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
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
also this is the Voice of Truth And then as we shewed before that all the good Things that we do or can enjoy did proceed purely and meerly from God's Good-will so I do now add that our Sins do naturally turn that Good-will into Displeasure and then the Good-will ceasing all those Emanations that flowed from it must in course cease also And then because where they cease there the Sinner's Punishment does begin therefore we may now from the Whole begin to perceive that the Punishment of Sin is not so arbitrarious a thing as it is usually taken to be but that it does when traced to the beginning depend upon the same Necessity by which God loves himself For if we sum up all our Discourse upon this Head from the beginning we shall understand That God loves himself That he is in his own Nature Holy That therefore he hates whatsoever is contrary to such his Nature That all Sin therefore is so because it is contrary to his Holiness That the Effects of his Hatred must be contrary to those of his Love or at the very best That the Emanations of his Love must then be stopped when that Love is turned into Hatred and Displeasure That when his Creatures lose those Emanations then their Misery begins That all those Creatures must needs lose them that lose that Love from whence alone they do proceed and That they lose that Love by their Sins because as we said before Sin and Sin alone does turn it into Hatred and Displeasure So that if we may be allowd so to speak in Morality there is an essential Relation between Sin and Punishment and the Necessity of Punishment when narrowly scann'd is founded upon the eternal and immutable Laws of Truth Holiness and Justice But before we leave this Head I would if that be possible make all a little plainer by an Instance And that Instance shall be in that Punishment which the first Sin brought upon the whole Race of Mankind And I do the rather take my Instance there because the Law was given and broken and so the Penalty both threatned and incurred when there was no Saviour to remit the rigorous but just Execution of such Penalty Now we are assured by the Reason of the Thing it-self as we have already discoursed But if that will not do we are assured by God's Word by his Promise by his Oath that he neither wills nor delights in the death of a Sinner And when he swears so to us it would be both proper and modest in us to believe that there is something in Sin which does oblige God in Justice and that is the same thing with God as to be obliged by Necessity to punish it with Death And to this purpose we may take notice that it is derogatory to God's Honour for us to resolve any Punishment which we suffer into God's Will only and not into his Justice Because as we shall presently perceive when God wills the Death of a Sinner he therefore only wills it because Justice does require it and that in the Nature of the Thing antecedently to such his Will For if the Death of a Man should be therefore just only because God wills it tho' the Man do not deserve it then it may be all one as to the Event and that justly too whether a Man were perfectly innocent or the most profligate Miscreant upon the Face of the Earth For according to that Doctrine which we now oppose God might in such a Case justly will the Death of the Innocent and save the Criminal alive For if the ultimate Resolution of the Justice of our Death be only into the Will of God then nothing can hinder but that God may justly slay a perfect Innocent And so when God told Adam that in the day of his Transgression he should surely die the Meaning of his Threat must have been that he might have died whether he had transgressed or not But because we cannot without Blasphemy tax God's Law of such notorious Prevarication therefore we must determine that the ultimate Resolution of Adam's Punishment in such Case must be into the Desert of such Punishment by the Breach of the Law and that God's willing his Death was a just Consequent of such his Desert In short God wills such things only which he can will justly and he who will rationally and truly account for the Proceedings of God in that and such like Cases must have a care to do it so as to maintain the Harmony of all his Attributes He must not magnifie his Power no nor his Mercy so as to impeach his Truth Wisdom and Justice For he who confounds the Events of Innocence and Guilt will be found when his Opinion comes narrowly to be scanned to make God either a Favourer of Sin or an Enemy of Righteousness The Sum of all is That when God tells us that Death is the Wages of Sin he does not therefore pass it into a Law because it pleases him so to do but because it is just in it-self that he should do so And that if it had not been just in it-self he had not upon that single Account willed it at all So that upon the whole it does remain a fixed and setled Truth That Death is the Wages of Sin by the eternal and immutable Laws of Iustice and that it cannot be otherwise so long as God loves himself and so hates whatsoever is contrary to himself and to his Nature as all Sin most undoubtedly is And therefore when any Man sins against God as by so doing he does of necessity forfeit God's Favour so also by consequence he does by necessity forfeit his own Life which has nothing else to depend upon but that Favour alone And as a Temporal Death upon Sin is necessary because both threatned and incurred before the Promise of a Saviour so after the Saviour has laid down his Mediatorial Office an Eternal Death will be found to be so too I word it so lest my Caution before this Head should by this time be forgot Now if it be not an Eternal Law of Justice that Punishment is the necessary Reward of Sin then it may be all one as to the Event and that justly and finally too whether a Man depart this Life the best or the worst Man in the whole World For if there be not some Law of Justice that shall at the last Day distinguish the Event of their contrary Courses then nothing can And if that Justice be not necessary let the Means by which it is not so be what they will the Difference between their Condition can be but casual or at the very best but arbitrary and so we must leave them both to a grand Perhaps which will be in effect to destroy all Religion and Justice There is one thing against this Discourse of weight and moment which tho' I shall professedly answer in another Place yet shall not go unmentioned here And that is That
and his Law he would be unwise also And therefore 6. Lastly The last Judgment and that Description that we meet with of it in Gods Word do fully assure us that he has no such Designs in his Counsels as to throw away his Laws to gratifie his Enemies with Impunity From all which Reasons and as we do believe from each of them in particular it seems satisfactorily evident that a Gospel-Pardon of Sin is no absolute Pardon And that therefore when God does in the Gospel promise Pardon of Sin there must be some previous Conditions that must be observed in order to such a Pardon And what Share our Saviour has in the Performance and Accomplishment of such Conditions we shall learn hereafter In the mean time before we dismiss this Chapter we must not dissemble that it may be surmised and therefore also that it may be objected That tho' there should be no alsolute Gospel-Pardon that yet there may be an arbitrary Gospel-Pardon and that there are some Expressions in the New Testament that lean that way and may at least incline us to believe that there is such a Thing But because we are sure that no Pardon can come from God but what is just and because we know that Arbitrary Justice is only one Branch of Arbitrary Power and therefore is in reality no Justice at all for it is only a resolute Determination of the Will without any Reason for such Determination therefore we are sure that it cannot belong to God For all his Actions are limited and bounded by his Holiness that is by the Eternal Rules of Reason and Justice And he only therefore wills what he pleases because he neither does not can please to will any thing but what is Just CHAP. III. A Gospel-Salvation contains in it 1. Pardon of Sin 2. The Gift of Eternal Happiness To these Two other 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 HAving in the First Chapter made it good that Misery and Death that is in one Word that Vengeance is as the just so also the necessary Wages of Sin And in the Second That the Gospel it self holds out no such thing to us as either an Absolute or Arbitrary Forgiveness of Sin Our next Proposition must be That because the Gospel in this very Case is the Revelation of God's Will and because the Will and Counsel of God in that Gospel revealed is the Pardon and Salvation of Man that therefore Man's Sin is to be pardoned tho' not by an absolute or arbitrary Forgiveness And then because it must for that Reason be pardoned some way or other it will be our next Business to enquire what that Way is For by such Enquiry it may perhaps appear to be a Gospel-Truth and that too agreeable to Reason That there is not Salvation in any other but in Jesus Christ alone and that there is no other Name under Heaven given among Men whereby we must be saved And here because the Gospel promises no absolute Pardon of Sin as we do from thence in the first place conclude that the Pardon must be conditional so we must in the next place enquire what that Condition or what those Conditions are upon which this Pardon is to be obtained Now if in order to our more rational and satisfactory Resolution of this Enquiry we do first look into the Gospel there to inform our selves what a Gospel-Salvation means we may from thence learn that it does contain in it Two Things Whereof the first is