that bears the character of infinity dark and mysterious still we know God is we know that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him but can we tell by what methods his prudence manages the universe can we tell how he is infinitely wise just good merciful true c. or tho' we know God is so can we tell what it is to be so No we know the positive part but for us to go farther would argue us Gods and not men But does the revelation of a certain truth that was mysterious change its nature is not that which was a mystery before a mystery still The Christian Religion or the Principles on which it was built were once mysterious a Socinian will assert they were so before Christ's coming into the world but if we may give any credit to our Apostle who wrote after the Ascension of our Saviour into Heaven the mystery of Godliness is great still and it will continue so as long as Heaven and Earth endure But here for our better procedure in countermining the Socinian Heresies it will be necessary briefly to discuss that question how far humane reason is to take place in matters of Divinity For Smalcius tells us positively Smale Hom. 8. in c. 1. Joan. p. 89. Nullam esse religionis particulam quae cum ratione non conveniat quae cum ratione non convenit opinio eam etiam in Theologiâ nullum locum habere posse That there is no little point of Religion which does not agree with reason and whatsoever opinion does not agree with reason can have no place in Theological matters Now for the better clearing this matter I shall lay down these Propositions That the Reason of Man is the Candle of the Lord according to that of Solomon 1. Prov. 20.27 It s the real Image of God in man given to Man that he might be able to discourse with himself and argue concerning the nature of every object laid before him It 's that whereby he is able to distinguish between things to judge of what tends to his own happiness and what may any way be prejudicial to it It 's that whereby Man comes to see God in his Creatures from the frame and contexture and management of which he understands the wisdom and power of him that made them and to observe his own dependence upon that Almighty Sovereign It enables him to argue from observations upon himself concerning the goodness and mercy of God and how fit it is for all created Beings to adore and magnifie the Creator It shews how fit it is that those who so intirely depend upon him should devote all their services to him how they should all seek to him in every distress and worship him so as may be acceptable to him When I give humane reason so high a character I understand it only as imparted to him in his first Creation when he was equally clothed with native beauty and innocence his discursive faculty was then so high and clear that we miserable creatures have at present only some poor defective glimpses of it or we see it like some glorious light indeed but fix'd at so prodigious a distance that we cannot with all our present skill take it's true magnitude As it was then it fitted Man for that mighty Sovereignty over the inferiour parts of the Creation which he was then invested with it taught him to cultivate the garden of the Lord so as became a faithful Steward and Servant It gave him such a view of the Divine Nature that nothing could possibly seem more absurd or shameful than any thing he could do that might offend God And so true an insight into that which we call Natural Philosophy that the nature of every creature was obvious to him at first and he capable of naming all things according to that nature So that it was really not a want of reason which made him sink under the temptations of Hell but it was carelesness not standing duly upon his guard nor adverting seriously to the tenour of what was offer'd He had the weapon but he made no due use of it he was created indeed in a state of perfection but his passions and affections were alterable his body passible nay his reason it self capable of a countermine when the design of opposition center'd in a being created to as great advantages as himself And when parties of equal strength and courage are engaged in a contention the first that 's guilty of an inadvertency must certainly be foil'd had not love and beauty like the pipe of Mercury lull'd the hundred eyes of original reason into a fatal sleep death could never have found entrance into the world nor sin have been the dreadful harbinger of its ruines But we see Sin and Death have over-power'd and prevail every day more and more upon us without any considerable opposition which had reason retain'd its primeval vigour it would certainly have met with therefore we conclude That reason stands now extreamly impair'd by the fall of man and in a great measure incapacitated for prosecuting those noble ends for which at first it was bestow'd It 's true reason is the very form of the Soul the Soul it self a substance pure immaterial Divine but it 's immerst in a body of a grosser nature organized indeed originally exactly for its reception and every way fit to be actuated by it and by vertue of that exact preparation of its subject it moved originally with ease and freedom but forms may admit of alteration and sin has effected such an alteration in the Soul it has not quite extinguish'd that candle of the Lord but it has made it burn very dim and uncertainly it has not entirely separated reason from the Soul but it has made it slow and unactive or else only perversly active and whereas the body was exactly fit at first for the operations of an unpolluted Soul that body it self is much disordered now and even where the Soul would act better it finds it self oppressed with that body of Death which sin has loaded it with that Death as its preparative has thousands of diseases and distempers many of which extreamly impair that little reason we are still possest of not that the Soul is immediately prejudiced in it self by them but as the curious Artist can yet do nothing without his tools so the Soul moves heavily because the body is wholly unfitted for its exerting its activity and so farther as we observe the Artisan's work is worse or better according to the excellency of his tools so daily experience teaches us the mind applies it self more nimbly to work is more curious in its fancy more large and various in its inventions more calm and solid in its judgment according to the temper and constitution of that body it resides in Hence we conclude that those we call Ideots or Fools have Souls immortal and rational as well as our selves but those Souls
