Neither did Christ propitiate by meerly giving us an Example of Obedience which if we transcribe we shall assuredly have our Sins pardon'd For how much soever our Saviour's Example may be serviceable to our Sanctification it can have no regard to our Pardon For if we can work out our own Pardons by an exact and unerring Imitation of our Saviour's Obedience the exactness of which must consist in gaining the same Ends by the same Means then did our Saviour at this rate by his own Obedience work out a Pardon for himself or else he could be no Precedent for us But he did not purchase any Pardon for himself because he never stood in need of any never transgress'd the Law at any time nor had any occasion of having it dispenc'd with on his account Tho' He was number'd with Transgressors yet it was only in their Punishment not in their Crimes Tho' His Soul was made an Offering for Sin yet was it for our Transgressions that he was wounded and bruised for our Iniquities So that tho' by keeping close to our Saviour's Example we may be Holy as he is Holy yet cannot we by this procure our own Pardons for former Sins To close all The Death of Christ consider'd only as a Motive to an Holy Life and as inspiring into us the Hopes of a future State of Glory and so perswading us to perform what is necessary to Remission cannot be the Propitiation express'd in the Words For what force could the disgraceful and bloody Death of an innocent Person and of one who had made it his Business to go about doing good have to convince Men That God was a Rewarder of Virtue and Integrity Would it not rather discourage Men from the practice of Perfections which were crown'd indeed but with Thorns and whose only Exaltation was on the Cross to make them more conspicuous Instances of Woe and Infamy Socinus himself foresaw the power of this Objection and to evade it he has recourse to the little Sophistry of saying that Indeed there was no great Efficacy in the Death of Christ to be an Incentive to a good Life and so to make way for Remission but that there was in his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven which were Consequents of his Death and that the Glories of that Kingdom he then took possession of carry the strongest Rhetorick in them to move us to abandon our Sins and lead Lives of Righteousness This is a miserable way of reasoning For would the Scripture apply the Propitiation so often and so expresly to the Death the Blood the Sufferings of Christ if it was all this while his Resurrection which effected the Remission of Sins Nay Does it not oppose the Benefits flowing from the Resurrection to those resulting from the Death of our Lord informing us that Christ died for our Sins but that he rose again for our Justification How then can these Acts in all regards be coincident be the same His Resurrection indeed was a Confirmation a Justifying to the World That he had by his Death purchas'd Remission of Sins to the Penitent but it neither was the Remission it self nor any way concurr'd to it more than by begetting in us a Faith in his Death and Merits The summ of what has been said is That Christ did not propitiate for Sin By dying to bear witness to his Doctrin because then his Death would only have been a Testimony of his Propitiation and not the Thing it self Nor By gaining a power to forgive Sin because he had This before he died Nor By setting his Life out to be an Example to his Followers because this Example has no force to purifie and absolve from Sins at least from past Sins Nor lastly did his Death consider'd as a Motive to an holy Life free from Sin because Christ's Death simply and abstractedly consider'd as the Death of a Just Man without its effect of actually removing Sin is not such a Motive As to the Enthusiast's method of Satisfaction which W. Penn's Christian Quaker p. 102. they resolve only into a spiritual shedding of the blood in their Hearts 't is a changing this comfortable Doctrin wholly into an Allegory and a substituting an imaginary phantastick Saviour instead of a true one And as none of these ways singly takes away Sin so neither do they all of them combin'd For the result of them all is this That God sent Christ into the World to live a Life of Righteousness and to die an ignomimous Death only to be a more successful Instrument to reform the Sinner and to prevent Sin for the future But if Christ did nothing but this How could his Merits reach to Sins committed before this Repentance or Reformation These would still lie open to the Divine Vengeance to the Wrath of that God who has too high a respect for his own Laws to suffer any breach of them to go unpunish'd but will certainly revenge them either on the Sinner himself or at least on his Proxy And tho' the Sinner should at length correct his ways yet what compensation would this be for his former Violations of the Commands of God Would this be any thing else but beginning to do that at last which he was always oblig'd to do