Pardon of Sin and the second is the Gift of Eternal Happiness And in order to the obtaining of these Two Things as we shall see more fully in the farther Prosecution of this Matter Two other Things are in the Gospel required 1. An Expiation of Sin and 2. A Restitution to our lost Holiness For as we may conclude from our second Proposition That tho' the Gospel does allow a Pardon yet because it does not allow an absolute Pardon of Sin that therefore something will be required in order to such a Pardon So we may conclude from our first Proposition That because Punishment for Sin is necessary therefore some Punishment be that what it will at present must be suffered for our Sin And then if in the Progress of our Discourse it shall appear that in Consideration of any such Punishment so suffered the Gospel-Pardon of our Sins does afterwards ensue then such Pardon may be so far ascribed to such Punishment as that our Guilt and the Vengeance due to such our Guilt may be truly esteemed to be expiated by it Now in order to find out what Punishment it is that can make such an Expiation we shall first enquire what Punishment cannot do it And because Repentance does not so wholly consist in Action but that it must have something of Suffering mixed with it therefore in pursuit of our Design let our first Negative Proposition be this 1. That our Repentance for our Sins can never make out an Expiation of our Sins For tho' Repentance for our Sins be a Gospel-Condition required of us without which we shall never be made Partakers of the Benefit of the Gospel-Expiation yet notwithstanding that we neither do nor can by our Repentance make out that Expiation for Sin which is by the Gospel necessary for our Salvation For besides that there is no Man's Repentance so exact and compleat as to free him from all Sin while he lives and so after all he must remain a Sinner as long as he lives I say besides that His very manner of going out of the World and that is by Death is a demonstrative Proof that his Repentance has not made an Expiation for his Sins because we may most certainly conclude that his Sins are not then expiated and so neither pardoned when God himself lays on the Penalty threatned in his Law with his own Hand For when God gave his Law to Mankind in their universal Father and Representative Adam we know that he ratified such Law by the Penalty of Death and we know also that every Man let him be as pemtent as can be supposed does still suffer that Penalty And we may from thence also know that for that Reason no Man's Repentance can so far expiate his Sin as to free him from the Punishment threatned to it by the Law And then from the whole we may conclude That if any Man be saved because he is a true Penitent he must be saved by some other Expiation than by such his Repentance forasmuch as his Repentance can at the most but qualifie him to be made a Partaker of such Expiation 2. As Man's Repentance for his Sin which we may call his voluntary Punishment for Sin cannot so neither can his professed Punishment which we may call his legal Punishment for Sin expiate his Sin and so
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
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
that the Merits of our Saviour's Sufferings should be imputed to Man in order to Man's Release from Death That is Imputation is as reasonable and as justifiable in one Case as in the other for they both stand upon one and the same Foot and for that Reason he who throws down one throws down both And therefore whoever rejects the Doctrine of the Imputation of our Saviour's Righteousness to Man does by so doing reject the Imputation of Man's Sin to our Saviour and all the Consequences of it Or in other Words he who rejects the Doctrine of the Imputation does by so doing reject the Doctrine of the Expiation likewise 2. Those Men who do so far maintain Man's Salvation to depend upon the Merits of our Saviour's Death alone as to deny Imputed Righteousness to have any thing to do in the Purchase of Salvation do not seem to me sufficiently to consider that there are Two Things contained in the Death of our Saviour 1. The Death it self and 2. His Obedience to the Will of his Father in submitting himself to such a Death Now because Death is properly speaking what he underwent for the Expiation of Man's Sin for the Vindictive Part of the Law does expresly assign Death as the Punishment of Sin hence it is as I conceive that most of those who have discoursed of Man's Redemption for the Sake and Merit of our Saviour's Death have placed the Merit of the Purchase only in such Death and in the mean time have wholly laid aside all Consideration of the Merit of that Obedience which attended it But because the Scriptures in the Case speak otherwise and because we must needs be best instructed out of them in any thing which concerns our Saviour therefore laying aside at present all Schemes of Humane Reasoning or Contrivance we shall entirely apply our selves to them for such Instruction Take we notice therefore that they inform us that our Saviour was delivered to death by the determinate Counsel and Foreknowledge of God So St. Peter tells us in the Second of Acts and Twenty third Verse and so we are told in other Places From which we infer that the Sufferings and Death of our Saviour was an Act of Obedience to the Will and Counsel of God All which St. Paul gives us in a few Words but those very full to our present Purpose when he tells us in the Second to the Philippians the Eighth Verse that Jesus Christ being found in fashion as a Man humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross Since therefore our Saviour's Death was at least one Branch of his Obedience to the Will of his Father that is since his Obedience in the Scripture-Account was shewed in his Death as well as in his Life and therefore Both when in Conjunction were one and the self-same thing I would desire to know upon what Ground or by what Warrant it can be imagined and much less defended that Man is saved for the sake of his Death but that he is not saved for the sake of his Obedience And I would so much the rather insist upon this Inquiry because tho' it should be granted that our Saviour's Death was meritorious of Man's Everlasting Happiness and that is the present Case then if we must make an Opposition between his Death and his Obedience and to ascribe Man's Happiness to his Death but not to his Obedience does make such an Opposition but I say if there must be an Opposition made between them it seems much more agreeable to Reason nay indeed to common Sense to ascribe such Merit to the Obedience of his Death than to his Death For it is the Voice of Natural Justice that Duty and Obedience may deserve a Reward but it is a Strain beyond Conceit that Punishment should do so too For if that were allowed then the suffering of Punishment for the Breach of the Law might be justly meritorious of a Reward as well as Obedience to the Command of the Law and so at long run it would come to the same Event to break the Law as to keep it But because that cannot be allowed therefore if People will have an Opposition in the Case where the Scripture has made none we should rather ascribe Man's Eternal Happiness to the Obedience of our Saviour's Death than to the Death it self And then if our Eternal Happiness may be ascribed to the Merit of our Saviour's Obedience in one Case why may it not be so in more For for the same Reason that a Believer may be interessed in the Obedience of his Death he may be interessed in the Obedience of his Life too Since then in the present Case it is allowed that a Believer has his Interest by Imputation in the first Case it will follow that he may and considering what has already been said that he must have it so in the last That is in a few Words That the Obedience of our Saviour both in his Life and in his Death must purchase for Man that Happiness which by the Tenor of Justice is the proper and appropriated Reward of Obedience It being evident then that for the same Reason for which the Merits of our Saviour's Death may belong to Believers the Merits of his Obedience may do so too and that both the one and the other do therefore belong to them because they are imputed to them Our next Business must be with those Men who deny all Imputation whatsoever and therefore neither allow the Merits of his Life or Death to have any thing to do in the Purchase of Man's Salvation And because we have already and largely discoursed of the Purchase made by his Death Our only Business at present will be to enquire concerning the Purchase made by his Obedience And because the Men we have now to do with do deny all Imputation of what our Saviour did or suffered whatsoever therefore we shall lay down and attempt the Proof of this following Proposition That that Righteousness by which Believers shall be judged and in consideration of which they shall obtain Salvation at the Resurrection and the Great Day shall be the Obedience of their Saviour while he lived in the Flesh imputed to such Believers 1. In order to this we take notice in the first place That the Scriptures do tell us That all Men shall be judged according to their Works that is according to their Obedience or Disobedience in this Life 2. We lay it down in the second place That all those who shall be adjudged to enjoy an Eternal Happiness must in order to that blessed Sentence be first entitled to a perfect Righteousness This we reckon is proved before 3. We take notice in the third place That no Man tho' never so righteous yet ever did does or shall arrive at a perfect Righteousness in this Life The Question then that remains to be resolved is How any Man shall come to be entitled to a perfect Righteousness
