Reward be then entitled to a perfect Obedience when such Reward shall come to be bestowed That this is a Truth laid down in the Covenant of Grace the Covenant by which alone Men shall obtain Salvation That Reason and Justice do fall in with such Covenant in asserting and maintaining the same Truth and that therefore it is every way firm and good For it sounds harsh to our natural Sense of Justice that without a perfect Obedience a Man should obtain that Reward which in Justice and Reason can only be allotted to such Obedience For an Obedience that falls short of Perfection is in truth and reality whatever it is called a Transgression And so is so far from deserving a Reward that it does indeed stand in need of a Pardon For the Defect of such Obedience is Sin and Sin mixed with any thing corrupts the whole and makes it unclean and impure and we know that nothing that is so can enter into the Kingdom of God And therefore in order to his Salvation St. Paul renounces his own Righteousness which is of the Law in the Third to the Philippians and the Ninth Verse Alas the very best of us in this World have our Failings and Imperfections and not only sinful Weaknesses but sinful Wilfulnesses also Nay our very Righteousnesses are but filthy Rags And then we may be satisfied that we shall never in those Rags be admitted to the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb. When the Prodigal Son returned to his Father the Father not only provided the Feast but the Robe and the Ring too to qualifie his Son to be a fit Guest for such a Feast Now from these Propositions so laid down and confirmed it may seem no very remote Consequence that that Righteousness to which those who shall be saved shall be entitled in order to such their Salvation shall be the Righteousness of that Person whom the New Testament sets forth to be the Saviour of Mankind For their Salvation must in Justice and Reason depend upon their Obedience to the Law otherwise such Salvation can in no Sense be truly
the Law had promised to such Obedience 1. Now in order to our making good our first Proposition we must examine what Qualifications are absolutely necessary in order to fit any one to make such Purchase and then enquire farther Whether such Qualifications either do or can belong to any other besides our Saviour alone 1. Now the first and leading Qualification in him who shall be fitted for the Purchase of a Release from the Penalty of the Law which they have incurred who transgress the Law is that he who makes such a Purchase must be one of the same Kind with them to whom the Law was given that is in the present Case must be a Man For the Law was given to Man was broke by Man and therefore also the Breach of it in the Congruity of Things and by the Laws of Common Sense and Justice is to be punished in Man Now tho' our Saviour was not the only Person in the World who had this Qualification for every Man besides is as real a Man as he was yet he was the only Man among all Mankind who by this Qualification was fitted for the effectual enterprising and bring to pass those other Things which are absolutely necessary for the Purchase of the Release spoken of 2. For secondly The next Qualification of him who is fitted for the Purchase of a Release from the Penalty of the Law is that he must be an Innocent Man He was to be a Lamb without Spot or Blemish and to answer to the Paschal Lamb which in this as in several other Things was a Type of that Lamb of God which should take away the Sins of the World For he who is qualified to suffer for others in order to release those others from the Penalty of Sin must not therefore be a Sinner himself because if he be so then he must by the Laws of Justice and even according to the Tenor of that Law which assigns such Penalty suffer the Penalty for his own Sin And he who suffers the Penalty of the Law for his own Sin cannot therefore suffer the Penalty of the Law for the Sin of others at least in the present Case he cannot because the Penalty of the Law upon the Transgression of it being the loss of Life his own Penalty exhausts the whole Stock or Possibility of his so suffering For he who has but one Life and no Man has more can pay that Life but once And therefore if he lays it down for his own Sin he must for that Reason have nothing remaining to lay down for the Sin of others 3. He who is duely qualified to purchase for Mankind a Release from the Penalty of their Sins must be a Man whose Life is of more value than the Lives of all the rest And the Reason for it is plain and obvious because we know that the Lives of all the rest can make no such Purchase And the Lives of all the rest cannot therefore make any such Purchase because the Death of no single Man can make such a Purchase for himself For what no single Man's Death can do for himself that the Death of all Men cannot do for all For there is just the same Proportion between all Men and the Death of all that there is between one Man and the Death of one Besides supposing a Man to be a Transgressor of the Law it looks very absurd to affirm that the Death of such a Man which is the Punishment of his Transgression can be the Purchase of his Release from such Punishment For then the self-same Thing and that is his Death will bear a quite contrary Character