So I shall proceed to state the true Means by which Christ did really take away our Sins and propitiate for them And to clear this Case from its original it is to be observ'd That God as the Governour of Mankind gave them a Law which was to be the general Rule of all their Actions This Law he secures on each hand as all other wise Magistrates with Penalties sutable to the power of the Lawgiver which being Omnipotent they too must of consequence be Infinite and Eternal The keeping of the Commands of God blest with ever lasting Life the breach of them punish'd with equal Misery This was the original Covenant or Contract between God and Man which was very just to be impos'd on Man in his Integrity for then he was endued with strength to perform the Condition and was as equitable to be exacted from him after his Fall because he had contracted his weakness and insufficiency by his own fault and had willingly disabled himself But God was more merciful than to deal with him according to the rigour of Justice he had a compassionate sence of that helpless State into which he was sunk and was willing to accept of a Propitiation He knew that the Sins he should commit in his faln Condition would be of a different Character from those of the Angels and therefore were more mercifully to be proceeded against That the Angels were irreclaimably lost because God had done for them all that could be done had created them so perfect that they had a whole prospect of their Duty at one view knew when they fell as much as they could know and therefore admitted of no room for Repentance or alteration of their choice But that
wrought this Propitiation Not any of these separately nor all of them united how far soever conducing to apply this Propitiation were the thing it self Christ did not propitiate for Sin by barely laying down his Life to confirm or bear witness to that Doctrin in which Remission of Sin was contain'd For this makes the Death of Christ rather a Consequent or an Effect of this Remission than the efficient Cause on Producer of it For the Existence or the Being of any thing is the Cause as well as the Measure of the Testimony and not the Testimony the Cause of the Existence Therefore if Christ's Death was only a Testimony to that in which Remission of Sins is included it has no share in it A Testimony in proportion to the Character and Worth of the Testator may give Light to those who are ignorant or Conviction to those who doubt of any Matter but can contribute nothing of reality to the thing it self But it is plain from Scripture that Christ's Death did really effectively and antecedently work to the Remission of Sins And that we have Redemption in his Blood the forgiveness of Sins That the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all Sin and that without shedding of Blood there is no Remission Therefore this shedding of Blood must be something more than a bare Testimony to the Doctrin in which Redemption Forgiveness Cleansing from Sin and Remission are imply'd must be the very Conveyer of these Blessings to us without which we had been still in our Sins and under an indispensible obligation to Punishment for them For at this rate the Blood of the Martyrs might purify us from Guilt as well as that of our Saviour seeing that that too was spilt as a Testimony to the same Doctrin Nay their Blood was on this account a more full and extensive Testimony to Christianity even than his because when our Saviour died tho' the Morals of the Christian religion were brought to their perfection yet there was something farther to be added as Objects of Faith and Belief which were not yet accomplish'd as our Saviour's Resurrection from the Dead and Ascension into Heaven Now to these our Saviour's Death could bear no Testimony as being results from it and transacted after it but the Death of the Martyrs still ratify'd and settl'd this fundamental Truth of Christ's being risen again which by being establish'd it self confirm'd all the rest Now Socinus himself freely owns that the Resurrection of our Saviour is a necessary Article of our Belief and an essential Principle of our Religion Nay this is almost the only one of the Socianian Creed which regards our Saviour And Socinus applies Remission of Sins to this rather than to our Saviour's Death because that the Hopes of that glorious State of which our Saviour took possession upon his Resurrection have the strongest Influences to reform our Lives which Reformation is immediately attended with the Remission of Sins So that the force of the Argument will be this That if all that our Saviour did towards Remission of Sin was only giving Testimony by his Death to that Doctrin in which Remission was preached then the Primitive Martyrs who bore witness to this Doctrin by laying down their Lives for it when it was advanc'd to a fuller extent did more abundantly at least equally co-operate to this Forgiveness But since this Remission is never attributed to any Testimony