so to believe also in Him But now if without believing in Christ eternal life and happiness cannot be obtain'd and that be saving Faith which is fix'd on Him and if we be reasonably commanded to believe in him and yet true saving Faith cannot be fix'd in any but in God alone then it will follow that Christ must be God the true the Supreme God and it will follow too that it 's indispensibly necessary that all Men should know he is God that they may know in whom it is that they believe that he is the proper object of Divine Faith and able to answer all the expectations of Faith For otherwise as a proposition may in it self be true and yet I may be a lyer when I swear it is true because I know nothing of its being so So though Christ may be in himself the true God yet I am an Idolater for worshipping him as the true while I know not that he is indeed the true God And St. Paul acquits not the Athenians of Idolatry in consecrating an Altar to the unknown God tho' that God unknown to them was the same God whom he preach'd unto them Nor will that of the Apostle St. John be easily avoided where having before told us We know that the Son of God is come 1 John 5.20 and hath given us an understanding to know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in Jesus Christ he subjoyns This is the true God and Eternal Life These words if we interpret them as they lie and they seem to have no figure or Hyperbole or foreign relation in them may pass for a very plain Text to prove that it concerns no less than our Eternal Salvation to know that Jesus Christ is the true God and this Interpretation gives the clearer reason and stronger Emphasis to his following rule v. 21. Little Children keep your selves from Idols If then our Lord's design was to procure Man's everlasting Salvation a right and certain knowledge of that on which Eternal Life depends cannot be impertinent to our Lord's design And if to worship God according to his declared Will be the purpose of every one that embraces Christianity exclusively of all other Religions he that thinks it necessary in his worship to distinguish between these respects due to a meer Creature and those Honours belonging to the Creator cannot miss his purpose or lose his labour and He who by solid proofs drawn from clear and pertinent places of Scripture makes his Faith in this particular rational cannot easily incur any extraordinary danger though without so doing he may incur a fatal hazard and thus we come to a direct discourse on that Particular where these things will be more fully considered Having concluded the first words of this Verse Without Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness to signifie to us the concurrence of the Christian Faith with the Worlds general vogue in relation to Religion and that Mysteries great and obscure are very necessary to the perpetuation of that Faith and rend'ring it venerable among conceited and presuming disputants it cannot be unuseful to discourse on the first instance the Apostle makes use of to illustrate the Mystery of Godliness or of the Christian Faith viz. God's manifesting himself in the flesh or appearing and showing himself to humane eyes cloth'd in humane nature for though God manifests himself a thousand several ways in his works of Creation and Providence where his Truth Justice Mercy Power Wisdom c. are notoriously evident to diligent observers yet all these manifestations of himself are at a distance and such as though they give us a very fair Idea of divine Goodness as in himself yet conduce little to Humane happiness while Men reflect upon themselves as miserably degenerate from that original excellency they were created in and as such who have extremely abus'd all those evidences of God's power and influence upon the World which have been given for restraining them within due bounds and making them submissive to a superiour Law such reflections teach Men to look upon themselves as in a ruinous state fit subjects for eternal displeasure and of themselves wholly incapable of satisfying divine justice or retrieving forfeited happiness and upon God onely as a severe Judge and powerful revenger of whom they could onely conclude that he would vindicate his own honour upon those that injured it and punish those to extremity who had not duly improved those overtures of himself which he had made in his visible works What Man in such a case might wish for is easie enough to conjecture He that 's falling down a precipice would bless the Hand that would save him from death and he that 's going immediately to execution would be overjoy'd to hear of a pardon so would almost despairing wretched sinful Man do wish for some proportionable power to interpose between himself and vengeance But such a power onely could be in God and yet so great a benefit could be procur'd for Man onely by such an adequate satisfaction to God's anger as could be given by a Man Here Humane conceptions were entirely at a loss the universal imperfection