for it will be both the Wages of his Sin and the Purchase of his Ransom that is it will be the Vengeance of the Law and the meritorious Cause of his Freedom from the same Vengeance Every Sinner therefore against the Law must be a Sufferer under the Vengeance of the Law and that Law which adjudges those who transgress it to Death does not by so doing design to return them to Life For if it did then by inflicting its Sentence it must design to revoke that Sentence and by making the Punishment a Release from the Punishment must look like Trifling and not like Justice The Loss of no Sinner's Life then is of Value sufficient to put a Period to the Execution of that Sentence which the Law pronounces against those who do transgress it And every Man's Death in the Course of the Law had been eternal were there nothing else to remove it but his own Strength that is in the present Case but his own Death For if the Death of a dead Man can do nothing for him we are sure that no other of his Powers or Merits can For in the Case before us he can have no other Merits of his own to restore him to Life but the Merits of his Death and the Merits of his Death as we have seen are none at all And to expect any Relief from a dead Man's Powers is to expect Relief from no Powers at all for Death crushes all the Powers of all Men whom it seizes Now this being the Condition of all Men who die because they are Sinners we may from hence safely conclude That if any Man who is not a Sinner shall undertake by his own Death to make good the Ransom of all the rest from Death and after that shall make good his Undertaking I say if any Man shall do this we may be sure that his Death or his Life which you will is therefore of more Value than the Life or Death of all the rest because he does by it make that Purchase which all the rest could not do by theirs For in the present Case the Value of the Thing may be truly and justly estimated by the Possibility of the Purchase it can make because the Possibility of the Purchase depends upon the Allowance of the Great and Just God And then when God is willing to release Man from Death in Consideration of the Death of his Innocent Saviour and when he is not so in Consideration of sinful Man 's own Death and when he does professedly declare such his Will in many Places of his Word and by the repeated Attestations of Matter of Fact whereby several People have been raised from the Dead in the Name and by the professed Power of the Saviour I say when we find all these Things to be so as we do or at least easily may find them so to be we may from the Whole conclude That the Death of our Saviour is of more Value than the Death of all Mankind because it can do that which the Death of all the rest cannot do and that too by the Allowance of God himself Now from these Propositions so laid down we may therefore conclude That there is not Salvation in any other but only in our Saviour set forth in the Gospel 1. Because it was absolutely necessary in Justice that the
use of at that Time by the most celebrated Laws but also in Consideration of our Saviour's Purchase I say when we find Things so and that too in the Book of God wrote professedly on this Subject does it become us to think that the Holy Ghost the Indicter of these Things did only word himself at random Or ought we not rather to think that in so doing he had a Regard to those Legal Ways of Conveyances which were established by Man's Reason and Sense of Justice in those Laws which were then most current in the World We cannot I am sure we cannot rationally think so For why are we told that we are bought with a Price Why are we told that our Saviour purchased us with his Blood Why are we told that we are redeemed not with corruptible Things as Silver and Gold but with the precious Blood of Christ but that our Redemption and Salvation did as to the Justice and Equity of it answer to those Legal Ways of transferring of Rights from Man to Man For our Redemption was purchased by our Saviour so it is expresly worded and by him therefore conveyed and made over to us because otherwise it could in no Sense be called our Redemption Indeed a Purchase does in the very import of the Word imply the Acquisition of a Thing in a Legal way and by so doing does in the Nature of the Thing imply also a Legal Power of making over such Thing to another For he can only legally sell or otherwise give or convey who has a Legal Right in the Thing sold given or conveyed And he can only legally purchase who pays a Legal Price When therefore the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures does so word the Manner of God's bestowing and our receiving Salvation in and by our Saviour as to do it in such Terms which were at that time Terms of the most celebrated Law next to his own that ever yet was or perhaps ever will be in the World and when he does so frequently and almost constantly it would become us to believe and think that he designed and that too even by his manner of expressing the Thing to insinuate to us that the Salvation he all along speaks of was bestowed in a way of Conveyance at that time familiar among Mankind in such a way as was established both by their own Laws and by their own Practice in such a way that their best Reason granted to them by himself had set