thine Altar Psal 26.6 therefore we find that during the whole force of the Ceremonial Law the outward Purifications might on an extraordinary Occasion as that of Hezekiah's Passover be dispensed with but the inward Purification of the Heart was a duty absolutely indispensible whence it was that when several of Ephraim and Manasseh and Issachar and Zabulun had not cleansed themselves Hezekiah put up that petition for them to God 2 Chron. 30.18 19 20. The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God the Lord God of his fathers though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the Sanctuary and the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah and healed the people which additional Passage intimates that God inflicted some punishment on the People for participating of the Passover when legally unprepared so to teach them a Lesson of punctual Obedience but he healed them upon account of their inward and spiritual Preparation to satisfie them that he esteemed inward Holiness beyond all the ceremonial Purifications of the Sanctuary In the Law there were a great many Washings appointed and upon several occasions the Scribes and Pharisees by virtue of some Traditions of their own added more Mark 7.3 4. they would not eat except they washed their hands and when they came from their markets they wash'd and there were many other things which they had received to hold as the washing of Cups and Pots and of brazen Vessels and of Tables Now all these things might contribute to outward Purity and argued a great care of Cleanliness nor were the Jews to have been condemned for these practices if they had not laid too great a weight upon them and for the sake of such Purifications banish'd all thoughts of true inward Purity out of their minds and this our Saviour reproves them for not condemning their outward Neatness but their making void the Law of God by their Traditions and he carries the reproof yet further Matth. 23.25 Wo unto you Scribes Pharisees Hypocrites for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter but within they are full of extortion and excess c. But the Purity of the Soul was what God principally regarded and those outward Washings originally ordain'd in the Law were so many Types design'd to put Men in mind of that clean Hand and that pure Heart which every one was to endeavour after If we look into Circumcision it self that great initiating Ceremony in the Jewish Church it was really a preventive of natural Vncleanness yet though it were made by God the Seal of that Covenant between himself and the Seed of Abraham the Jews had a right notion of what that Ceremony was to put them in mind of given them by Moses himself Deut. 10.16 so he bids them to circumcise the fore-skin of their hearts and to be no more stiff-necked Stubbornness and Disobedience were the Vncleanness of the Heart therefore what care the Jews took to prevent that of Nature it was reasonable they should take to remove that accruing from Sin Moses therefore promises it as a great Blessing from Heaven on them in case of their sincere Repentance when under God's afflicting hand Deut. 30.6 the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayst live where the stubborn Heart is once mollified the Love of God is easily settled in it Now that this Circumcision could effect nothing ex opere operato or that it could contribute nothing to the Obedience of the Soul we see demonstrated by the case of the Jews at present who are careful enough in performing the outward Rite of Circumcision and yet obdurate and unmalleable by all the Tendries of the Gospel therefore the Apostle has furnisht us with an easie Distinction between a Jew by Nature or one descended lineally from Abraham and a Jew by Grace or one ally'd to Abraham spiritually as he was the Father of the Faithful for says He He is not a Jew that is one outwardly Rom. 2.28 29. neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the Heart in the spirit whose praise is not of men but of God We see then that these Ceremonies to instance in no more have only a Typical Nature and can have no more because though they may serve to represent to our Memories the solid Duties of sincere Religion yet it 's impossible they should operate on the inward Man or in themselves make any one that is punctual in them acceptable in the sight of God Nor was there any need they should be more than Memorials or Representations of more important Good for those Ceremonial Vsages were from their first beginning whether among Adam's universal Race or the People of Israel intended only as comfortable supports to mens Spirits otherwise ready to droop under the various pressing calamities of a mortal Life God had given Adam the promise of the blessed Seed whose heel was to be bruised by the Serpent which bruise signified Death unless we can imagine Adam so weak as to draw any comfort from a literal Interpretation of the words but that sense could really afford none more than a promise that I should break the Head of some Snake and that should bite or wound my Heel could be a matter of consolation to all Mankind but Adam's case was this He saw how his Folly and Disobedience had made way to Sin and Death to tyrannize over all his own Posterity that the Sin committed was irrevocable the wages of Sin consequently inevitable these thoughts were enough to deject the most daring Spirits and Adam without the interposition of immense Goodness must have sunk irrecoverably beneath the dreadful weight of his own Misery What could prevent his despair could only be this an Assurance that the Powers of Sin and Death should not totally prevail but there should by some sufficient means be a stop effectually put to their Tyranny This Assurance God design'd to give him in that memorable Promise which though spoken to the Serpent was only a terrible Threatning to him but a precious Promise to Adam I will put enmity between thee and the Woman Gen. 3.15 and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel The bare settling an Enmity between Him who had tempted Adam by the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman could have signified little to Adam's satisfaction he had suffered too deeply in the first engagement with Him and therefore could not wish his Posterity engaged in a perpetual Warfare with so subtle an Adversary therefore the following words the seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpent's head contain'd the Comfort long'd for To bruise the Head is to wound a vital part to crush it is to put an
to have carried Mens sins or to have born them in his own Body at the place of Execution and it would be absurd and ridiculous to apply any such passages to him and yet as they say the Sins of Men were the cause of the death of those Victims offered to Almighty God by the Sinners and in the same manner were the cause of our Saviour's Death so the same Sins may truly be said to have been the cause of the death of St. Stephen and every Martyr yet the former Expressions being inapplicable to them and they contributing nothing to the Remission of Mens sins Christ onely being that Lamb of God who takes away the Sins of the World those Scriptural Expressions concerning the Death of Christ must signifie a great deal more than bare Dying upon Common Reasons can amount to But to answer this they tell us that whereas God proclaims himself Exod. 34.7 a God keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving Iniquities Transgressions and Sins according to the Hebrew Original it ought to be bearing or carrying Iniquities c. which is the same attributed here unto Christ and yet we cannot say that God as there named has satisfied for any sins