of their nature they plainly understood and so the impossibility of meer humane satisfaction they easily found it was no created being it was no mere man though strengthened by Divine assistance nay it was none of those pure and happy Spirits who attend on celestial Ministrations that could stem that prodigious tide of immense wrath therefore God himself must interpose but how Infinity should be confin'd how He who grasp'd the Universe in his hand should stoop from Heaven for the sake of those who had affronted his goodness before how He should condescend to assume Humanity the necessary Medium of peace were Mysteries too great for Man to fathom and Hopes too large for guilty souls to please themselves with but what was so very obscure to Man was plain and easie to the Almighty and when the time of his redeem'd was come when he look'd and there was none to help Isay 63.4 5. and wondred that there was none to uphold then his own arm brought salvation to the World It was then in that absolute fulness of time when sins and miseries and anger were at the height and all things seem'd inevitably running to eternal destruction that God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law from those burdens and that death to which they were enslav'd to stop the fatal final sentence then ready to be past God himself was so made manifest in the flesh In relation to which great action we shall assert That Jesus Christ the Messias appearing in our Humane nature or cloth'd with flesh and blood was really the Son of God That the same blessed Jesus was God equal with his Father or really and truly God as well as real Man That it was necessary that
both at the same time opened him that entrance into Heaven but there as our great and never-dying High-priest he makes Intercession for us to his Father he presents to his Father's view those mighty Sufferings he had undergone on our Account which serving as a Memorial of that eternal Determination of the Deity for Man's Redemption has the same and greater Efficacy on our behalf than a Plea from divine Truth and Justice it self he being invested with that Almighty Power of bestowing those Blessings he has purchas'd for us and the Demonstrations of his Merits his Will and his Goodness being all one Act. It 's true the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us Heb. 9.7 that the High-priest went not into the Holy place without Blood which he offered for himself and for the Errors of the people but how that was we have explained before since that Blood was made use of for purifying even the Holiest Place render'd impure by the Sins of the High-priest himself and by the Errors of the People Perhaps it would not be amiss to take some notice of those different Expiations of Sins in the Old and in the New Testament which the Socinians in their discourses concerning Christ's Priesthood tell us of i. e. That Legal Sacrifices were only appointed for such Crimes as were committed by Imprudence or Infirmity greater Offenders not being directed to make use of any but were doom'd to die for their Crimes whereas as they say the greatest of Sins provided Men persevere not in them but are truly penitent are expiated by the Sacrifice of Christ and this they prove from that of St. Paul Be it known unto you Act. 13.38 39. that through Christ is preach'd unto you the forgiveness of Sins and by him all that believe are justify'd from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses But here we are to consider that the Political as well as the Religious Laws of the Israelites being given at one time by Almighty God they are so blended together and made Dependents on one another that where an ordinary Sacrifice could not there the Death of the Offender himself might satisfie for the Crime committed A Sacrifice offer'd though by its Institution it were expiatory yet if the Sinner however ignorant or weak persisted in his Sin or approach'd the Altar of God without true Humility and Repentance for the Sin committed his Sin could not be pardoned on account of the Sacrifice offer'd but if such a Sinner did truly repent and amend his Errors his Offering was then accepted and not only temporary but eternal Judgments diverted from him for such Sacrifices typified the Sacrifice of Christ which was powerful to save us from both Worldly Punishments and the Damnation of Hell and as we have before observed the Virtue of those Sacrifices consisted wholly in that relation the Types had to their Antitype Now where the Jewish political Laws reach'd the Life of the Delinquent and took his Blood there it would have been an Impertinence to offer the Blood of other Creatures for him but it follows not but that the same Conditions of hearty Repentance and true Resolutions of amendment might procure the Offender's pardon from God though he suffered under the Rigour of the Sanguinary Laws and the daily Sacrifices were of some import with respect to such Criminals and the Blood of Christ though to be shed