of theirs it follows That our Saviour made his Propitiation by some other act than this of Testifying Moreover as the reason why our Saviour was put to Death was not his preaching Repentance and Forgiveness of Sins but his declaring himself the Son of God so that which he attested by his Death was rather his own Divinity than the Truth of what he had before taught But granting that it might be one of the less principal Designs of our Saviour's Death to give Sanction to his Doctrin by his Blood yet this could not perform it so sutably and so completely as his Miracles did which were fully adapted to this purpose and to which he addresses as to the exact standard by which his Doctrin might be examin'd 'T is true that to die for a Man 's own Sentiments is a bold and a gallant appeal and a sufficient warrant that he himself believes what he says but this is not security enough for me to assent to his Tenents because he may be mistaken in the Truth of that which he himself is very conscientiously perswaded of For as Falshood may be maintain'd with equal warmth and zeal as Truth so may it be suffer'd for with resembling Patience But when Miracles are once brought to second a Doctrin these silence any farther doubts I yield I am convinc'd for these are either contrary to the Laws of Nature or above them and so are immediately acted by God himself who will neither exercise his own Power nor delegate it to any other to ratify a Lie or grace an Impostor So that since our Saviour's Miracles were more proper more clear and visible Tests of his Doctrin than his Death if his Propitiation or what he did towards the abolishing of Sin consisted only in bearing witness to his Doctrin it might rather be deriv'd from these than from his Blood which is a Paradox which hitherto has never been advanc'd To proceed This Propitiation cannot consist in Christ's meerly gaining or purchasing by his Death a Right or Title to forgive Sin For our Saviour did not purchase any such Right by his Death because he was invested with it long before he suffer'd and when a Person is once legally possest of any Right he needs no subsequent act to appropriate it more closely to him But that our Saviour had such a Right before his Crucifixion is plain as from several other places of Scripture so from that instance of his Healing the sick of the Palsy where he Prefaces his miraculous Cure with that comfortable Declaration of Son thy sins are forgiven thee And lest it might be urg'd That this was only a removing of his temporal Punishment it is very apparent that our Saviour distinguishes between these two Acts by subjoyning the other Command of Son take up thy bed and walk which had been utterly needless if the former words had implied a Cure of his Disease Nor can it be shewn That Propitiation for Sin can coincide with a Right of forgiving Sin for the former pre-supposes an offended Party which must be satisfy'd an offending one which is of it self unable to attone its Anger and lastly a Mediator or Sequester to finish the Reconcilement So that three Terms are necessary to make up an entire Propitiation but a Donation and a gratuitous Remission is nothing else is only between two where there are no insuperable Hindrances or Lets why the Donor should not suffer his Bounty to stream freely out towards the Indigent without any third Person to interpose for him or to bear his Punishment Farther
Man receives the Knowledge of his Duty by degrees and advances into a Mind prepossest with the prejudices of Sense and therefore may see farther and farther into things so as to correct his Errors and repent of them That his Passions grow strong before his Reason has force to govern them That his Duties are so many that in some cases they are almost inconsistent That even when he sins and provokes his Maker there are secret declarations in his Conscience against what he acts or in the Language of the Apostle The Evil that he would not that he does Such Considerations as these mov'd the merciful God to be willing to receive Man to favour made him inclinable to be reconcil'd and to mitigate that Anger he had justly conceiv'd against him for the breach of his Laws But it is impossible that God should be pacify'd while the Law which Man has broken and which the weakness of his Nature tempts him still to violate remains in its severity There can be no Peace between God and Man while this is to be executed upon every failure while Man is born under almost a necessity of Sinning and yet oblig'd to a necessity of Innocence Something must be done to this Law before God's displeasure can be remov'd and if so This Law must either be wholly taken away or Explain'd in a more easy Sence or some other satisfaction made it But the Law which ought to have been the Rule of Man's Life could not be repeal'd and quite taken away For then Man either must be left Lawless or some other Law made in the room of it The former throws down all the boundaries of Virtue and