therefore neither can Christ have satisfied for sins notwithstanding any such passages concerning him but this the Ancients easily answered by asserting our Jesus the Son of God to have been that very Being so often and emphatically called God who all along convers'd with the Israelites during their wandrings in the Wilderness as I formerly shewed and that Testimony given to their Opinion by St. Paul when dehorting the Corinthians from several Sins by the example of those Israelites 1 Cor. 10.9 he inserts Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted i. e. the same Christ and were destroyed of Serpents where Moses tells us they tempted God when they fell under that Judgment therefore that God was Christ therefore he really did converse with Israel in those days otherwise he could not have been tempted that Testimony for any thing I have yet seen may pass for unanswerable But with all respect to their Critical Skill we must assert they are mistaken the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the cited Text not signifying to carry in its primary acceptation but levare to ease or to take away Marin Brinxia in verbo and so Marinus in his Arca Noe translates this very Text by levare or tollere and so God when he pardons or forgives sins is rightly said to ease Men of that burthen they bear or to take them away and consequently our translating the word by forgiving is true and agreeable to the general sense of Interpreters hence the Authors of the Septuagint Translation as good Criticks as our Socinians render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking away not carrying Sins and they could scarce be suspected of being Athanasians no more could the Chaldee Paraphrast who interprets it by those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leaving or remitting Iniquity the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never signifying Carriage or any thing of that Nature but only leaving or remitting with what else may be genuinely deduced from that Interpretation Vid. Castel Lex Hept in verbo so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Syriack Version signifies leaving remitting pardoning sparing but no where signifies supporting or carrying the Samaritans use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word signifying easing and pardoning too the Arabic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking or driving as a flying Enemy is driven away by a pursuing Army So that for them because in a foreign sense the Hebrew word sometimes signifies to carry to interpret it so in this place contrary to the sense of all the World beside themselves is absurd and only shews what mean Shifts they are put to to find some Parallels to their abusive Constructions of Plain Scripture As for the Evangelists application of that Text Isa 53 4. He hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows to our Saviour Matth. 8.17 upon healing all the sick that were brought to him he only applies that to a particular there which really is of a general Import therefore what he applies to the removal of bodily Diseases St. Peter applies to Sins the Diseases of the Soul our Saviour visibly and openly removing the former as a sign of his removing the latter but not doing both in the same manner he cured bodily Distempers by a Word a Touch an Application of outward though seemingly unpromising Means but removing the Distempers of the Soul only by his Death and so by his blood cleansing us from all Sin satisfying his Father for all our Sins by his shedding of it purging our Souls from all the Filthiness and Corruption of Sins by the Application of it and by Faith in it and that Blood-shedding of our Saviour as tending to his Death prov'd it's infinite Price and Value so often taken notice of in Scripture by being equivalent to those Punishments Divine Justice might and must have laid upon Transgressours the Socinians indeed say He takes away our sins i. e. He makes a shew as if he died and bore the Punishment due to our Sins eorum quasi poenam in se recepit so putting a sham upon the World pretending or seeming to do what he never did from which if the World were convinced of the Truth of what they assert it would be very hard to persuade them that he did by such seeming Means eos à vera eorum poena exsolvere discharge Mankind really from those certain Punishments attending upon Sin so for that further put off That our Saviour may justly be said to procure Salvation for us by his Death because by that Obedience show'd to his Father in dying at his Command he had all Power conferred upon him both in heaven and earth and so had power to forgive our Sins and to confer eternal Life upon us It 's against Reason to believe it for all Power in Heaven and in Earth is infinite Power infinite Power must have an infinite Subject to reside in Christ being meer Man can be no such infinite Subject therefore no such Power can be confer'd on him on account of his Obedience for he cannot receive an impossible Reward but that infinite Power being essential to him as an infinite and eternal Spirit his Humane Nature as united to that is made Partaker of that infinite Power and consequently Christ God and Man can indeed bestow on us those mighty Blessings To fix in our Minds the Notion of Christ's Satisfaction for our sins the more we are told by the Apostle as I formerly cited him That we are justified freely by his Grace Rom. 3.24 25 26. through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of sins to declare at this time his
long'd for Death though in its most dreadful shape was never half so terrible to them as such a Disappointment in the midst of all their Pains not Victors in the fam'd Olympick Games not young Generals after mighty and unexpected Victories were possest with a more exulting Joy than those triumphant Saints on their Natalitial days for such they accounted those times of their Sufferings then happy Visions pleas'd their parting Souls and an expiring Stephen could see the Heavens opened and the Son of Man his glorious Redeemer sitting at the right-hand of God Flames were to them so many Beds of Roses Racks and Wheels like yielding Down or soft as Fanning Briezes on a Summer's Evening no Mournings no Complaints were heard no Tears were seen among them but Songs of Joy and Praise and Triumph were the Exercise of their suffering Hours and their aspiring Souls mounted on them as on Seraphic Wings to Abraham's Bosom and what was the original Ground and Reason of all these Joys but only the certain Goodness of their Cause the extraordinary Assistances of their King and Saviour and an infallible Assurance of God's Love to them and consequently of their future and eternal Happiness Rom. 8.18 They reckoned that the Sufferings of the present time were not worthy to be compared to the Glory which should be revealed in them and therefore Heb. 11.35 though they were tortured yet they accepted not of Deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection and all this was agreeable to the Doctrine of the Cross as laid down by the Apostles in Scripture here then was the Faith and Patience