afterwards was available to the Salvation of such so a Terrour was struck upon Others by the Delinquent's outward Sufferings and Encouragement was given to the greatest Sinners to repent by the reasonable Hopes of their being pardoned by Heaven who yet were to suffer upon Earth And so we find among Christians in Christian Governments the Laws take notice of and animadvert upon notorious Sins some are punished by lighter Penalties some by Death it self yet the Prayers and Intercessions of the Church offer'd to God in the name of Christ may be and frequently are effectual to the Eternal Salvation of such Persons so justly suffering for their Crimes but for the Text alledged the Import of it is this That by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ we are really and effectually freed from all Sins whereas the Ceremonies of the Law had no such intrinsic purging Power of themselves all their Validity depending wholly and onely on their Relation to this All sufficient Sacrifice of the Son of God But we are taught by these Innovators that this Sacrifice was not compleat till our Saviour enter'd Heaven Cat. Raco §. 7. p. 173. nor he possest of his High-Priesthood till that time yet at the same time they own Christ was a Priest when hanging on the Cross if he were a Priest he must be our High-priest for we meet with no Gradations in that Office of his in Scripture nor that by executing the Office of an inferiour Priest very well he purchas'd a title to an higher Dignity If he were an High-priest he was compleatly so else he was and he was not the High-priest at the same time but the Socinian Error in this matter lies in not distinguishing rightly of the Priests Offices the Apostle teaches us Heb. 5.1 2. That an High-priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God Now things pertaining to God are not only external Gifts and Sacrifices but those that are internal and Spritual too such as are Prayers and Supplications with respect to which it 's necessary an High-priest should have compassion on the Ignorant and on them who are out of the way for that he himself also is compassed with Infirmities a Sense of his own Wants is apt in any Man to raise a sympathizing Tenderness for others so that when he begs of God Pardon for his own Sins he may at the same time implore Divine Mercy for the Sins of others now the High-priest is compleatly such in doing both or either of these so upon the Cross our Saviour was our High-priest and his external expiatory Sacrifice was compleatly offered in Heaven interceding for us with his Father he there presents that Sacrifice shadow'd to us by what we commonly understand to be the meaning of Prayers and Supplications i. e. Christ in Heaven intercedes as powerfully and effectually for us as if he really did pray and supplicate as present on our behalf but that he should literally do so is unnecessary and not to be understood by his Intercession for us for he 's an Intercessor not only who prays and supplicates immediately for another or on his behalf but He 's one who by some extraordinary Action pleasing to him with whom he intercedes purchases a Power of doing that thing or shewing that Kindness to his Friends at all times by himself which without that purchace he must make continual and repeated Intreaties for such a Power has our Lord purchased for himself by offering himself a Satisfaction for the World's Sins in his Sufferings compleated
tho' it were an inward grace a strengthning of the Soul which they requir'd of him Again when the Disciples were with him on ship-board and during his quiet sleep just sinking by the violence of an angry tempest they in a fright wake their Master and cry out to him Lord save us we perish Mat. 8.25 If our Saviour was a meer Man the Disciples acted with much less sence than Jonah's Mariners who every one in the storm called upon their Gods for help and summoned sleeping Jonas not to save them by His Power but to joyn with them in calling upon his God For was it ever heard before that when a Ship was just sinking or running upon a rock the ship's Crew ran to some poor ignorant Passenger to beg their security from him The Mariners tho' convinced that he was an extraordinary Person made no such application to Saint Paul in a parallel danger it 's God alone who can command the Seas and Winds his permissive Word makes them ruffle the Universe and put Nature into a Consternation the same Word lays them still as in their first Originals ere uncorrupted Nature knew any thing terrible or dangerous In the case before us our Saviour answered them not as that King of Israel did the Woman If the Lord help thee not what can I do But He arose and rebuked the Winds and the Sea and there was a great calm Nature in its greatest hurry own'd his Divine Authority only his Disciples stumbled upon the Question ver 27. What manner of Man is this that even the Winds and the Sea obey him They talked like Men beside themselves with Fear they called upon him for