other sort of Natural Philosophy they had been very well satisfied and contented without that new and uncouth Article of their Christian Faith Other Instances might be produced to shew that gross Fooleries and Corruptions have crept into Religion at this Door Whereas a due Consideration that the Christian Religion is a Covenant and the treating of it as such would acquaint us much better with the Nature and engage us more effectually to the Duties of it But this useful Remark being left in this place we proceed 2. The second Objection therefore against the Imputation of our Saviour's Obedience to Believers in order to their obtaining the promised Reward of the Covenant stands thus That supposing that our Saviour did provide for the Directive Part of the Law by his Obedience and that he did also fulfil the Vindictive Part by his Death In such Case there does therefore seem to be a Superfluity in his Provision because should his Obedience alone be imputed to us we should by that Means be entitled to a perfect Righteousness and then there had been no need of his Death to expiate our Sins because then we should have had no Sins to be expiated And that which may add some Strength to what is thus alledged is this That our Saviour paying that Obedience to the Law while he was in the Flesh the Obedience so paid was paid before his Death and therefore in the Course of Things it should seem that it might be imputed before his Death and in the Course of Justice without it For when by such Imputation we were once entitled to his Righteousness the Plea of his Death in order to qualifie us for Happiness must needs be useless and superfluous Now tho' it may seem indeed that Things might have gone so if we only have a Regard to the Order of Time yet if we look to the Order of Reason and Justice we shall easily perceive that they could not For we cannot by any Estimation of Justice whatsoever be reckoned Righteous so long as our Guilt lies upon us and when once by our Sins we have made our selves guilty such Guilt must needs lie upon us till it be one way or other expiated Now because we have already and fully made it out that it neither is nor can be expiated any other way than by the Death of our Saviour therefore the Death of such Saviour must in the Order of Justice first expiate such our Guilt before we can possibly be entitled to a perfect Righteousness For who can put a clean thing into an unclean It is neither agreeable to the Methods of Wisdom or Justice so to do And therefore we may be sure that it cannot be the Practice of the most Wise and Just God No! we know well enough because we are told so by the Spirit of God that our Saviour first died for our Sins and after that rose again for our Justification And we know moreover that when God had once given forth his Law tho' had an exact Obedience been paid to it the Vengeance of it which was only Conditionally threatned had never been executed for the Justice and Execution of such Vengeance does entirely depend upon our Transgression yet after we had transgressed the Law the Execution of such Vengeance was as necessary as was the Happiness promised if we had not transgressed it For Vengeance does by the Tenor of the Law stand in the same Relation to Sin as Happiness does to Obedience The first becomes our Due in case we neglect our Duty the last in case we perform it And the Distribution both of the one and the other must as necessarily follow upon our Performance or Non-performance of those Conditions to which each of them do stand respectively engaged as it is necessary for God to love Holiness and hate Wickedness One Part of the Law therefore is in Justice to be provided for as well as the other And then if neither the Punishment of Man could fulfil the Law on the one Hand nor the imperfect Obedience of Man on the other and if our Saviour undertook for Man's sake to supply Man's Defects then there was the same Necessity in Justice that he should fulfil the Vindictive Part of it by his Death that there was that he should fulfil the Directive Part of it by his Obedience And therefore as neither his Obedience not his Death had been necessary no nor his Incarnation neither upon which such his Death and such his Obedience do depend But I say as neither his Obedience nor his Death had been necessary if Man had obeyed the Law himself so upon Man's Transgression of the Law they both became necessary Because as we have already seen Man's Punishment is in Justice as necessary upon his Breach of the Law as his Obedience was upon God's Promulgation of the Law And therefore when our Saviour undertook to save sinful Man that is Man who had transgressed the Directions of the Law and Man who lay exposed to the Vengeance of the Law it was necessary in order to his doing so justly that he should have a Regard to one Part of the Law as well as to the other that is that he should fulfil the Vindictive by his Death and the Directive by his Obedience And had he not done both one Part of the Law at least had been neglected and so the Redemption had not been just By which we may by this time understand that there is no Superfluity in his providing for Man's Salvation both by the Obedience of his Life and by the Sufferings of his Death For that cannot in Reason be accounted Superfluous in the doing of any Thing whatsoever without which such Thing cannot be done justly Now as in our Answer to the former Objection we made good not only the Possibility but the Legality too of the Imputation of our Saviour's Righteousness so in our Answer to this we have shewed the conjunct Necessity both of the Imputation and of his Death in order to Man's Salvation By all which we may at last come to understand that God in his Counsel for Man's Salvation as he consulted his Mercy so did not lay aside the Care of his Justice For the whole Transaction as we have largely seen was in him Justice as it was to us Mercy Justice as it fulfilled the whole Law Mercy as it redeemed us from the Curse and invested us in the Promise of the Law A strange Mixture and had it not been discovered to us by Revelation by our Natural Reason not to be fathomed But as it is revealed agreeable as we have seen to such Reason so assisted 1. By which we may in the first place understand That tho' Christ crucified be to the Jews a Stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness yet to us he is and that notoriously the Wisdom of God and the Power of God For his Wisdom and his Power can we see bring Things to pass beyond the reach of Angels and
Law being broken by Man the Punishment threatned by the Law should be inflicted upon Man For the Threatning of the Law has the same Eye and the same necessary Relation to the Transgression of the Law that the Reward has to the Obedience of the Law and either the same necessary Relation to each that it has to God's Holiness and Justice And therefore so necessary as it is that God should be holy and just and so necessary as it is that he should in his Laws be serious and true so necessary also it is that the Vengeance threatned by his Law should there take place where the Duty commanded by the Law is not observed Now because no Man except our Saviour could so undergo the Vengeance of the Law as without such Saviour's Help to be ever freed from such Vengeance therefore we do from hence conclude in the first place That there is not Salvation in any other but in our Saviour alone as Salvation is taken for our Redemption from the Vengeance and Penalty of the Law 2. Because no Man is qualified to suffer the Penalty of the Law so as by such his Suffering to redeem others that are Sinners against the Law from their suffering for their Sin unless he be Innocent himself and because no Man except our Saviour was ever Innocent that is no Man except him alone did ever fulfil the Law therefore no Sinner can be saved as Salvation is taken for a Release from the Vengeance of the Law but only by the Death of our Saviour that is by the Death of him who was the only Innocent Person of all Mankind 3. Since the Death of all Mankind because it is the Punishment threatned by the Law against the Transgressors of it is not of Value sufficient to expiate the Sin of Mankind whether we consider their Punishment and their Guilt in the Gross or Lump or whether we consider it in Parcels and Particulars and since Death is the necessary Punishment of the Law and since lastly if there be any Redemption purchased from such Penalty it must for the Reasons alledged be made by a Death of more Value than all the Deaths of all Men I say from these Reasons in conjunction we do conclude That such a Death is necessary for Man's Redemption from the Curse of the Law And then whose Death that Death was the Scriptures do sufficiently acquaint us for they expresly and frequently tell us that it was the Death of him whom they set forth to us as our Saviour And from the Whole we do infer in the first place that no other but our Saviour alone could so suffer for Sin as to obtain a Release from the Penalty which the Law had threatned against it and that therefore there is no Salvation in any other and that there is no other Name given under Heaven among Men whereby we must be saved as Salvation is taken for our Redemption from that Vengeance which the Law threatens and executes upon the Transgressors of it 2. The second Proposition therefore laid down at the Beginning comes next in order to be made good and that is That no one but our Saviour alone could by an exact Obedience to the Law purchase that Reward Eternal Life which the Law has promised to such Obedience And to make this good in a few Words we take notice in the first place That as the Law by the same Tenor of Justice does engage the promised Reward to the Obedience as it does the threatned Vengeance to the Transgression of the Law so we may from thence infer under this Head That every Man