Vice gives encouragement to every Irregularity excludes God out of the Government of the World and places Man in the wildest State of Nature accountable to none but himself for his Actions If a new Law is to be substituted either this Law must partake something of the former or be oppos'd to it If it has somewhat of the Injunctions of the old Law it must have as much of the Difficulties of it too oppos'd it cannot be for the former Law rises so regularly from the Nature of Things that whatsoever should command any thing contrary to it would enjoin what is unjust and therefore would be null as soon as promulg'd Neither could this Law have a milder and more equitable Sence or Construction put upon it to soften its hardness that Man might in some measure evade the Obligation and therefore the Penalty of it For a mild interpreting of a Law is only a shewing That some Persons or Actions are not comprehended under it As the ancient Heathens were not oblig'd by the Jewish Judicial or Ceremonial Law or the present Chinese by the Evangelical As Works of Religion and Mercy are not included under the Prohibition of working on the Sabbath But neither of these can take any place here For Man could not pretend to be exempted from a Law which was made and design'd for him and could not be sutable to any other Order of Beings Nor could any Actions be excepted out of it for then must all Actions be so for tho' particular Persons might only break the Law in some special parts and therefore only have need of having those Actions Privileg'd which were contrary to it yet Mankind in general would violate every Branch of it so that all Actions in gross must be put out of its reach which is the same with an Abrogation or Repeal But there was a different Method from all these A Method by which the Law might be retain'd in its Majesty as well as Integrity not one jot or tittle of it pass away and yet Man be freed from its Rigour This was if a third Person would interpose and undergo the Punishment due to the Offenders would satisfy the Divine Wrath and propitiate for Mankind For the Dignity or Honour as well as the Force of a Law is sufficiently preserv'd if either its Injunctions are kept or satisfactory Punishment inflicted But Who can stand before God when he is angry Or Who attone for the Sin of Mankind Which of all the Angels or Arch-Angels can sustain the Person of a Mediator and satisfy the Law which we have broke Which in the Language of the Holy Job might like a Daysman betwixt God and us lay his hand on us both For God is not a Man as we are that we should answer him and should come together in Judgment The most perfect of Created Beings would shrink under so vast a Burthen So that the Son of God himself must be deputed for so glorious a purpose He that comes from Edom with dyed Garments from Bozrah Wherefore is he red in his Apparel and his Garments like him that treadeth in the Wine-fat The reason is because He has trodden the Wine-press alone and of the people there was none with him And in this God commended his Love towards us that while we were yet Sinners Christ died for us That the chastisement of our peace was upon him and that with his stripes we were healed For as by his Life he fulfill'd every part of the Law did whatsoever it had enjoin'd and so perform'd our Righteousness so by substituting himself to bear the Punishment of our Transgressions by enduring what the Law had threatned he dissolv'd our Obligation to those Sufferings which were due to us according to the Order of the Divine Justice and pacify'd the Diety's Fury the Law being still retain'd in its original Majesty And both these as well the Innocence of his Life as the Meritoriousness of his Death were necessary for the Person who should attone for the Sins of Mankind For had not his Life been wholly made up of Obedience had there been one flaw one Transgression in it he could not have been that holy and unspotted Sacrifice for the Sins of the whole World All that he could have done would have been to have died for his own Offences if perhaps he could have wash'd out his Personal stains by his Blood But as to our Faults it must cost more to redeem them the Sacrifice which can expiate for them must have nobler Qualifications so that He must let that alone for ever The Innocence of his Life was therefore not only an accomplishing of the Law in our stead and a Rule for us to act by but was in a more peculiar manner a Qualification also to prepare him to suffer duly for our Sins Which Passion was the formal Act which took away our Transgressions On him they were laid and he paid the Price of them By this Act and under this Qualification did he propitiate for our sins Secondly The equitableness of which Propitiation by removing the Penalty from the Sinner to a Stipulator who engages himself to suffer for the Guilty is the next thing to be consider'd If there was any Injustice in this as Socinus pretends there is it must either consist in this That