Help as if they had believed him to be God they reflected upon that Deliverance he had given them as if he had been no more than Man but he takes no notice of any error they were in in their first Devotions but by his Mercy encouraged them to do the same again upon a like occasion What the Disciples did here in a storm at Sea that Saint Stephen the first Martyr for Christianity did in a more violent storm of Persecution on Land for when he came to his last Agonies when it was the proper season for a good Man to exert the utmost vigor of his Faith and Charity then for himself and with respect to his own Soul he prays Acts 7.59 Lord Jesus receive my Spirit The frequent expiring Ejaculation of Holy Saints and Martyrs after him Compare now this with that assertion of the wise Man concerning Death Eccles. 12 7. Then shall the Dust return to Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it and the consequence will be either that our Lord Jesus Christ was the great Author or Creator and Giver of the Rational Soul or else that this Holy Martyr then when filled in an extraordinary manner with the Holy Ghost in his extreme hours when commonly Mens apprehensions of futurity are most Clear and Rational talk'd in a very Impertinent and sinful manner to devote his Soul to him who could have no right to it if he were a meer Creature and to forget his God Franciscus Davidis would have us believe here that Stephen did not call upon Jesus Christ but upon God the Father and that we should translate the expression O thou Lord of Jesus receive my Spirit but this Socinus has strongly confuted tho' upon their common Principle of our Saviour's being a meer Creature Franciscus undertakes the much more rational part However here his subterfuge is nothing worth It was Jesus the Son of God He who bore that proper name of Jesus from his Circumcision for whose sake Stephen was now persecuted to Death by the malicious Jews it was the same Jesus whom he saw at the right hand of God when the Heavens opened to give him such a view of future Glory prepared for Martyrs as might support and encourage him under his sufferings it was to him therefore that Stephen applyed himself and sitted himself for a glorious and happy Exit by that admirable Resignation But neither did Saint Stephen stop there but as the utmost effort of a dying Martyr's Charity He adds this to his former ejaculation ver 60. Lord lay not this sin to their charge He certainly designed exemplary Charity in this and to imitate his dying Saviour who prayed his Father to forgive his Murderers for they knew not what they did But the Martyr's enemies would have had little reason to have admir'd his Charity had he presented his Prayers for them to one who had no power to forgive them and the Jews would be as ready now to make the Objection as heretofore Who can forgive sins but God only And if God to whom vengeance belongeth in whose sight the Death of his Saints is precious would certainly avenge the blood of his Saints and Martyrs upon their Persecutors to what purpose was it to pray to him to forgive them who not being the most high God himself could have no Power to forgive those who had sin'd against the most high God so as to give them any security but above all He could never have hoped for any acceptance at the hand of God in any Petition whatsoever had he now in his last extremity been guilty of Idolatry Saint Paul had been made partaker of extraordinary Revelations had been snatch'd up into the third heavens where he had seen and heard things not lawful for a Man to utter 2 Cor. 1â— 7 8 9. indeed things unspeakable lest He should have been exalted above measure thro' the abundance of those Revelations there was given to him a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet him This was a very severe humiliation and Saint Paul was sensible of it and at first as appears by the Text very uneasie under it Saint Paul knew well enough that the best remedy for all calamities was Prayer that Prayers presented to the true God with a sincere heart could not return unfruitful but Saint Paul presently applyes himself to Christ For this cause I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me says he and He said unto me my Grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness By the Lord here the Socinians themselves understand our Lord Jesus and therefore alledge this Text as a proof of Pious Mens praying to Christ Now had Saint Paul prayed to Christ for Assistance and Relief in such a case where only the Supreme God could really help him if that Christ were a meer Creature then such a Prayer must be Idolatrous and such Service be called Idolatry wherein the Creature was rather worshipped than the Creator and Christ a Creature must as Lucifer of old have endeavoured to set himself up for a rival God and prosecute a separate Interest of his own and manage and assist his servants in a way of opposition to the most high God and