who will be Partaker of such Reward must pay such Obedience as we did under the last That every Man who was guilty of such Transgression must suffer such Vengeance He therefore who does not obey the Law does lose his Reward as certainly as he who transgresses it does pull upon himself his own Punishment Now because among all the Race of Mankind no one except our Saviour has obeyed the Law therefore every Man besides him when left to the Purchase of his own Obedience has forfeited his Reward No Man therefore does upon his own Account deserve such Reward And then because we know that Justice does deal with Men according to their Deserts therefore the Reward being Eternal Life or Happiness every Man when left to himself has lost such Happiness That Part therefore of a Gospel-Salvation which consists in Eternal Life is not to be expected by any Man but by the Saviour alone Now that our Saviour obtained it for himself is not questioned And that it was the Gift of God to others in Consideration of his Obedience to that Law to which others as well as himself stood obliged we have already and at large made good If therefore all other Mens obtaining Eternal Life does not proceed from their own Obedience but from their Saviour's then we may now begin to perceive that there is not Salvation in any other but in our Saviour alone and that too as Salvation is taken in the Gospel for the Gift of Eternal Life The Socinians we know who deny the Salvation of Man to be our Saviour's Purchase do attempt to elude the Force and Evinence of that Text which is the Subject of our present Discourse and of several other express Places of Scripture which assert the same Thing with it by starting the Question Whether or no God might not by some other Means have saved Mankind had it pleased him so to do And by that Means have as we observed at the Beginning endeavour'd to alter the Controversie from Matter of Fact to Matter of Possibility and to engage others in that sawcy Dispute of what God can do and of what God cannot do Whereas it is sufficient for us to know what God has done and abundantly sufficient when he himself does furnish us with such Knowledge by his own express Word And if what that Word tells us in the Case be agreeable to our rational Sentiments to that Light which he has afforded us to judge Things by if moreover it be agreeable to the Common Sense that all Men have of Justice and Justice and Reason in this Case are the same if that our Light which confirms to us the Reasonableness and Justice of his Proceedings in the present Case does by the same Measures guide all Governments not only Christian but others and if it be more than a shrewd Sign that because Mankind do and that too in their Laws and Judicial Proceedings treat one another for the most part as God in the present Case does treat Mankind that they are guided so to do by that Light which he himself has afforded them I say if all these Things are so then it may besides all that has hitherto been offered make out the Conclusion at least very plausible That his Dealings with Mankind in and through a Saviour as we have out of the Scriptures laid it down are just and
greatest Kindness will not for that very Reason refuse us in a less It concerns us therefore as we would not reject the Kindness already offered and as we would not exclude our selves from all future Love and Kindness to make good our Gratitude by receiving our Saviour and that Salvation which he brings along with him with a due Acknowledgment and Respect and to make good such our Respect and such our Acknowledgment by receiving him upon any but more especially upon his own Terms Let us therefore cast away our Sins that we may receive him Let us by loving each other practice our selves to love and receive him Let us receive him by receiving the Pledges of his Love exhibited to us in the Sacrament of his most Blessed Body and Blood And let us not think that Christ crucified will profit us any thing if we do not so receive him as he requires and therefore also so receive him as we ought For he does in effect refuse the Gift who refuses the Instrument of Conveyance by which such Gift is to be signed and made over to him And it is irrational and imprudent to expect the Love of him the Pledges of whose Love we do reject Let us cast off therefore every evil Work every Sin that does beset us and gird up the Loins of our Mind as the Scripture speaks and do the Work of Christians in all Cases whatsoever that so at last we may receive the blessed Wages of such Work through Jesus Christ our Lord and only Saviour 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 BY what has been hitherto discoursed we have seen 1. That God in a Saviour has made Provision for the Expiation of Man's Sin in order to save him from the Vengeance of the Law the just Wages of such Sin 2. We have seen that he has not barely provided for Man's Escape from the Vengeance of the Law by the Merits of his Saviour's Death but that he has also provided for his positive and future Happiness by the Merit of his Saviour's Obedience 3. But yet in what is now to follow we shall find that his Mercy has not stopped here because in the third place he will in and through our Saviour endow Man with a perfect and inherent Holiness By which I mean such an holy Angelical and withal durable Frame of Spirit that shall for ever secure him from all possible Sin and shall for ever engage him in a vigorous and chearful Discharge of all holy Duties and in so doing shall both accompany and secure his Happiness to all Eternity For tho' it be confessed that Believers do by the Communications and Assistances of the Spirit arrive to a Degree of such an Holiness in this Life yet it must be confessed also that it is but an imperfect Degree For it is not vigorous nor uniform nor constant but irresolute and weak and therefore has its frequent Intermissions and Failings But as we shall see more fully in what is to follow the Holiness of the Saints in Glory is like their Happiness firm lasting and immutable and therefore will be found to be a Gift of God in Christ that does vastly if not infinitely exceed the most refined Holiness of the very best Man in this Vale of Sin and Misery It shall be the Business then of our present Undertaking to make it good that besides that Title which Believers in another World shall have to their Saviour's Righteousness in order to their future Happiness that they themselves shall be endowed with a perfect inherent and indefectible Holiness in order to the secure Eternity of such their Happiness Now to put this Matter into a clear Light that so we may be the more rationally satisfied in all that is to follow we lay it down First That God by his Almighty Power having made the World and all particular Beings in it has by virtue of such his Creation an undoubted Right and Title to the Dominion over all Things so by him created And that therefore all his Creatures ought to be in Subjection to him and to act according to the Determinations of his Will And it is hardly to be doubted but that all those Creatures which by the Boundaries of their Creation are devoid of Understanding and Free-will do constantly act according to those Impresses and Powers that God in their Formation has stamped upon them in a regular Subordination to such his Will And the Scriptures do give us not only frequent Hints but also express Declarations that so they do Now as God created those lower Creatures so did he the higher and those which are endowed with more noble Faculties And because among such Creatures upon whom he has bestowed an Understanding to enable them to know his Will and with a Will to enable them to chuse Obedience to such his Will we are not acquainted with any other but Angels and Men and because our Design is only concerned about them and chiefly about the latter therefore directly to our present Purpose we take notice That some of the Angels first and by their Instigation the first Man and because all Men ever since do derive from him in a Lineal Propagation therefore also all Mankind by transgressing God's Will made known to them in his Laws have revolted from their Allegiance to him and have by so doing in effect renounced and disclaimed that their Subjection to his Dominion which was if I may so speak his natural and essential Right For Wickedness is a professed and avowed Renunciation of that Subjection which Rational Creatures owe to their Holy and Rightful Lord and King even the God that made them And for that Reason it is an Encroachment upon his Anthority for it does lessen and contract the Extent of his Kingdom For because a Scepter of Righteousness is the Scepter of his Kingdom and because all those Laws by which its Administration is executed are in themselves Holy Just and Good it is upon that Account very obvious to conceive that Wickedness so far as it goes does defeat such Administration and overturn such Laws and by so doing does diminish the Authority and encroach upon the Jurisdiction and Dominion of the Rightful and Supreme Lord. Now from what has been thus spoken in short we may easily understand that the faln Angels having first revolted themselves and by their Sin withdrawn their Allegiance and Subjection to their most Holy and Supreme Lord did what other Rebels after their Example and perhaps by their Instigation have done to weak and short-sighted People by false Colours and taking Delusions invite Mankind into the same Revolt and Rebellion with themselves and by so doing draw away a Part of God's Kingdom and Dominion and in opposition to his Holiness that is in opposition to God himself set up a Kingdom of
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