on foot And that upon this Account his way of doing it so as is by him expressed and that too all along in that very Book where he affords us the Discoveries of it is just equitable and legal I do but run over these Things and in a manner glance at them because I rather design to give an Hint to others more able so to do than to pursue them my self For if a Man well-studied in the Civil Law a Law that will weigh with Mankind so long as good and sound Reason has a free Passage in the World But I say would such a Man so throughly acquaint himself with the New-Covenant the Covenant of Grace in Jesus Christ as to be able exactly to compare it with that Law which is the Business of his Profession I do not at all question but that such a Comparison judiciously managed would go a great way in removing those Doubts which have been started by People of all Parties concerning Man's Redemption And because several Learned Men I know are very well versed in both those Laws I do the rather hope that God will put it into the Heart of some of them to bless the World with such a Christian and beneficial Piece of Learning But this by the by In the mean time from what has been said in short we may learn thus much That the Salvation of Man is the Purchase of the Son of God that the Benefit at least of such Purchase is by the Purchaser made over to Man that in Consideration of that Intimate Union that is between him and Man by his taking upon him the same Flesh and Blood with Man and by affording to Man the Communications of his Spirit a Way is opened as for the more congruous and equitable Way of such Conveyanee on the one Side so on the other Side for the more congruous and equitable Way of Man's entring upon the Possession of such Purchase and that when the whole Thing is strictly sifted and examined it will be found to be agreeable to the just and equitable Rules of Law as well as to the express and plain Revelations of the Gospel But I desist Only I would offer an Inference or two that may relate to our Practice before I do so 1. And first If God spared not his own Son when he had put himself into the Place of Sinners we may from thence conclude that neither will he spare us when we our selves are Sinners and that too by our own default For besides that he was and was so proclaimed by God himself his only Son in whom he was well pleased I say besides that the Generosity Charity and Candor of such an Undertaking as our Saviour's was by which he shewed more Tenderness to others than to himself may be thought to be a very considerable Motive even to Justice it self so far as is possible to remit to him a great deal of that Rigour and Severity which Sin does deserve And then if notwithstanding such his Undertaking yet he was fain to pay the uttermost Farthing that is to die how can we hope to escape if we the Original and therefore also the Principal Sinners come under the Severity of so exact a Justice We may be sure that the Portion of Vengeance allotted to us in such a Case will not be less severe For if God so treated his Beloved because interposing Son how do we think he will treat avowed and professed Rebels Or as our Saviour himself speaks in the like Case If these things are done in the green Tree what shall be done in the dry 2. And as this Consideration may serve us for Caution so the next that is the second may serve us for Consolation And I shall give it in the Words of the Apostle in the Eighth to the Romans ver 32. He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all Things For his delivering up his Son for our sakes to become Man to lead an hard and uncomfortable Life and to die a miserable and scandalous Death that both by his Life and Death he might work out our Salvation is such an exalted Evidence of God's Love to us that Imagination it self can hardly conceive that any thing can extinguish it but our Ingratitude for it And our Natural Reason and Common Sense may easily instruct us that he whosoever he be that is ready and willing and that too even to Performance to do us the
is that roaring Lion who goes about seeking whom he may devour that is that the Business and Design of his Temptations is the Destruction of Souls And for that Reason we may also know that the main Design of his Temptation or Deceit in the Text must be to seduce the People there mentioned from believing in and receiving the Saviour and by consequence from obtaining Salvation From all which we do conclude That to qualifie these People for the farther Mercies of the Saviour over and beyond the Resurrection which I shall in this Place adventure to call his general and unconditional Purchase we may suppose 1. That the Saviour shall be then tendred to them For not having heard of him in this Life they had no Possibility either of receiving or rejecting him here as the rest of Mankind had 2. That after they are upon their Resurrection made acquainted with the Saviour they shall be put upon the same Probation whether they will receive him upon the Conditions of the Gospel as those were who had heard of him and the Gospel-Conditions in this Life 3. That if upon such their Probation they do receive him they shall then be in the same happy Condition in which they now are who did receive him in this Life and who do therefore enjoy the Happiness