guilty of and which there stood upon record against them to their perpetual Reproach and Shame that they should be infinitely nice in preserving the Copies of their Law pure and uncorrupt tho' it contained so many Prophecies and Threatnings against them and the accounts of so many Terrible Judgments executed against them for their Stubbornness Disobedience and Incorrigibility and that after all they should expose their lives to Tortures and to Death it self for the sake of these very Laws rather than by any force be drawn to renounce or to trespass upon an ordinary Ceremony of them we must have a very mean opinion of the Jews if we can believe they would do and suffer all these things for the sake of such a Law whose Original they really were unacquainted with or they could be persuaded to assert its coming in an extraordinary manner from the hand of God himself when there were so many in all parts of the World who because they would not admit of it were engaged by their proper Interests and for their own credit to ruine its reputation if they were not able to prove beyond contradiction that their Law had its Original from God himself Now since so little has appear'd against the Divine Original of the Jewish Law in any age and that little has been so very easily baffled we can the less wonder that the scatter'd Posterity of the Jews to this day should be so hardly persuaded to quit that Law Since they have unanswerable Reasons to believe that as it did proceed immediately from God so it could be abrogated by none but the same God therefore those who go about to persuade the World that Jesus Christ the Messiah was not God but a meer Man and so confirm their old Prejudices taken up against our Saviour during his converse upon earth such lay a desperate stumbling-Block in the way of the Conversion of those miserable People for our great Interest is against them to prove that Jesus Christ was God for that being granted they 'll easily yield that He was the Messias and that he lawfully might abrogate the Law of Moses in part or in the whole as He himself thought good When we speak thus of the Abrogation of the Mosaic Law it 's to be observ'd that part of what 's comprised in the Books of Moses is the Law of Nature so not His by any peculiar Title and therefore though in his Books not repealable some part of his Laws were Political which since the Fall of the Jewish State and their penal Dispersion are impracticable and consequently antiquated of themselves those Laws therefore which we at this time more particularly respect are those called Ceremonial Laws appropriated wholly to the Jewish Nation in distinction from all others and made Authentic by the Authoritative Sanction of God himself this was that Law which as it had a particular respect unto the Coming of the Messias being full of Types and Shadows representing what He was to do and suffer so it could rationally be no more than Temporal and expire of course at such time as the Messias the Anti-type should appear in the World and since the Messias when come would be able to effect all those things for Men which those Types and Shadows did but point at the Jews themselves could not but be glad to have that Burthen removed which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear when that promised Messias was really come therefore we see that all that Fondness the Jews at present express towards their Ceremonial Law arises only from their mis-perswasion that the Messias really is not yet come But if the Ceremonial Law were really given to the Jews by God himself and yet was to be abrogated at last there must certainly appear some reasons for that Abrogation beside the meer Authority of the Repealer sufficient to justifie the Repeal it self and such are The general Import just mentioned they were Types and Shadows only they could be no more in their own Natures nor was it necessary they should be more they were Figures for the time then present Heb. 9.9 10. wherein were offered both Gifts and Sacrifices and wherein was much sollitude about meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances were then imposed upon the Jews until the time of reformation says the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews that those Sacrifices offer'd under the Law were but Vanity in their own Nature the Jews have been sensible themselves so in their Midrasch Koheleth or Gloss on Ecclesiastes on that passage Eccles 2.1 I said in my heart go to now I will prove thee with mirth therefore enjoy pleasure and behold this also is vanity they comment thus Enjoy pleasure or good i. e. the good of the Law and behold even that is Vanity sure the Scripture ought to have said behold that is pleasure or good what then is the Preacher's meaning to say behold that also is Vanity Rabbi Hezekiah said All that Law which thou learnest in this age is but Vanity Ragmundi Martini Pugio fidei pars 3. distinct 3. c. 11. §. 