Life he laid it down in our stead so also that when he took it up again he took up with it the Lives of all those who by the Conditions of the New Covenant shall have an Interest in such his Death And therefore as our Christianity does acquaint us that they who live to Christ do live by the Spirit so St. Paul to our present purpose does tell us in the Eighth to the Romans ver 11. that if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead do dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you In a Word Christ is our Head and we are his Members and because he and we do make up one Body and because as Members of such his Body we are quickned by his Spirit therefore we may confirm our own Resurrection by his And therefore as he is called the First-born from the Dead in the First to the Colossians ver 18. so we are called the Children of the Resurrection in the Twentieth of St. Luke ver 36. So that a good Man from the Certainty of his Saviour's Resurrection from Death to Glory and Immortality may safely conclude his own may lie down in his Grave as securely as in his Bed and when the Morning of the Great Day shall down forth may be more secure of rising again and putting on his Body than he can be that he shall rise on the Morrow-morning and put on his Clothes For for the first he has the Security of Truth and Omnipotence but for the last he has only the Promises of his own Presumption or at the very best but of his Hope 4. As the Faithful shall in Consideration of our Saviour's Death and Resurrection obtain their own Resurrection from Death to Life so the Life which by such their Resurrection they shall obtain shall be Life Eternal This is express Scripture and a Christian may therefore be satisfied in and assured of its Truth For our Saviour himself tells us as much when giving an Account of the Last Judgment he closes such Account in the Last Verse of the Twenty fifth Chapter of St. Matthew with these Words And these shall go into everlasting Punishment and then follows that which is directly to our present Purpose But the Righteous into Life Eternal And Reason tells us that so it must needs be because where the Cause of all Death whatsoever is taken away there the Possibility of Death must be taken away too unless we should imagine that Death should be brought upon a Rational Creature subject to Law without any meritorious Cause of Death at all But as we have often laid it down and proved it already that cannot be supposed in the present Case because the Death we now speak of is supposed to come from God's Justice and the Justice of God cannot either truly or rationally be supposed to inflict Death there where there is no Desert of it Now we therefore know that the meritorious Cause of Death is Sin because we know that the Wages of Sin is Death If therefore as we have already seen the Sin of the Faithful be taken away by the Expiation and if upon their Resurrection they obtain an indefectible Holiness the Inference will be That the Cause of Death Sin will upon the first Account be cancelled and blotted out and that upon the last Account it cannot be renewed or restored and that therefore upon both Accounts in conjunction Death the Wages of Sin can never more return And then when a Life restored is secured from all possible return of Death we may be sure that such Life so restored must be Eternal And agreeable to what we now say St. Paul tells us in the Third to the Philippians the last Verse that our Saviour whom we look for from Heaven shall change our vile Body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious Body according to the mighty working whereby he is able even to subdue all Things unto himself Now we know that when our Saviour appeared to St. Paul that is to that very Apostle who tells us these Things he does expresly affirm to King Agrippa in the Twenty sixth of the Acts that the Light of the Appearance was above the Brightness of the Sun and yet the Context will tell us that the Appearance was made about Mid-day And perhaps our Saviour's Transfiguration on the Mount was a Proleptick Discovery of that Glory with which his Body was to be cloathed upon his Ascent into Heaven the Mount of God But be that as it will yet to our Purpose If the Bodies of the Saints shall be fashioned like unto his glorious Body then it will be no improbable Conclusion That they shall with that Glory put on an Immortal Frame and Constitution And this Conclusion will then advance from Probable to Certain when we know that the same Apostle does acquaint us not only that our Body which is sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory but over and above that this Corruptible must put on Incorruption and that this Mortal must put on Immortality Much more might be offered on this Subject but from what has been glanced at we may now perceive that our Body in imitation of our Saviour's Body shall after its Resurrection be indued with a glorious Frame and an immortal Constitution that it shall be done by his Power as it shall in Consideration of his Merit that the Power that shall do it is able to subdue all Things to it self that is is Omnipotent And then where we have the Promise of Truth and the Power of Omnipotence to secure to us an Eternal Life there we can have no Reason to doubt the Eternity of such Life The Second Thing should now in Order follow which is to shew wherein the Happiness of such Eternal Life does consist But before we speak to that I shall lay down two or three Practical Considerations which as they look back to what has been spoken already so will be no improper Introduction to those Things which are to follow 1. And first We should be sensible of and grateful for that blessed Provision that our Lord and Saviour has made for our Everlasting Happiness and Security And this we should so much the rather be because by what has been said we may now understand that such Provision does fully answer to our highest natural Desires and Inclinations For our Anxiety for our own Welfare will tell us that among all the several Appetites by which we pursue after our own Happiness our Desire of Life does hold the first and chief Place with us And the Reason is plain because the Loss of Life must needs be followed by the Loss of all other Enjoyments whatsoever that can in any wise conduce to our Happiness And as we are told by our Common Sense that our grand and topping Appetite is that of Life so we are told by the same
there can be no Punishment and a dead Man can have no Sensation unless we could suppose him to be alive and dead at the same time This Head may meet with Objections but I shall wave them and any Answer to them at present and that too so much the rather because it is notorious that the Scriptures do lay the greater Punishment that is the Punishment greater than Death not only beyond the Resurrection but also beyond the last Judgment it-self 7. Lastly In such Places of Scripture where the greater Punishment is threatned it is not as the Punishment of the Transgression of the Positive Law was absolute and peremptory but only conditional And therefore if we except first the Sin against the Holy Ghost whatever that be for it does not concern us to enquire at present and secondly The Refusing the Conditions of Salvation offered in a Saviour that grand and comprehensive Sin which either neglects or renounces the only Means appointed for Man's Salvation from all his other Sins I say if we except these Two Cases if yet they be Two not only the future Punishment threatned against the Breach of this or that Law but of any or all may as far as the Gospel-discoveries go be remitted Which may teach us to think that the Punishment threatned in the Law given to Adam was not a Punishment after a Resurrection but a Punishment without a Resurrection And that not only because at that Time when the Law was given to him there was not only no Resurrection promised but no Saviour neither by whom alone a Resurrection was to be brought to pass To which we may add That the Death threatned to Adam by the Law given to him was as we have seen upon his Transgression of such Law absolute and peremptory and that the Execution of such Threat is as the Scripture and our Experience tells us absolute and universal Whereas the Threat of an eternal Death as we are well assured is upon the Breach of God's Laws only conditional Now it looks hard to our Reason that when only Death is threatned in the Law and that Death at the very most but indefinite to say that the Death so threatned does imply a double Death that is both a Temporal and Eternal Death And it looks harder yet to say that the Threat and Execution of one of the Deaths is absolute and universal but that the Threat and Execution of the other is only partial and conditional For our Reason tells us that neither any Threat nor Execution of Death can be both Absolute and Conditional both Universal and Particular too From the Whole we take notice That tho God was obliged both by his Truth and Justice to execute the Threatning against the Transgression of the first Law because that Law being given to Man in his Innocence that is before he stood in need of a Saviour and therefore before God had promised one the Threat of Punishment upon the Breach of the Law was as we have seen absolute and peremptory Yet because the Revelation of a future and everlasting Punishment in the New Covenant is rather made by way of Information than by way of peremptory Threat and absolute Denunciation therefore God is obliged to the Execution of such Penalty only by his Justice but not at all by his Veracity If then there be a Means provided to satisfie such his Justice without the rigorous Execution of such declared and without such Means certain Penalty it will well enough follow That such Penalty may be remitted without any Prejudice either to his Justice or to his Truth And therefore in what is to follow we trust to make it good