Doom at last and was to be the common Event of all both of those who sacrificed and those who sacrificed not It being therefore thus reasonable That God should release Man's Punishment it is as reasonable That he should lay this Punishment on Christ For either the Punishment must be laid on Christ or on some other or be remitted without any Satisfaction But without Satisfaction whatsoever the Deist may fancy the Penalty could not be sutably remov'd for that God should pardon Sin without receiving any Satisfaction is first against his Nature and Being for He is of purer Eyes than to behold Evil and cannot look on Iniquity Against his Justice because as a just and righteous Governour of the World he may not suffer his Laws to be affronted without vindicating their Honour Against his Truth since in his first Covenant with Man he has inseparably combin'd Sin and Punishment In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Nor could the Punishment be laid on any other but Christ because none except one of the Persons of the ever-blessed Trinity could suffer Punishment sufficient to clear the Guilty For it was infinite Majesty which was injur'd and it must be satisfy'd by Majesty as infinite But it was not reasonable that the Father who i 〈…〉 the Oeconomy and Order of the Trinity is superiour to the Son and Holy Ghost should by this Humiliation be debas'd below them both It was not meet that the Holy Ghost should propitiate because he was to be sent by the Mediator in order to the applying of the Salvation which he should purchase So that whatsoever imaginary Models the School-men may raise of other Methods by which God might save the World yet there is none which agrees with Reason in all Points but the Propitiation which Christ wrought through his Sufferings The summ of all is That Christ is become our Propitiation not by Dying to bear witness to any saving or sanctifying Doctrin not by gaining a Right by his Death to forgive Sin not by giving us an Example by which we may have our Sins pardon'd not by any Encouragement his Death might yield us to an holy Life not by any of these single nor by all united but by Dying for our Sins and paying a Price tantamount to our Transgressions By clearing the Mulct which the breach of the Divine Law had contracted by an Act which at once secures Honour to the Law and Impunity to the Offenders Which Substitution of our Saviour to suffer for our Sins was shewn to be Just and Reasonable Just as having nothing in it which disagrees either with other methods of Divine Justice or with Human Proceedings Reasonable as being the only means by which God might shew his high value of his own Commands and yet his compassion for his Creatures and by one well-mixt Action display at the same time both his Justice and his Mercy A DISCOURSE Concerning MIRACLES HEB. Chap. II. ver 4. God also bearing them witness both with Signs and Wonders and with divers Miracles THE Apostle in the entrance of this Chapter informs us That Christ being a Prophet so much surpassing all before him and now advanc'd above the Angels to his Royal Office in Heaven whereby he is certainly able to perform what he foretold we ought in all reason to heed his Predictions and to make use of them as means to fortifie us when we are tempted to Sin or Apostacy For if the Law were given only by the Ministry of Angels and yet the Threats on the breaking of that did come to pass and all the Sins committed by the Israelites against it were severely chastis'd and the Transgressors not suffer'd to enter into the promis'd Land How shall we avoid equal Punishment if we do not by Constancy and Obedience make our selves capable of that Deliverance which Christ first at his being upon Earth and the Apostles which heard it from him assur'd us of and which God himself has testify'd by so many Prodigies and ominous Presages And by giving them who foretold 'em Power to work Miracles and other Abilities of the Spirit God also bearing them witness both with Signs and Wonders and with divers Miracles By Wonders in a strict sence are meant any extraordinary surprizing and new Operations whether springing from a divine Power or a natural By Miracles are understood Effects of a divine and infinite Power whether wrought privately or publickly on purpose to confirm any Doctrin or without any such design Thus our Saviour's Fast for fourty Days was a Miracle tho' it was not wrought for the confirmation of any Doctrin nor before any publick Assembly of Spectators A Sign is something more than a Wonder or a Miracle for it is wrought publickly by an infinite Power in confirmation of a Doctrin Thus our Saviour's changing Water into Wine is said to be the first of his Miracles of this kind that is the first of his Signs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as to pure Miracles he had acted several before as his Fast for fourty Days tho Descent of the Holy Ghost in a Bodily shape This is the distinction of the Schools tho' in common vld. Aquln 2. 