12. in competition with the Law of the Ages to come by the Law of the Ages to come they mean the Law of the Messias for so they explain it in their Comment on chap. 11. v. 8. where they positively say All that Law which a Man learns in this age or at the present is Vanity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in comparison with or in presence of the Law of the Messias and they had reason for their Opinion for tho' the Ceremonial appendages of the Law had respect principally to the service of God yet they were all external such as could not possibly affect the Soul yet the Jews themselves conclude the Soul the principal part concerned in their worship of God in the Midrash Tehillim on that of the Psalmist Ps 51.17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Now if we reflect on the nature of their Sacrifices offer'd to God by Fire they were expiatory the blood of those Sacrifices was shed and sprinkled for the atoneing Heaven for the Sins of the Offerers but as the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews asserts The Law can never with those Sacrifices Heb. 10.1.4 Numb 19. offered year by year continually make the commers to them perfect and that it is not possible that the blood of Bulls or of Goats should take away sin The Water of Separation prepared with the Ashes of a Red Heifer was to purifie the Vnclean but it could only purifie them outwardly no inward Pollution could be removed by a sprinkling with it therefore David in a state of extraordinary inward guilt begs of God Create in me a clean heart O God Psal 51.10 and renew a right spirit within me and elsewhere he declares I will wash my hands in innocency and so will I compass
Dispensation of his Word and Sacraments that he is that great and glorious King in perpetual Obedience to whose Commands we are oblig'd to live and without Obedience to whose Commands perform'd according to our ability we certainly merit Eternal Punishment and this power over us as a Prophet and a King we doubt not took its Original from that Sacrifice he offer'd for our Sins in the fulness of time but on account of the certainty of which Rev. 13.8 he was effectually that Lamb slain from the beginning of the World Well then our Saviour in his Suffering paid a sufficient Price to satisfie for the Sins of all Mankind to atone God's anger against them as Sinners and to prevent their eternal Damnation but these Advantages accrueing from his Priesthood and his Sacrifice can only be participated in by those who submit to his Instruction and his Government he purchas'd that Interest in us at a dear rate and the Connexion between the one and the other is indissoluble He therefore that would reap any Benefit from the Sufferings of our Saviour must obey his Directions submit to his Laws do his Will he who acts so must certainly be very perfect in all Religious Duties therefore those who are eternally saved by Christ's Death must as far as possible be perfect in all Religious Duties therefore the true genuine Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction must infer a necessity of Practical Holiness not destroy it thus we see when God appointed the brazen Serpent to be set up in the Wilderness for the relief of those who were bitten by fiery Serpents that brassy Representation had a power sufficient annex'd to it to heal all that were hurt but if any bitten Israelite out of an obstinate humour would not have cast his eyes upon the brazen Serpent though the Serpent had been just over his head he would have dy'd by the Wound because the Condition on which alone the Cure was to be had was annex'd to the appointment of that Serpent viz. that the wounded Person should look up to it Or let us take our view of the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction from another place then we shall find Faith as an originally necessary Condi ion of receiving any Benefit by it and Faith to be true must as necessarily work by Love for if I am cast into Prison as a Debtor and another out of pity to my deplorable state go and discharge all my Debts and receive an entire acquittance of all such Debts for me and in my name this is Love and Kindness and sufficient in the case in the Judgment of all Rational Men but if after all this done and the Acquittance shew'd me and attested I 'll not believe one word of all the matter and to prove I do not believe will continue a Prisoner still though always complaining of the sadness of my own Condition my Friend did enough for me but what am I the better my Incredulity makes my state and condition still as sensibly lamentable as before so whereas by Adam's Transgression all Men are brought into a state of Guilt and all stand as Prisoners under the hand of God justly incens'd against us and are such Debtors to his Justice as unless that Debt be discharg'd by or for us we must be eternally miserable Our blessed Saviour assured of our Insolvency has by himself satisfi'd his Father's Anger he has discharg'd that Debt we stand engaged in to Heaven his whole Gospel is a sufficient Evidence of what he has done for