That our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST may and will justly save us from the Punishment peremptorily threatned to Adam viz. the Loss of Life executed upon him and all Mankind by releasing us from it after we have suffer'd it and from a future and eternal Punishment expresly revealed in the New Testament to Christians and probably also after the Fall of Adam and the Promise of the Seed of the Woman believed by the Patriarchs and by God's Church among the Jews by preventing it CHAP. I. The Scriptures do most expresly assert That Mankind are redeemed by the Blood of JESUS CHRIST It is not agreeable to the Divine Wisdom or to the Method of his Proceedings in the like Cases to employ greater Means to bring his Purposes to pass where less may be sufficient Punishment is the necessary Wages of Sin An Objection to this Position answered AND as we have grounded what we have said in the Introduction upon the Revelations of God which have acquainted us how Sin and the Punishment of it Death entred into the World So in what is to follow concerning the Redemption of Mankind both from Sin and Punishment we shall take our Rise from Revelation likewise Not only because we had known nothing of the Matter but by Revelation but also because in the present Case Revelation is undoubtedly the best Guide of our Reason For Reason must of necessity be guided best by that without the Guidance of which Reason it self is confessedly blind And we are very sure that it becomes all those who acknowledge the Scriptures to be the Revelations of God I say it becomes them in modesty and deference to the Author and in prudence for their own more certain Conduct rather to endeavour to bring their Reason to comply with the Revelation than to bring the Revelation to comply with their Reason And therefore that we our selves may practise what we cannot but judge to be best in the Practice of others we shall lay the Ground-work of all that is to follow upon the Words of St. Peter in the Fourth of the Acts and the Twelfth Verse Neither is there Salvation in any other For there is no other Name under Heaven given among Men whereby we must be saved In which Words the Apostle and he too at that time filled with the Holy-Ghost as appears by the Eighth Verse does expresly tell us for the Words do import so much That Men must be saved by JESUS CHRIST of Nazareth consult the Tenth Verse and by no other For it is evident that by Name in the Text is meant Jesus Christ himself because what he calls Name in one Part of the Verse is opposed to any other in the other Part of the Verse As in the Tenth Verse he tells us that the impotent Man was made whole by the Name of Jesus Christ in the beginning and that he was made whole by Him that is by Jesus Christ in the latter end of the Verse Those who professedly and avowedly make it their Business to evacuate the Purchase of Our Saviour's Merits and Blood do to that purpose start if not an impertinent yet a very sawcie Question which is Whether or no God could not have saved sinful Man by some other Means than by the Death of his Son And by that means would alter
were but Types and Shadows it is notorious for that very Reason that they were not the Reality and Substance and that therefore the Expiation did not belong to them Take what we say in the Apostle's Words and so it may be more satisfactory in the Tenth to the Hebrews and the beginning For the Law having a Shadow of good Things to come and not the very Image of the Things can never with these Sacrifices which they offered Year by Tear continually make the Comers thereunto perfect And after some other things to the same purpose he concludes in the Fourth Verse that it is impossible that the Blood of Bulls and Goats should take away Sins And therefore tho' it be freely granted that a Remission of Sin did usually follow upon the offering of those Legal and Ritual Sacrifices yet from what has been said it must be granted also that such Remission did not proceed from the Consideration of any real Expiation that was made by those Sacrifices but only from that Expiation of which they were the Types viz. from the Expiation made by the Lamb of God which was slain from the Foundation of the World that is the Merit of whose Death does extend it self from the Fall of Adam to the Consummation of a Things 2. But secondly The Lives of the Creatures offered to God as an expiatory Sacrâ—fice for Sin can never make the Expiatiâ— designed because all those Lives are his as tecedent to such Offering To attempt therâ— fore to expiate our Sins by them is no betteâ— than to offer to God what is his own already or for our Sins are in the Gospel calleâ— Debts it is to pay our Debts to God wiâ—â— his own Money which rightly considereâ— is so far from bringing us out of debt that really increases our Debt by the folly if no also by the mockery of the Attempt This 〈◊〉 God's own Argument to his People the Jewâ— in the Fiftieth Psalm I will take no Bullock oâ— of thine House nor He-goat out of thy Folds for every Beast of the Forest is mine and 〈◊〉 are the Cattel upon a thousand Hills witâ— more to the same purpose relating to thâ— Insufficiency of their Legal Sacrifices for thâ— Expiation of Sins 3. The Lives of the Creatures offered tâ— God for the Expiation of the Sins of Men can never make such Expiation because the are of far less Value and that too not only in the Nature of the Thing but also in thâ— Estimation of those that offer them than thâ— Lives of those for whom they are offered Now it can never answer to the Rules of Justice to pay our Creditor only an hundreâ— Pence when we owe him an hundred Pounds And he who shall think that he can so discharge his Debt may by the same Measures come in time to reckon that he may discharge it for nothing I have spoken something the larger to these Things tho' perhaps it may seem needless partly because they have been a Part of God's own Instituted Worship partly because they are a Part of the Religious Worship of many Nations at this Day but chiefly because they have a Relation to that great Sacrifice which is the main Design of all our Discourse And this our Design will still be farthered if we consider in the 4. Fourth place That as neither Man for himself nor the Creatures that are inferior to him can make any Expiation for his Sins so neither can the Creatures above him Now the most exalted Creatures that Revelation has acquainted us with and we know nothing in this Case but what we have from Revelation are the Angels and Archangels And we may be therefore satisfied that those glorious Beings can never make an Expiation for the Sin of Man because it appears by the Revelations of God that they can never make an Expiation for their own Sins And therefore as we are told in such Revelations that some of them have sinned so we are in the same told that those that have so done are reserved in everlasting Chains to the Judgment of the great Day Now our Natural Reason tells us that no Creature can be so in love with Misery and surely everlasting Chains and a fearful expectation of Judgment do imply Misery for the Devils believe and tremble But I say our Natural Reason tells us that no Creature can be so in love with Misery as not to free it self from it were it in its power so to do And therefore the same Natural Reason does tell us that the true Reason why the faln Angels do not do so is because they cannot do so And if they cannot expiate their own Sins we may be pretty well satisfied that they cannot expiate Sin at all And we may be the rather so satisfied because we are as sure that they would in the Case employ their best Endeavours for themselves as we are sure that they love themselves best Besides we know that in the Case of Mankind Death is threatned as the Penalty for the Breach of the Law And we may be pretty well satisfied that without Death no Expiation can be made For without Blood there is no Remission But on the other side we have some Reason to believe that Angels are not liable to Death at least not to such a Death to which Man is obnoxious and therefore for this Reason as well as the former we may pretty rationally conclude That the Angels are in no Capacity to expiate the Sins of Mankind and that therefore they cannot do it One thing more I would add to this Head before I leave it and that is this That tho' the Angels are very glorious and exalted Creatures and by the Account we have of them in the Scriptures are placed in a much higher Scale in the Creation than Man and so are far above him yet still because they are Creatures they are therefore at as great a distance from God as Man himself is For their Distance from him is infinite and there are we know no Degrees in Infinity Now because the Expiation of Sin is to be made to God and to God alone and because there is an infinite Distance between God and Angels as well as there is between God and Man I say for these Reasons we can no more think the Interposition of an Angel effectual for making an Atonement and Expiation for Sin than we can think the Interposition of a Man to be so And if we should suppose a sort of Creatures a thousand nay ten thousand or more times as much above Angels as Angels are above Men yet because after such a Supposition even this sort of Creatures are as much below God as Man is and because the Expiation of Sin if attempted by such Creatures is to be made to God therefore we cannot think that the Dignity of their Station can contribute any thing at all towards the making their attempted Expiation effectual And we know and that too by unquestionable Proof
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