the Courage and Resolution of the Saints these were indeed to be imitated the Spirit and Power they acted with was wholly Divine and irresistible but if after all this gallant Prospect of the noble Army of Martyrs we turn our Looks upon the dying Jesus or his behaviour of himself under his Sufferings things will look very differently we find in him all the evidences of Fear and Sorrow and cruel Apprehensions of that Death he was to undergo His Soul was exceeding sorrowful even to death he beg'd of his Father if it were possible that that bitter Cup might pass from him and though he concluded his Prayer with that resigning Expression nevertheless not my will but thy will be done yet he repeated his deprecatory Prayer three times to shew how earnest and real he was in his Requests his Fear and Earnestness produced that Bloody Sweat and brought down the Angel from Heaven to strengthen him all these were Prefaces to his Sufferings of a very disagreeable Nature to the sacred Ambition of his own martyr'd Followers when he was in the Agonies of Death he was so far from any Triumphant Expression on the occasion that he vented his sorrowful Spirits in that despondent Cry My God my God why hast thou forsaken me we cannot pretend the Blessed Jesus at this time was under any alienation of Mind under any distraction of Spirit by reason of the extremity of his Pains we have shewn before that many suffered much greater Cruelties for his sake than the pains of the Cross amounted to consider it only as the Roman Method of putting Slaves to death and even Pagan Philosophers have suffered much more to the World's eye voluntarily and involuntarily without any such inward distemper as Anaxarchus and Calanus the Indian the former being beaten to pieces in a Mortar by Nicocreon the Cyprian Tyrant the latter walking gravely into the Fire prepared for that purpose before Alexander the Great and there Philosophizing seriously and rationally till his Breath was stopt by Smoke and Flames and our Saviour shew'd as great a Mastery of his own Thoughts and as undisturbed Apprehensions of things when upon the Cross as at other times as in refusing Gall and Vinegar in discoursing with the penitent Thief in taking care for his blessed mourning Mother c. we cannot pretend it was the Delicacy of our Saviour's Body who being conceiv'd in an extraordinary Manner was accompanied with a preternatural Tenderness for we know its the Soul that sees in the Eyes feels in the several Members hears in the Ears suffers in every bleeding Wound the Body without its Activity being only a stupid and insensible Lump of Earth and the Soul of our Saviour being according to the Confession of all of a Nature far exalted above the common Standard of Mankind having no Guilt to clog it no Sin to render it uneasie and therefore could not be but far above any groveling Earthy Thoughts infinitely sensible of the Advantages of Death to those that died in God's Favour and therefore would more perfectly despise all the Effects of humane Rage or Malice we cannot say our Saviour was the first that suffered under the Inhumanity of Persecutors so many of the Prophets had been brought to violent Deaths before not to mention that Persecution the faithful Jews underwent from the Tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes it cannot be alledged that Sufferings were the more heavy and insupportable to our Saviour because he was conscious of his own Purity and Innocence such a Conscience of inward Integrity must needs be the most comfortable Circumstance in the World for a dying Man such an Innocent being infallibly certain of eternal Rest and Happiness in a future World and it was among other things a clear Sense of their peace being made with God which those who are holy and harmless can never want that made those eminent Servants of God so eager to be Martyrs knowing it was better for them to be dissolv'd and to be with God than to linger upon Earth though compassed about with all the Grandeur and Felicity a state of Infirmity can be susceptible of nor can it be supposed that the Ingratitude and Baseness of the Jews among whom he had preached and for whose Conviction he had done so many mighty Miracles could work upon him so much as to press him with such exceeding Sorrows it 's true indeed Ingratitude to Benefactors is a Crime it 's a very pungent Thought to Men in Adversity to see those on whom they have laid the greatest Obligations stand among their Enemies and promote their Ruine and it 's further true that never were any Generation of Men more unworthy or more insensible of the most powerful Obligations than the Jews contemporary with our Saviour but after all this granted why should our Lord at that time more particularly pray to his Father that the bitter Cup might pass from him when he had all along through the whole course of his Life found the Jews as ill inclin'd to him as then but only wanting proper Opportunities to shew it or why should the Blessed Jesus cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me only because the Jews had repay'd his Goodness with Ingratitude and Cruelty besides this was the Case of our Lord's Disciples and Followers as well as of himself they preached among both Jews
could be subservient Brev. c. 19. Concil t. 5. p 762. Liberatus indeed tells such a story in his abridgment but it 's so impertinent that even Crellius himself concludes he was mistaken in it and we may go farther and pronounce it wholly false since a Manuscript Copy of the new Testament presented to Charles the first of blessed memory by Cyrill then Patriarch of Constantinople reads as we do at this day and that Copy being about 1300 years old was written long before the latter Macedonius was born so that there was no need of running himself into danger by inserting that word into St. Paul's Text which was there before the Socinians tho' daring enough to impose upon the world could not but see the absurdity of their own pretence therefore they try to weaken the force of this Text by another artifice For so they tell us that allowing the word God in the Text it 's not to be understood of Jesus Christ but of God the Father and in this they have Grotius tho' at a distance their Leader too who gives us this general interpretation of the Verse We are not here concern'd about any ordinary truth but about that part of it which no man of himself was able to make out which has an extraordinary faculty to generate true piety in our hearts vid. Grot. in locum a part of truth in comparison of which all the Precepts and Principles of the Mosaic Law and of Philosophy are idle and of no effect and this mysterious truth amounts to this That the Gospel was published not by Angels but by poor infirm and inconsiderable men as our Lord and his Apostles seem'd to the World so the great mystery was manifest in the flesh this Gospel was justified in the spirit i. e. it was approv'd to the World by many Miracles these being wrought by the influence of the spirit it was seen of Angels and that with the greatest admiration for Angels came to the knowledge of the Gospel by the means of Men it was