2dae q. 178. art 1. ad 3. acceptation Signs and Miracles are taken in the same sence Under which Notion I shall consider them and shew First What a Miracle is Secondly I shall examine what Power is capable of working a Miracle Thirdly I shall enquire into some of those Marks by which we may distinguish a true Miracle from a false one Fourthly I shall prove That the Miracles wrought by Jesus Christ and his Apostles have all these Marks of a true Miracle Lastly I shall close all by briefly shewing That tho' Christianity was at first establish'd by Miracles yet that there is no reason that we should expect a continu'd succession of them to the present times First I shall shew what a Miracle is A Miracle is something that surpasses the Power of Men or of Nature wrought in savour of a Person who knows that this Miracle shall be thus transacted 'T is a Work that surpasses the Power of Men or of Nature for let an Effect be never so surprizing or extraordinary yet while it is within the force of second Causes it is no Miracle It must in strict speaking bear the lively Impression and sovereign Stamp of Divinity upon it so that we may without hazard of being deceiv'd boldly vouch that This is the Lord 's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes Which we may safely say when Diseases are cur'd by a Touch the tumultuous Seas calm'd by a Rebuke and the Dead rais'd by the Command of One who assum'd no more than the Form of a Man When the Unlearned speak Languages which they never learn'd When the Flames shall lose their destructive Nature and instead of consuming guard When a Hand rais'd up shall determine the Fate of Armies When the Lord shall hearken to the voice
to be worship'd under these Ideas is not God by Nature he is to be look'd on as a strange God How can we then ascribe these Attributes to your Jesus whom you deny to be God by Nature without laying out selves under the guilt of worshiping strange Gods If you reply That the Miracles perform'd by your Christ are Motives strong enough to justify his Worship and that the mighty Works which he did prove that he was cloath'd with such a Divinity as might deserve Honours more than human To this not we but our God himself shall answer that If there arise among you a Prophet and give you a sign or a wonder and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto you saying Let us go after other Gods and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet Such a Prophet as this we look on your Jesus to be his Miracles of this false nature because they tend to bring us off from the Worship of the true God to give part of it to him If a Jew should make such an Apology as this for the not worshiping and owning of our Saviour I cannot see what a Denier of his Essential Divinity could reply to it It seems to be exactly reason'd in every part and each Conclusion drawn from their own Principles Either they must wholly denie his Worship and so make him a Pure Man or if he is to be worship'd they must grant that he is God by Nature and Essence If I am God where is my Worship does not hold with greater force against the irreligious despisers of God's Service than the Reverse of it would do against our Adversaries If I am to be worship'd I am God The summ of all is That Christ or the Word Incarnate is God not because whatsoever appear'd in his Prophetick Function was full of Divinity not because he was born after a divine manner not because he was taught by God not because he was endued with Divine Innocence but on account of his Divine Nature and Subsistence which was prov'd because whatsoever is worship'd is God and that Christ is to be worship'd and secondly by reason of his Co-partnership with God the Father in Divine Actions such as are The Creation of the World the Inspiration of the Prophets the Exercising of Divine Power the Raising the Dead the last Judgment the Destruction of the World And in the Second General were shewn the ill Consequences which may be drawn from the contrary Position So that even the Being and Unity of a God are not clearer Articles of Natural Religion than the Divinity of Jesus Christ of the Reveal'd A DISCOURSE Concerning Our Saviour's SATISFACTION 1 Epist JOH Chap. II. ver 2. And He is the Propitiation for our Sins THE Apostle had in the former Chapter discover'd the inconsistency of a state of Sin with that of Perfection and that the pretences of reconciling fellowship with God with walking in darkness was the greatest aggravation that could heighten any Impiety That it was a making God a Liar and was a positive denial of Actions to be sinful which he had by the most express Laws and Sanctions declar'd and enacted such He then shews that the truest Test of and the securest Method to attain to a perfect State was to walk in the Light as God is in the Light to partake with Christ of his Graces and to resemble him in his Purity That this was the only sign of the real and unfeign'd