he did not deserve that Death which he suffered But then they tell us that God did therefore permit him to undergo such a cruel and hard Treatment that he might be an Example of Patience Submission and Resignation to all Men in any Circumstances under which they should be brought by God's Providence and that he was slain a Sacrifice to ratifie and establish the New-Covenant that God then made with Man in order to the Pardon of Sin By which it is notorious that they endeavour to vindicate God's Justice from those Ends and Designs of his Providence or Mercy for which God delivered up his Son to a cruel and bloody Death tho' he did not deserve such Death 1. Now we are very well assured in the first place that our Saviour was delivered up to be crucified and slain by the determinate Counsel and Foreknowledge of God For so St. Peter expresly tells us in the Second of the Acts and the Twenty third Verse And again we are told in the Fourth of the Acts the Twenty seventh and Twenty eighth Verses that Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the People of Israel were gathered together to do to him whatsoever God's Hand and Counsel determined before to be done We know also that his Crucifixion was prophesied in the Old Testament and that in sundry Places and that he himself does both foretell it in the New Testament and does there also tell us that it was plentifully foretold in the Old And we know lastly that what was foretold some thousand Years before it was brought to pass and then was so actually brought to pass as it was foretold must be foretold by God The Certainty of the Event in such a Case being a Demonstration that Omniscience gave forth the Prediction 2. We are assured in the second place that our Saviour being perfectly Innocent as having never transgressed the Law could not possibly deserve the Death of the most hainous Malefactors a Death attended with Agony and Torment tho' he did suffer such a Death 3. It is agreed in the third place between us and our Adversaries That because our Saviour did willingly submit to the Counsel and Determination of God in suffering such a Death that thereby God's Justice is sufficiently assoiled and vindicated to which we spake more largely just now and that by such his Submission he gave an Example to Mankind under any Affliction of an entire Resignation to the Counsel and Will of God in all Cases whatsoever 4. But then in the last place it may be reasonably demanded how it comes to pass that these self-same Sufferings this self-same Death of our Saviour do then become unjust when they are affirmed to have been undergone by him for the Expiation of Man's Sin They were just because he underwent them willingly and they were honourable because they were exemplary and we are sure they were merciful and charitable if they were expiatory And then shall what is just in it self and honourable because it is designed for an Example or for any other End I say shall such a Thing therefore become unjust because it is over and above designed for a Charity and a Mercy The same Thing we know may be directed to more Ends and Purposes than one and those several Ends and Purposes may all be good and warrantable and where they are so there if the Thing be good and just in it self we may in Reason rest satisfied that one of those good Endswill no more vitiate and corrupt it than any other End will If therefore the Death of our Saviour were just without being design'd for an Expiation it will remain just still tho' it be design'd for aâ— Expiation For Mercy and Compassioâ— which are undoubtedly included in such Expiation are most undoubtedly just and good Things when they are designed and brought to pass by just and lawful Means And therefore when the Adversaries of the Expiation do tell us that the Death of our Saviour was just and lawful they do with the same Mouth-full of Breath contradict their own Objection against the Justice of the Expiation and do as good as tell us that the Expiation is just and lawful too When therefore Secinus and his Followers do in very tragical Expressions and some of those Expresnons so indecent and irreverent to say no worse as not fit to be mentioned exclaim against the Injustice of the Expiation it is notorious that they quit their Reason and fly to Harangue that is they hope in this Case to prevail by their Rhetorick rather than by their Arguments For I can hardly persuade my self to believe them so short-sighted as not to perceive that any Argument against the Justice of the Expiation does not contradict such their own Positions which maintain the Justice of our Saviour's Death and Passion One Thing more I would remark and then I shall proceed and that is That because the Objection under this Head is only laid against the Justice but not at all against the Value Merit or extensive Influence of our Saviour's Death therefore I have precisely stuck to the Matter of the present Objection without mixing other Things with it relating to the Expiation that is I have here only asserted the Justice of our Saviour's Death in order to the Expiation of the Sins of Mankind 2. The second Objection against our Saviour's Expiation of our Sins by his Death stands thus and that is That tho' it should be granted that he had Power over his own Life that he was willing to lay down that Life and that God was willing to accept it yet all this will amount but to part of Payment For first the Death that we deserved by our Sins was Eternal but that which he suffered in our stead was but Transient and Temporal It is confessed that as the Socinians do deny the Expiation so do they also an Eternâ—ty of Punishment But yet that does not at all take off from the â—orce of the Objection because if they who maintain the Doctrine of the Expiation do also assert an Eternity of Punishment it is sufficient for their Confutation to shew that their several Doctrines do contradict and so overthrow each other The Objection then being so far laid right it goes on further thus The Sins of Mankind are the Sins of Many of Thousands of Millions of Myriads nay of Multitudes of Myriads but the Death of our Saviour was only the Death of One So that if either we consider the Extent of our Guilt or the Malignity of it it will by no means seem reasonable and therefore neither just that the single Death of our Saviour should be looked upon as a proportionats Expiation of it Nor indeed would it according to those who make the Objection who tho' the Apostle tells us in one Place that in him dwells all the Fulness of the Godhead bodily and in another Place that being in the Form of God he thought it no Robbery to be equal
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
carnal and profane Creatures A Pride hateful to God and Man and such which has constantly betrayed it self to come from that proud Spirit which is the great Deceiver by the detected Falsities Forgeries and Villanies of its most celebrated Pretenders Let us therefore have a care that we be sober and humble Let us not be high-minded but fear And seeing there remaineth a Rest for the People of God let us labour to enter into that Rest lest any of us fall short by reason not only of our Unbelief but of our Confidence also 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 HAving laid it down in the former Chapter that those who shall be rewarded with Eternal Happiness shall be entitled to a Perfect Obedience in order to such their Reward Our next Business is to enquire Whos 's that Perfect Obedience is to which they shall be so entitled and whether they can obtain such Title according to the Rules of Reason and the Laws of Justice 1. And to satisfie this Enquiry we lay it down first That as the Obedience of our Saviour to the Law while he was in the Flesh and so under the Law does alone in Justice deserve that Eternal Happiness which is promised in the Gospel so the Imputation of such his Righteousness to Believers is the only true and just Reason why they shall be made Partakers of such Eternal Happiness When the Apostle tells us in the Fourth to the Galatians the Fourth and Fifth Verses That God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law he seems to insinuate at least that our Saviour's being under the Law was in such Saviour a requisite Condition in order to his working out of Man's Salvation Now had our Saviour been such a Man as other Men are the Reward it is confessed had only concerned his own Obedience But because by taking upon him the Nature of Man he obliged himself to obey that Law which God had given to Man and because he took upon himself the Nature of Man when he might have refused so to do and lastly because he took it upon himself for Man's sake alone and not for his own therefore for Man's sake alone and not for his own he put himself under an Obligation of obeying the Law From all which the least that can be inferred is that Man was to reap some considerable Benefit and Advantage from such his Obedience It is usually alledged in this Place That had he not obeyed the Law himself he could not have been qualified to make an Expiation by his Death for the Transgression of others And we may take notice that they who offer this Allegation do in effect tell us that his persect Obedience to the Law was nothing more in order to Man's Salvation than a previous Condition to sit and capacitate him to make such Expiation 2. And therefore we offer it to Consideration in the second place That the Reward promised in a Saviour to those who do confessedly pay but an imperfect Obedience to the Law is greater than that Reward which was promised to Adam's perfect Obedience without a Saviour It is true there is not in the Law given to Adam any express Promise at all But then it is as true that there is an implied Promise For when the Law does threaten his Transgression with Death it does as good as promise Life to his Obedience And indeed there was no Occasion much less any Necessity that the Promise of the Reward which was Life