preacht to the Gentiles not only to the Jews who before were God's peculiar people but to the Gentiles who were meer strangers to the true God it was believ'd on in the World a great part of Mankind entertaining it and it was receiv'd up in glory i e. it was exalted very gloriously because it introduced a far greater degree of Holiness into the World than any former Opinions did So much pains did that learned man take to obscure a plain Text of Scripture and his gloss upon it was but impertinent and absurd at last He 's mighty willing to let the Verse pass without that emphatical word in it but his fancy about the Gospel's being manifest in the flesh and seen of Angels being justified in the Spirit and receiv'd up into glory are so poor and dilute as became not a man of learning and sense to obtrude upon the world therefore his Socinian followers tho' they touch upon this gloss of his yet they quit the Gospel which he insists upon and take God the Father in its room So Volkelius asserts Deum Patrem in carne manifestatum fuisse intelligendum esse that by the Text we are to understand that God the Father was manifest in the flesh and pursues that assertion with this Paraphrase of the whole That God by Christ and his Apostles who suffer'd many things on that account did more clearly then ever discover himself and his will unknown to all precedent Ages In the mean time tho' he reveal'd these things by inconsiderable men he took care by that divine power he shew'd in them to evidence his own justice and truth and to have his will approv'd that at that time and not sooner this will of his was known and understood by the very Angels and the extraordinary wisdom of God which shines in it lay open before them that this same will of God was preach'd to foreign Nations unacquainted with him before and destitute of divine revelation vid. Volkelium ubi supra cum reliquis that the World in all parts gave credit to it and that it was openly receiv'd by Men with a great deal of Honour So far Volkelius with whom agree Crellius tho' dilating more largely upon the place Zwicker and the Racovian Catechism Schlicktingius goes along with Grotius and will by no means admit of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God and in plain terms tells us Schlicktingius in loc Deum manifestatum esse in carne dicere nugari est it 's meer fooling to say God was manifest in the flesh and that Godliness and God manifest in the world were very different things But this we shall have occasion to animadvert upon afterwards As for this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the great mystery mention'd in the Text Suidas interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy rites of a secret nature Vid. Suid. in Lex v. 1. Vid. Vossii Etym. ling. latinae Dieterici Lex nov testam or not commonly known that they were so call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because those that heard them stopt their mouths that they might not divulge or explain them to any Vossius and Dieterichus from Casaubon and Hornius chuse rather to derive it from the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to hide or to conceal from hence comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a concealment or a place to hide one in so that whencesoever it s deriv'd they agree it signifies somewhat of a secret nature not easily to be found out In Ecclesia ea vox generatim accipitur pro re Sacrâ naturae lumine incomprehensibili says Vossius as us'd by Ecclesiastical Writers it 's generally taken for holy things incomprehensible by the light of nature tho' sometimes it has a more restrain'd signification relating to Symbolical rites and so the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are frequently call'd mysteries but in the Text where we are told the mystery of Godliness is great and that assertion prov'd by the following particulars we learn that the whole affair of the Incarnation of the blessed Jesus with its consequences by which the Redemption of Mankind from the slavery of sin and death was effected is a deep and profound mystery or secret not to be comprehended by any humane understanding and yet so necessarily to be believ'd that no man can rightly assume the name of Christian or pretend to give a due credit to the doctrine of the Gospel without embracing and fully believing it But here we lie open again to the insults of our Socinian adversaries for they seem very unwilling to allow any such things at present as mysteries in Religion for tho' they do believe there were in former ages as particularly before our Saviour's time many things tending to humane salvation which yet to humane understandings were inscrutable and never to be found out yet these things are now
so to believe also in Him But now if without believing in Christ eternal life and happiness cannot be obtain'd and that be saving Faith which is fix'd on Him and if we be reasonably commanded to believe in him and yet true saving Faith cannot be fix'd in any but in God alone then it will follow that Christ must be God the true the Supreme God and it will follow too that it 's indispensibly necessary that all Men should know he is God that they may know in whom it is that they believe that he is the proper object of Divine Faith and able to answer all the expectations of Faith For otherwise as a proposition may in it self be true and yet I may be a lyer when I swear it is true because I know nothing of its being so So though Christ may be in himself the true God yet I am an Idolater for worshipping him as the true while I know not that he is indeed the true God And St. Paul acquits not the Athenians of Idolatry in consecrating an Altar to the unknown God tho' that God unknown to them was the same God whom he preach'd unto them Nor will that of the Apostle St. John be easily avoided where having before told us We know that the Son of God is come 1 John 5.20 and hath given us an understanding to know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in Jesus Christ he subjoyns This is the true God and Eternal Life These words if we interpret them as they lie and they seem to have no figure or Hyperbole or foreign relation in them may pass for a very plain Text to prove that it concerns no less than our Eternal Salvation to know that Jesus Christ is the true God and this Interpretation gives the clearer reason and stronger Emphasis to his following rule v. 21. Little Children keep your selves from Idols If then our Lord's design was to procure Man's everlasting Salvation a right and certain knowledge of that on which Eternal Life depends cannot be impertinent to our Lord's design And if to worship God according to his declared Will be the purpose of every one that embraces Christianity exclusively of all other Religions he that thinks it necessary in his worship to distinguish between these respects due to a meer Creature and those Honours belonging to the Creator cannot miss his purpose or lose his labour and He who by solid proofs drawn from clear and pertinent places of Scripture makes his Faith in this particular rational cannot easily incur any extraordinary