Gnostick and that we might hence measure our Knowledge of God by our keeping his Commandments But that if we should fall into any Sin the way to remove it was not by saying that we have not sinn'd that either our Natures are so pure that they change every thing we do into acts of Piety or at least that God is willing out of his favour to us to overlook our Transgressions but that it was our Duty to confess our Offences to acknowledge our Danger and to flie to God for Pardon upon Repentance And then he comes to state the nature of Remission that it was nothing else but the applying of our Saviour's Satisfaction or Propitiation for Sin to the Penitent which Propiriation was sufficient in its nature and force to artone for Sin and in its extent and compass to reach to all the Crimes of Mankind For He is the Propitiation for our sins Propitiation is the reconciling of an offended Party to him who has injur'd him by performing some Act by which his displeasure may be remov'd And as it is spoken of our Saviour it intimates That he has done something so grateful to God that on consideration of this God is willing to take Man again into his favour to forgive him his Sins and to bestow those Blessings on him which were doe only to his Innocence By Sins are understood first Our inclinations and tendencies to Sin and then Our voluntary breaches of God's Laws in their utmost extent with all those Circumstances which may either heighten or lessen their guilt For Offences in this latitude and for Crimes in this compass is our Saviour a Propitiation From the words I shall shew That Christ is a true and complete Propitiation for Sin Where I shall enquire First How Christ is a Propitiation and then Secondly Into the Equity and Reasonableness of his being so First As to the manner of our Saviour's Propiriation That it was wrought by procuring our Sins to be forgiven is granted on all sides but after what manner our Sins were remov'd is variously disputed Which Contest being manag'd by the Followers of Socinus on one hand and by those who justly style themselves Orthodox on the other I shall in order to a due determining of this Matter prove first That Christ did not propitiate for nor remove Sin after any of those methods or ways which Socinus contends for nor that any of them can amount to a Propitiation and next I shall state the true Means by which he did really take our Sins away and propitiate for them First then Christ did not propitiate for Sin after any of those ways which Socinus contends for nor can any of them amount to a Propitiation He did not propitiate for Sin by barely laying down his Life to Socin p 165. passim confirm or bear witness to that Doctrin or Rule of Life by the observance of which Crellius against Grotius p. 4. c. Remission might be purchas'd nor by gaining or acquiring a Right and Power to forgive Sin with which he was not invested before nor by meerly leading a Life of Patience Obedience and Submission to the Will of God which should be a Pattern to all his Followers and by the imitation of which they should certainly procure Remission nor lastly was it the Death of Christ consider'd only as a strong and active perswasive to perform those Terms which are necessary to the taking away of Sin which
an innocent Person underwent a most barbarous poinant as well as shameful Death that One in whose Mouth was found no Guile was opprest was afflicted as well as despis'd and rejected of Men or else because he endur'd all this for our Sins But there is no Injustice in the former because it is plain from Scripture and Socinus himself owns That our Saviour after a Life of the most spotless Innocence had it taken away by the most cruel and ignominious Death a Death of Slaves and Malefactors And this not only by the Permission but even by the Ordinance and immediate Act of God for He was stricken smitten of God and afflicted and Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right Far be it from God that he should do Wickedness and that the Almighty should pervert Judgment So that the Enquiry will be this Whether it is consistent with Equity that the Holy JESVS the true and uniform Pattern of all Virtue should be thus severely punish'd as the Propitiator for us Sinners And that he should be so is neither irreconcilable with that positive Justice or Equity which God has reveal'd in his Word nor with that Natural Justice which may be drawn from the Reason of Mankind and the Practice and Usage of Nations and which Socinus so much insists on The derivation of Punishment from the Transgressor to the Innocent is not irreconcilable with the Divine Word For it is not irreconcilable with the Divine Word either that an Innocent should be punish'd for the Sins of the Guilty or that he should be in such manner punish'd that the Guilty may be freed from the Penalty due to Guilt First 'T is not irreconcilable with Scripture that the Innocent should be punish'd for the Sins of the Guilty For is not