should be express because the Law being given to Man in his Innocence that is while he was in actual Possession of the Reward he was by the Tenor of the Law secure of such Possession if he did not forfeit it by his Transgression Now we therefore say that the Reward promised in a Saviour to those who do confessedly pay but an imperfect Obedience to the Law is greater than that Reward which was promised to Adam's perfect Innocence because we are assured by the Gospel that Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor can it enter into the Heart of Man to conceive the Reward which God has prepared for those who in a Saviour shall be saved But we are sure that no such Things can be truly said of the Reward promised to Man in his Innocence For he knew his Reward experimentally and therefore it could not be to him Inconceivable Put we the Question then How comes the Reward promised in the New Covenant so far to differ from and to exceed the Reward promised in the Old For no doubt there is therefore a good Reason for such Difference because all God's Words and Actions proceed if I may be allowed so to speak from Essential Reason And it is as certain that they all proceed from Justice Now neither Justice nor Reason do tell us that an Immense and Inconceivable Reward can be assigned to a broken and imperfect Obedience and in the mean while a less Reward be assigned to a perfect Obedience Since therefore a less Reward was proposed to Adam's Obedience had such his Obedience been perfect than what in a Saviour is proposed to a Christians imperfect Obedience it is notorious that such different Rewards can neither in Justice nor Reason be assigned to the different Obediences as such but that the Reward to the Christian must derive from his Saviour's Merits as the Reward of Adam must have derived from his own If therefore it be demanded upon what Grounds the Christian's Reward does derive from his Saviour the only Answer that can be given is That it must derive either from his Saviour's Sufferings in his stead or from his Saviour's Obedience in his stead And then because we have already made it out that it cannot either in Justice or Reason or indeed in Common Sense derive from his Saviour's Sufferings which do and can and that too in Nature only relate to his Punishment but not at all to his Reward therefore we do at last conclude that that immense Reward which the Gospel assigns to the believing Christian it does assign to him only in Consideration of his Saviour's Obedience Before we go any farther we may from what has been said observe That the immense Value of our Saviour's Person and Dignity does shew forth it self as well in the immense Value of his Obedience as in the immense Value of his Death and Sufferings For as it is evident that the Reward of his Obedience is inconceivably greater than the Reward of Adam's had been had Adam been obedient so for the same Reason it is infinitely greater than the Obedience of any other Man were that other only such a Man as Adam was
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
that the Objection supposes an Opposition between the imperfect Obedience of Believers and the Imputation of their Saviour's Righteousness from which supposed Opposition it infers That if Salvation be bestowed upon them in consideration of the one that it cannot for that Reason be bestowed in consideration of the other And indeed such a Supposition being granted the Inference would be good 2. But then secondly we do assert and maintain That there is no such Opposition between the Imputation and the imperfect Obedience of Believers as that Salvation must be disjunctively bestowed in consideration of the one in opposition to and exclusive of the other For tho' we allow a Believer's imperfect Obedience to be a subordinate yet we do not allow it to be the meritorious Cause of Man's Salvation that is tho' he shall have the Benefit of the Imputation in consideration of his sincere but imperfect Obedience yet he shall only obtain his Salvation in consideration of such Imputation For Justice only bestows the Reward there where it is deserved and to bestow it elsewhere may be called Mercy or may be called Favour but cannot either in propriety of Speech or Truth be called Justice Since therefore it is our present Business to maintain that Method in which God bestows not only Pardon of Sin but over and above an eternal Happiness to be just and since in order to its being so it must conform to his Law which is so or else the Law cannot be fulfilled and since lastly the Law does not assign its Reward to an imperfect Obedience For it requires a perfect not an imperfect Obedience and its Reward can and does only belong to what it requires not to what it does not require Since I say the Case stands thus it is obvious to observe First That because the Reward is only bestowed upon the Saviour's that is upon a perfect Obedience to which alone by the Law it does belong that therefore the Execution of the Law in the Distribution of its Reward is just And Secondly That because as we have already proved such his perfect Obedience is justly imputed to Believers in consideration of their sincere tho' imperfect Obedience that therefore as by his Obedience alone they are entitled to the Reward so according to the Tenor of the Gospel by their own Obedience they are entitled to His. When therefore Believers come to be judged in another World according to what they have done in this the Enquiry shall not be Whether by their Life led in this World they have deserved an eternal Happiness in that for that needs no Enquiry because it is most certain in it self and confessed on all Sides that they have not But their Trial shall be Whether their Obedience in this Life tho' imperfect and therefore in it self undeserving of eternal Happiness be such as may so far entitle them to their Saviour's Purchase as that his Obedience may be imputed to them in order to their obtaining such Purchase I have therefore pursued this Thing the farther because the Socinians do as much as in them lies vilifie the Imputation of our Saviour's Righteousness for by that Means they gain great Advantages to run down the Doctrine of the Expiation And yet too many of our own People do here close with them and do not to me seem to discern the mischievous Consequences that will fall upon the whole Doctrine of Redemption if once our Saviour's Obedience be excluded from being the meritorious Cause of Man's Salvation For as to my self I am at present very well satisfied that if the Law had never been fulfilled by Obedience the Breach of it had never been expiated by any Punishment inflicted for such Breach whatsoever For God's Design in promulging his Law was that it should be obeyed For most certain it is that it cannot be indifferent to him whether we obey what the Law commands or suffer what it threatens No! his Design is that we should be holy and safe Such a Design flows from his Nature and is an Effect of his essential Bounty and Goodness and therefore came from him freely without the Invitation or Sollicitation of any Thing besides his own Propension or Inclination But Judgment that is Punishment for the Breach of his Law is his strange Work that is it does not come from him as his Goodness and Bounty does freely and spontaneously but is extorted from him by the Interposition and Provocation of Sin To accomplish therefore the principal and more natural Design of his Law it is necessary that his Law should be obeyed for there is no other way of fulfilling of it And therefore He who told us that not one Jot or Tittle of it should fail told us likewise that he came to fulfil it Fulfil it not only as the Antitype of it but likewise as a Subject to it The Law then was fulfilled by our Saviour's Obedience and by his Obedience alone For all the rest of Mankind broke it And had he not fulfilled it by obeying it the Vengeance of it had always continued For it must have continued so long as it was justly due and it must be justly due so long as the Law remains broken and not obeyed We owe our Reward therefore to our Saviour's Obedience as we do our Redemption to his Death Nay which is more and more direct to our Text because the Law must of necessity be obeyed and because He alone did obey it therefore for that Reason as well as for several others there is not Salvation in any other I would desire them whom it chiefly concerns seriously to consider it And now having seen what Reason says to the Doctrine of our Saviour's Imputed Righteousness the next Thing to be enquired because the next Thing proposed will be to see what the Scriptures say to it In order to which take we notice in the 1. First place That our Saviour at his Incarnation did take upon him the same Flesh and Blood with us Men. For because he the Man Christ Jesus and we do both of us derive from one and the same single and common Stock Adam and because we are several Propagations and Branches from that one Stock therefore we may be truly reckoned because in reality so we are the several and distinct Parcels of that common Flesh and Blood out of which all Mankind are made But tho' the Son of God became Man in order to be the Saviour of Man and tho' he was made of the same Blood with all Men in order to his becoming Man yet because we know that the distinct Parcels of this common Flesh and Blood have and that justly too very different and sometimes contrary Allotments of Justice therefore we take notice 2. In the second place That all those who according to his Gospel are sincere and penitent are secure of having the Communications of his Spirit And then tho' that Flesh and Blood of which they with him are made Partakers be common to all
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
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