of the first Resurrection For we may reasonably judge that if upon their Resurrection they did receive him that then they should die no more as they who were alive at his first Coming which Coming does still continue did not die but were caught up to him And perhaps for this Reason the Text does only account for the Death of those of this Second Resurrection who opposed the Saviour and besieged the beloved City And if we suppose such a Process in this Affair as indeed the Circumstances seem to allow us more than barely to suppose it it will upon such Supposition be found exactly to answer and agree with the Proceedings at the first Coming of our Saviour to raise the Righteous For as then they who believed in him and were alive in the Earth did not die at all but were caught up to meet the Lord in the Air so here those who upon their Resurrection received and believed in the Saviour then made known to them shall not die but shall be taken to the Lord and so shall escape that Fire from Heaven which will destroy all the rest who besiege the beloved City Just as the Righteous at the beginning of this our Saviour's Coming were caught up to meet the Lord in the Air and so escaped the general Conflagration which ensued 1. Now from all that has been said the Answer to the first Question will be That they who shall be raised by that which we have called the Second Resurrection are all those who never had had the Offer of a Saviour made to them in this Life 2. From which we may gain an easie Answer to the second Question which is Why the Devil is let loose to deceive them The Reason of which is Because they are to undergo the same Probation upon the Offer of the Saviour to them which those underwent who in this Life had the same Offer For it is just and equitable that they should undergo the same Trial with those of the first Resurrection for this Reason Because all Mankind having by Sin become voluntary Subjects to Satan it is neither agreeable to the Divine Justice nor indeed to the Rules of Reason in general to rescue any of them from such Subjection without their own voluntary Consent For in order to their Return to their Original Subjection to God it is necessary that they become good and holy And in order to their becoming so it is necessary and that too in the Nature of the Thing that they be willing to become so As therefore the Devil first brought them off from their Subjection to God to that of himself by persuading them to consent that is to be willing to the Revolt so God brings them back again only by persuading them to be willing to return For if on one side or the other either God or the Devil should force or compel them to their respective Subjection they could by such Force neither be made good nor bad that is they could not become Subjects to either because there can be no moral Goodness or Badness without the Consent of his Will who is good or bad Since therefore God having made Man a Free Agent and so capable of Moral Goodness did not force them to continue good when the Devil first tempted them to be bad and so did not hinder the Devil from tempting them to be bad at first neither will he for the same Reason hinder the Devil from tempting them to continue so no not when he himself does offer to them a Saviour So that the Offer of a Saviour by God and his Invitations and Persuasions of Men to receive such Saviour on the one Hand and the Devil's Dissuasions and Temptations of them from receiving such Saviour on the other Hand being in some measure a Counterpoise to each other the Receiving or Refusing of the Saviour becomes the Act and Deed of him to whom he is tendred and so in Right and Justice the consequential Benefits of such Receiving and the consequential Mischiefs of such Refusal shall become his just Portion Tho' therefore the Devil shall not be suffered to tempt those of the First Resurrection any more because they had already baffled and overcome his Temptations in this Life and so notwithstanding such his Temptations had received the Saviour on the Gospel-Conditions Yet because the Case of those of the Second Resurrection is upon such their Resurrection and the Offer of the Saviour then to them just the same as was the Case of the First in this Life therefore Satan shall be let loose to tempt them after their Resurrection as he was to tempt the others in this Life God therefore by raising them from the Dead did in a Saviour do that for them which it was utterly impossible for them to do for themselves but still leaves them to do for themselves what they can do tho' as we may suppose not without such Assistance as may be sufficient if they be not wanting to themselves to enable them to conquer the Devil's Temptations 3. The Third Question is Why the Devil is said to be let loose to deceive the Nations In order to the Resolution of which we must take notice that upon the Second Resurrection there was now Two Sorts of People upon the Face of the Earth whereof the first are the Inhabitants of the New Jerusalem the beloved City Now as under Moses's Law the Israelites who were the People of God whose chief City was Jerusalem the Place where God had setled his more Solemn Worship and his more Especial Abode I say as the Israelites are opposed to the Gentiles that is to the rest of the World in