danger though without so doing he may incur a fatal hazard and thus we come to a direct discourse on that Particular where these things will be more fully considered Having concluded the first words of this Verse Without Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness to signifie to us the concurrence of the Christian Faith with the Worlds general vogue in relation to Religion and that Mysteries great and obscure are very necessary to the perpetuation of that Faith and rend'ring it venerable among conceited and presuming disputants it cannot be unuseful to discourse on the first instance the Apostle makes use of to illustrate the Mystery of Godliness or of the Christian Faith viz. God's manifesting himself in the flesh or appearing and showing himself to humane eyes cloth'd in humane nature for though God manifests himself a thousand several ways in his works of Creation and Providence where his Truth Justice Mercy Power Wisdom c. are notoriously evident to diligent observers yet all these manifestations of himself are at a distance and such as though they give us a very fair Idea of divine Goodness as in himself yet conduce little to Humane happiness while Men reflect upon themselves as miserably degenerate from that original excellency they were created in and as such who have extremely abus'd all those evidences of God's power and influence upon the World which have been given for restraining them within due bounds and making them submissive to a superiour Law such reflections teach Men to look upon themselves as in a ruinous state fit subjects for eternal displeasure and of themselves wholly incapable of satisfying divine justice or retrieving forfeited happiness and upon God onely as a severe Judge and powerful revenger of whom they could onely conclude that he would vindicate his own honour upon those that injured it and punish those to extremity who had not duly improved those overtures of himself which he had made in his visible works What Man in such a case might wish for is easie enough to conjecture He that 's falling down a precipice would bless the Hand that would save him from death and he that 's going immediately to execution would be overjoy'd to hear of a pardon so would almost despairing wretched sinful Man do wish for some proportionable power to interpose between himself and vengeance But such a power onely could be in God and yet so great a benefit could be procur'd for Man onely by such an adequate satisfaction to God's anger as could be given by a Man Here Humane conceptions were entirely at a loss the universal imperfection of their nature they plainly understood and so the impossibility of meer humane satisfaction they easily found it was no created being it was no mere man though strengthened by Divine assistance nay it was none of those pure and happy Spirits who attend on celestial Ministrations that could stem that prodigious tide of immense wrath therefore God himself must interpose but how Infinity should be confin'd how He who grasp'd the Universe in his hand should stoop from Heaven for the sake of those who had affronted his goodness before how He should condescend to assume Humanity the necessary Medium of peace were Mysteries too great for Man to fathom and Hopes too large for guilty souls to please themselves with but what was so very obscure to Man was plain and easie to the Almighty and when the time of his redeem'd was come when he look'd and there was none to help Isay 63.4 5. and wondred that there was none to uphold then his own arm brought salvation to the World It was then in that absolute fulness of time when sins and miseries and anger were at the height and all things seem'd inevitably running to eternal destruction that God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law from those burdens and that death to which they were enslav'd to stop the fatal final sentence then ready to be past God himself was so made manifest in the flesh In relation to which great action we shall assert That Jesus Christ the Messias appearing in our Humane nature or cloth'd with flesh and blood was really the Son of God That the same blessed Jesus was God equal with his Father or really and truly God as well as real Man That it was necessary that
Son of God The Chara Deûm soboles magnum Jovis incrementum as Virgil expresses it And thus much may serve for those Prophecies fore-running the Birth of our Saviour I proceed now to enquire Into the manner and circumstances of his Birth which notwithstanding its outward or appearing meanness was exactly agreeable to the grandeur predicted of him for his being born in a publick Inn and in a place of contempt his being laid in a Manger and having as some tell us Oxen and Asses for his Companions were no prejudice to his dignity it s not the place of birth but the parents of whom Men are born that makes them vile in the worlds eyes A Beggar may be born in a Palace nay wrapt in purple too and concluded great by incurious fools and great Princes have been born in forests and deserts lost to all humane helps and respects sutable to their descents yet he that 's born of Parent beggars is a beggar still and he that is deduced from the just Possessors of a Throne a Prince and such was our blessed Saviour being God of God light of light very God of very God tho' manifest in the flesh and to shew that he was such He that had been so often promised before when the time of his manifestation in the flesh came had no less than an Angel from Heaven to notifie his very Conception and his too who was to prepare his way before him Luke 1 11-21 An Angel told Zacharias of John the Baptist when age made him past the hopes of such a blessing an Angel too foretold the blessed Virgin That she should conceive in her womb and bring forth a Son and call his name Jesus v. 30 31 32 33 c. who should be great and be call'd the Son of the Highest to whom the Lord should give the throne of his father David and who should reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of whose kingdom there should be no end So proving that Isaiah's prophecy c. 7. v. 14. was presently to be accomplished it being a Virgin to whom the Angel foretold those great things who without a miracle could not conceive and the design of his Birth being that he might be Jesus the Saviour of the world which none could be but who was Immanuel or God with us After such preparatives it was no wonder if other prophetick passages came to be made good too the fulness of time requir'd such an accomplishment as well as the compleating of Sins which were the occasion of those gracious promises to the sinners as they mov'd the merciful God to pitty and compassion which he chose then to shew when danger and misery was in its extremity Prophecies concerning persons and places have generally their fixt times to be performed in which tho' they are very difficult to be found out by others before hand who are not possess'd by the same spirit which inspir'd the Prophets are yet very plain and easily intelligible to considering Men when they come to read and seriously to weigh the Histories of things past and