us in it we are acquitted by God the Father from those Punishments we were liable to for the sake of his Son and the truth of that Gospel has through all Ages been sufficiently attested to the World but if after all this we all turn Socinians if we will not believe that our Saviour has really extended any such Goodness towards us and to prove that we do not believe it we slight all those Rules of Holy Living which are given us and resolve with the rebellious Citizens in the Gospel that we will not have this Man to reign over us that we will not submit to his Laws nor acknowledge his Soveraignty his Satisfaction is ineffectual to us and though we groan under never so deep a sense of our natural Misery we can reap no good from that we must therefore believe in our Saviour we must believe him able willing and really to have satisfied his Father for our Debt we must believe that by virtue of that Satisfaction so made He 's able to save to the uttermost all those that come to God in and by him We must believe he 's really able to Teach us and that he certainly has a Right to Command us and when we sincerely believe all these things and that as it was one great end of our Lord's offering himself for us to free us from the Punishment so it was another to free us from the Slavery of Sin so that we should not obey it in the Lusts thereof it will be impossible that we should indulge our selves in Sin nay we cannot confirm the Truth of our profest Faith or make it credible to the World that we really Believe what we pretend to do unless we endeavour as he that has called us is holy so to be our selves holy in all manner of conversation Let those then who talk so freely of the Doctrine of our Lord's Satisfaction who would persuade us that it 's so irrational and pernicious to believe any such thing find out any Arguments from their own Scheme of Doctrine which may serve to enforce Practical Holiness more vigorously than what we have delivered if they can Will They tell us we are oblig'd to it out of pure Gratitude to Heaven bcause God is pleased to forgive us our Sins past freely and to confirm that free Pardon to us by the Death of his Son as if he meerly dy'd a kind of Martyr for that Truth which they make almost the sole end of all our Saviour's Sufferings Gratitude it 's true may operate powerfully upon a generous Soul but the most generous of all would be willing to understand the nature of that Obligation they have to be so grateful and the reasons of it We are then obliged by God's free pardoning of our Sins how do we know he has done so By the Testimony of Scripture that Word of God which is sufficient to instruct us to Eternal Life Well we own Scripture does inform us That our Sins are freely pardoned by God and we should build very confidently on that evidence did not those we have to do with teach us a great deal of Diffidence and show us that such Passages of Scripture are capable of very different Interpretations and that when we think we have a very clear proof of this or another Particular when we come to scan things accurately by our own Reason we find we have none at all for the same Scripture which tells us we are freely pardoned
Righteousness that he might be just and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus the last Verse teaches us that Care taken to vindicate Divine Justice in the World's Eye by the Death of Christ which could scarce have been done had not Christ laid down his Life for us and in our room so satisfying the Justice of his Father and so the Justice of accepting as righteous every Believer in Christ is apparent too for if he have paid an entire Satisfaction a full Redemption-Price to his Father for our Sins on that Condition that those who believe on him should be Partakers of the Advantages flowing from thence God then could not be just should he refuse to justifie such Believers so that God's Justice is as deeply concerned in the Pardon of Believers as in the Punishment of Infidels Again St. Paul tells the Elders at Miletum Acts 20.28 that God had made them Overseers of that Church which he had redeemed with his own most precious Blood Now whereas God is said to have redeem'd his People Israel from their Aegyptian Bondage that Redemption being really effected by Jesus Christ who was that great and powerful Agent in that mighty Work what was done for Israel then was but the pre-signification of what he intended in due time for all Mankind so that he is called their Redeemer especially with respect to that future Design though the rescue of them from the Power of their Enemies be a Metaphorical Redemption and applicable in such a figurative sense to all those who even by an unjust Violence set open the Prison-doors and make a way for the escape of the most notorious Criminals Again Acts 7.35 it 's true Moses is stiled a Redeemer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a Leader to Israel God making use of him as his Instrument to execute Vengeance upon rebellious