Canaan sentenc'd to be a Servant of Servants for the Unnaturalness of his Father Ham Are not seven Men of Saul's Sons hanged up to the Lord for his Treachery Are not seventy Thousand cut off for the Sin of David Which forc'd from him that Pathetical Exclamation worthy such a Prince Lo I have sinned and I have done wickedly but these Sheep what have they done Let thy hand I pray thee be against me and against my Father's house And in general tho' it is the Character of the Lord that He iâ— Merciful and Gracious Long-suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth yet do not the very next words inform us that He visits the Iniquities of the Father 's upon the Children and upon the Childrens Children unto the third and fourth Generation And does not the Prophet in the Lamentation personating Sion complain Our Fathers have sinned and are not and we have born their Iniquities Farther It is not irreconcilable with Scripture Justice that the Guilty may be freed from the Penalty which the Innocent have undergone or which is the same are to undergo To prove this I shall only produce one Instance that of Ahab who for his short and transient Repentance and which past away like the morning dew had the Judgment denounc'd against him executed on his Posterity Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days in his Sons days will I bring the evil on his house As Punishment by deputation is thus reconcilable with the sentiments God's Word gives us of Justice so is it equally so with the Practice or Usage of Nations First it is agreeable to thâ—se That one Man should lay down his Life for another's Crimes and next That the Guilty should gain Impunity by something which has been suffer'd for him First it is consistent with the Usage of Nations that one Man should lay down his Life for another's Crimes In the Affair of Pledges in War receiv'd by all Countries are not these sacrific'd to the Fury of their Enemies for the Perfidiousness of their Fellow-Citizens Do they not die for Violations of Faith which sometimes they could not so much as contrive or design as being Children never eexcute as being Prisoners Did the most human and compassionate of Princes ever think it any reflection on his Justice to take the Forfeiture Or could Justice be preserv'd in the World without such Examples When one Prince is notoriously injur'd by another did the injur'd ever esteem it unjust or barbarous to revenge himself on his Enemy's innocent Subjects to buâ—n ravage and destroy Cottages for the Affronts and Villanies of the Palace to kill or enslave the Peasant for the wicked Counsel of the Statesman When the Law of War iâ— broke between two Generals is not ho without regard to any antecedent Demerit always the most guilty who is first caught In the Decimation of mutinous Souldiers may not the fatal â—â—oâ— fall on the peaceable and harmless as well as on the stubborn and rebelliousâ— Or is there some secret Oracle in the Chances which infallibly guides them to the Offenders Or is it Injustice to punish the unfortunate Condemn'd how guiltless soever As it is thus consistent with the Use of Nations That one should suffer for another's Crimes so is it not less so That the Guilty should gain Impunity by something which has been suffer'd for him Thus in the instance of Sacrifices receiv'd into the Religion of all Nations whatsoever the matter of them was whether it was Thousand of Rams or whether they brought their first-born and offer'd the fruit of their Bodies for the sin of their Souls yet the intention of them both was to procure Impunity to the Sinner by laying the Punishment somewhere else And how useless soever the former might be or how cruel the latter yet both prove That it was the Sentiments of Mankind that freedom from Penalty might be purchas'd by a vicarious Infliction There was nothing therefore in our Saviour's Suffering which is inconsistent with the constant sence of Mankind in regard to the Expiation of Guilt Nor is there any thing in it unjust whether we examine it by the Rules of Justice display'd in the Word of God or by the Usage of Nations Nor farther is there any thing in it unreasonable which is now to be made out For it was reasonable that Christ should die for our Sins because first It is reasonable that God should release the Punishment due to our Sins and next That he should remit it by the method of punishing Christ in our stead That God should release our Punishment is reasonable whether we consider the Nature of God whose Goodness must strongly plead before the Throne of Grace for faln Man's Remission even before there was any other Advocate or whether we consider the Nature of that Service which God exacts from Man For God never obliges to Duty where he has put himself out of a possibility of requiting it But while Man's Sins were unforgiven while his obligation to Punishment remain'd it was not in the power of God to reward his Piety Since undistinguishing Misery was to be his