we who stand at that advantage of time who have the History of the blessed Jesus faithfully delivered down to us and the predictions foregoing his Birth into the world may so compare them together as to make them strongly confirm the truth of one another And thus whereas we find the repeated promises to Abraham and Isaac that in their seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed which could not be effected by any temporal Interests or extent of Empire For tho' wise Governours are a blessing to any nation yet all nations together are too great a Body to he managed by a single hand and a Solomon himself can be no great blessing to those that never heard of him But when he appear'd who was to save the people from their sins Matt. 1.21 as the Angel in a dream inform'd Joseph Luke 1.78 79. When the day-spring from on high visited the world to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide their feet into the way of peace When that common Salvation was presented to humane eyes which was prepared before the face of all people Luke 2.30 31 32. to be a light to lighten the Gentiles as well as the glory of the tribes of Israel as old holy Simeon expresses himself then that Vniversal Blessing was really bestowed and Jesus taking flesh of the blessed Virgin was really that sacred branch who scattered his goodness as the Sun his beams through all the quarters of the Universe Remission of sins Redemption from the powers of Death and Hell Reconciliation of sinners to a terribly incensed God were all favours of an Vniversal influence none could be exempted from their glorious effects but those who coveted their own ruines and were resolved not to accept of an offered blessing That celebrated prediction of Jacob That the Scepter should not depart from Judah nor the Lawgiver from between his feet till Shilo came was as punctually made good at the time of our Saviour's appearance in the world who was the Shilo promis'd or the person to be sent to take the Government upon him which Prophecy though the Jews have endeavoured to render as obscure as possible and tho' others by their needless curiosity have made us no fewer than six several interpretations of it yet it seems to have no such extraordinary difficulty in it if that particle which is in our Bibles translated and be but as usually it is translated or for so the import of it will be that either a regal Government should be continued in the tribe of Judah or at least a Law-giver when that Government ceased should be found among them i. e. a legal expositor or determiner of the meaning of the Law of Moses till the Messias should be ready to come Now he that considers that as Judah had the superiority among his brethren that he was the Leader of the Israelites to the war against the Canaanites Judges 1 1 2. that his tribe was abundantly the most numerous of all the rest as may be seen by the several accounts of their encrease that the tribe of Judah had much the noblest and the largest share in the promised Land and that the Royalty was at last regularly setled in the house of David in that tribe to which family in particular the Messias was confined He that shall consider these things carefully and shall observe withal That upon the defection of Jeroboam the tribe of Levi in their zeal to the honour and service of the true God left the rebelling tribes for so we are told 2 Chron. 11.13 14. That the Priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to Rehoboam the son of Solomon out of all their coasts for the Levites left their suburbs and possessions and came to Judah and Jerusalem by which means the tribe of Levi to
him If He be a meer Man whatsoever obliges us to Worship the Lord our God and to serve him only excludes Christ from being any such Object of our adorations and we cannot reasonably believe but that after our Saviour had baffled the Tempter by that assertion when He came to see our Saviour permit himself nay and encourage and command himself to be Worshipped He would have reflected upon our Saviour as false to his own Principles and therefore none of God's Son or the worlds Saviour and the reflection must have been good unless the Devil had been satisfied beyond dispute that He whom he had tempted under the veil of a body assumed was really and truly God As such the Devil found him in his humble state able to confound able to command him and that in his own name upon all occasions Devils trembled at the sight of him as of their original and all-powerful Creator at whose hands they had received a glorious and blissful Being but had foolishly and ingratefully fallen from it So the guilty Soul trembles now at the distant apprehensions of it's terrible Judge and according to Evangelical assertions at his dreadful approach will cry eagerly to the hills to fall upon it and to the rocks to cover it if possible from the dismal effects of infinite and insupportable Fury The Apostle tells us That the earnest expectation of the Creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God Rom. 8.19 20 21 22. That the Creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope because the Creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God And that we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now By the Creature here we understand all creatures whatsoever or all created Beings of a purer or of a grosser Nature and the Creature is agreeably interpreted in the last cited verse by the whole Creation and this interpretation is so general that it seems incontestable Hence we infer that if our Saviour was a meer Creature he was under the same necessities and inconveniences as all other parts of the Creation were He must have earnestly expected the manifestation of the Sons of God as they themselves being a part of the Creation do i. e. to see the time wherein the Servants of God in spite of all sinister Opinions and Prejudices against them shall be gloriously proved to all the World to be what they are the real Sons of God and infinitely dear to Him Farther Christ as a Creature must have been subject to vanity as well as the rest lyable to corruption assertable into liberty something that could groan and be in pain till the time of manifestation all these things Christ if he were a meer Creature must have been and must be liable to at this present and be always in an obnoxious state till the great day of Judgment and the revelation of the righteous Judge that is of Himself Therefore he cannot now excuse any Man from the Sin of Idolatry who shall worship him as God any more than others can nor indeed can he be yet capable of that divine Glory and Honour which the Socinians would have us believe were conferred upon him after his Resurrection This consequence from these words the Socinians are so very sensible of that they endeavour by all means to prevent it and to do so they fly to one of their conceited interpretations and the Creature here must be the new Creature tho' the new Creature be no where in Scripture besides called either the Creature absolutely or the whole Creation Schlichtingius in particular is very elaborate and prolix in proving