Aegypt and to lead out Israel from thence with a mighty Hand and a stretched out Arm but we no where find that the Israelites were redeem'd by the Blood of Moses from their Slavery We find not that the Sins of the Israelites were forgiven on account of that deliverance God indeed sometimes heard the Intercessions of Moses for those ingrateful Wanderers and for his own Name 's sake was pleased to pass by their Offences and to glorifie his own Name in that constant protection he afforded them among their observing Enemies but the deliverance it self was no cause of God's remitting the Punishment due to their Trespasses nay their Ingratitude for that Mercy was a frequent reason of their Sufferings and amongst the rest of the total Destruction of that Generation of People who came out of Aegypt it 's further observable that that God who convers'd with Israel in their passage to Canaan calls them his Son his First-born and threatens Pharaoh that if he would not let them go He would destroy his Son his First-born Exod. 4.22 besides He required the Sanctification of the First-born of all Israel to himself which requiry of his obey'd together with the exact execution of his former Menace was a kind of Redemption-Price accepted by God on account of which he gave them deliverance from their Enemies Nor was the Blood of the Paschal Lamb insignificant in the case that Blood prefiguring the Blood of the Lamb of God which did really atone for the Sins of the World Upon the whole howsoever we may allow others besides our Saviour to be called Redeemers yet so long as there is no Parallelism between the Circumstances of those Redemptions they have wrought and the Circumstances of Christ's we must of necessity conclude that Scripture means a great deal more by naming Christ a Redeemer than by giving Moses or any other eminent Person the same Character that Name is figurative as applied to all others it is proper as applied to Christ we may illustrate the Case by such an Instance as this A Soveraign Prince blest with One onely and infinitely beloved Son having in his power a Capital Offender against his Laws in concert with that Son determines that such Punishment as is proportionable to his Crimes ought to be inflicted on him yet pitying the Weakness and deplorable Condition of the Criminal and designing to make his Clemency towards the Offender evident He in concert with his own Son orders it to be proclaim'd every where that if any Person not obnoxious to the same Punishment by reason of personal Guilt loves the Condemn'd so well as to offer himself freely to undergo proportionable Penalties to what the Law would have inflicted upon him the Criminal acknowledging the Kindness offer'd and his mighty engagements to his Deliverer shall be free this Condition once propos'd the Prince's Son lays hold on the Opportunity to express his Love to the Offender offers himself to die for him and since the Law requires it and must be satisfi'd really does so the Prince according to his Proclamation accepts of his Son 's vicarious Punishment the Law and Justice have their Course and the grateful Criminal obtains his Freedom thus are Believing Sinners redeemed from that Punishment they are obnoxious to with respect to infinite Justice The Socinians tell us indeed That Christ's Obedience to his Father even to Death was no more than was due on his own account and that though it was perfect and blameless yet he received Rewards for it infinitely beyond what he could merit by such Obedience This is to put our Saviour into the State and Condition of the common World for all those Glories promis'd to repenting Sinners are infinitely greater than they by any personal merit can pretend to but it seems very unreasonable that he should take upon him as a Mediator between God and man or that his Name should be so powerfully influential for the advantage of others who had just cause to be wholly employ'd in expressions of Gratitude for his Father's Kindness to himself or to be wholly ecstasi'd with Admirations of that unbounded Goodness which had confer'd such mighty Blessings on him beyond his deserts this we rationally suppose will be the Employ of beatified Souls and ought to be Christ's too upon the Socinian Hypothesis we own Christ's Obedience as he was Man to his Father's Will to have been most perfect and absolute his Original Divine Nature never knew any thing of dissent with his Eternal Father therefore that Humane Nature he assum'd could not be liable to Disobedience 2 Cor. 5.21 It 's observed of him that He knew no sin he neither had nor could have so much as a deprav'd Inclination he had no strugglings within himself between the Law of his Members and the Law of his Mind which yet he could not have been without had he been a meer Man a Partaker of Flesh and Blood at the same rate as the rest of Mankind were but the Deity assuming Humanity and so being naturally incapable of Sin we are not wont to assign Merit to his Life and Conversation any