that the Creature can mean nothing else but what is elsewhere known by that Epithet of New but here their admired friend Grotius forsakes them and in effect declares that Interpretation of theirs meer Nonsence The Sons of God mentioned in the cited Text are unquestionably new Creatures they must be one before they can be the other Why then the Creature should signifie the same is unaccountable Vid. Deut. 32.1 especially seeing the Apostle in those Verses puts a plain distinction between them so that Grotius determines rightly Jer. 47.6 The words are a Prosopopoeia wherein by a Figure no way unusual in Scripture the Vniverse and all the parts in it are brought in as some single Rational Being expecting waiting groaning subject to vanity c. Nor is the subjection to vanity nor the expectation of liberty so uncouth an application to the Universe for besides that Solomon tells us that all things under the Sun are only vanity we cannot wonder at the thing it self Man 's first sin was prejudicial to the whole frame of Nature all things suffered by it the Earth fell under a curse the living Creatures embroyled in a state of War one with one another Sin and Death having gotten footing in the World all things in their proportion felt the dismal effects of it the Creatures according to Prophetical Predictions were to be partakers of very considerable advantages by the dominion of the Messias an Universal Peace was to overspread the World The Wolf to lye down with the Lamb and the Ox with the Lyon Children to play securely with the most noxious Creatures and Men to beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning-hooks c. And we make no doubt but that when the final determining Judgment shall be past and a notorious distinction made between God's Servants and his Enemies The New Heavens and the new Earth whatever Creatures we may imagine to be sharers in it will be the unchangeable habitations of Peace and Righteousness and even the most insensible parts of the Creation will receive advantages by those blessings the eternal Government of the Son of God must introduce At least we may be sure there will be an end put to all those Calamities and that extreme Servility the whole Creation lyes under at present by reason of Sin Now to this servile or vain state the Creature is subject not willingly nor indeed by it's own fault but as Subjects suffer whether they will or not by the miscarriages of their Princes so the several parts of the visible Creation by the folly of Man their Prince and Head It was from that time the Devil acquired his title of being the Prince of the power of the Air a Title and Power troublesom to every thing there but if that Crime committed by Man subjected the whole Creation to vanity that merciful Promise of a Saviour given to fallen Man could not but be of excellent advantage to his visible felow Creatures since the performance of that Promise would be so great an abatement to the Devil's Tyranny and the absolute Government of the Messias would put a full end to it at last So that the Criticisme of
tho' it were an inward grace a strengthning of the Soul which they requir'd of him Again when the Disciples were with him on ship-board and during his quiet sleep just sinking by the violence of an angry tempest they in a fright wake their Master and cry out to him Lord save us we perish Mat. 8.25 If our Saviour was a meer Man the Disciples acted with much less sence than Jonah's Mariners who every one in the storm called upon their Gods for help and summoned sleeping Jonas not to save them by His Power but to joyn with them in calling upon his God For was it ever heard before that when a Ship was just sinking or running upon a rock the ship's Crew ran to some poor ignorant Passenger to beg their security from him The Mariners tho' convinced that he was an extraordinary Person made no such application to Saint Paul in a parallel danger it 's God alone who can command the Seas and Winds his permissive Word makes them ruffle the Universe and put Nature into a Consternation the same Word lays them still as in their first Originals ere uncorrupted Nature knew any thing terrible or dangerous In the case before us our Saviour answered them not as that King of Israel did the Woman If the Lord help thee not what can I do But He arose and rebuked the Winds and the Sea and there was a great calm Nature in its greatest hurry own'd his Divine Authority only his Disciples stumbled upon the Question ver 27. What manner of Man is this that even the Winds and the Sea obey him They talked like Men beside themselves with Fear they called upon him for Help as if they had believed him to be God they reflected upon that Deliverance he had given them as if he had been no more than Man but he takes no notice of any error they were in in their first Devotions but by his Mercy encouraged them to do the same again upon a like occasion What the Disciples did here in a storm at Sea that Saint Stephen the first Martyr for Christianity did in a more violent storm of Persecution on Land for when he came to his last Agonies when it was the proper season for a good Man to exert the utmost vigor of his Faith and Charity then for himself and with respect to his own Soul he prays Acts 7.59 Lord Jesus receive my Spirit The frequent expiring Ejaculation of Holy Saints and Martyrs after him Compare now this with that assertion of the wise Man concerning Death Eccles. 12 7. Then shall the Dust return to Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it and the consequence will be either that our Lord Jesus Christ was the great Author or Creator and Giver of the Rational Soul or else that this Holy Martyr then when filled in an extraordinary manner with the Holy Ghost in his extreme hours when commonly Mens apprehensions of futurity are most Clear and Rational talk'd in a very Impertinent and sinful manner to devote his Soul to him who could have no right to it if he were a meer Creature and to forget his God Franciscus Davidis would have us believe here that Stephen did not call upon Jesus Christ but upon God the Father and that we should translate the expression O thou Lord of Jesus receive my Spirit but this Socinus has strongly confuted tho' upon their common Principle of our Saviour's being a meer Creature Franciscus undertakes the much more rational part However here his subterfuge is nothing worth It was Jesus the Son of God He who bore that proper name of Jesus from his Circumcision for whose sake Stephen was now persecuted to Death by the malicious Jews it was the same Jesus whom he saw at the right hand of God when the Heavens opened to give him such a view of future Glory prepared for Martyrs as might support and encourage him under his sufferings it was to him therefore that Stephen applyed himself and sitted himself for a glorious and happy Exit by that admirable Resignation But neither did Saint Stephen stop there but as the utmost effort of a dying Martyr's Charity He adds this to his former ejaculation ver 60. Lord lay not this sin to their charge He certainly designed exemplary Charity in this and to imitate his dying Saviour who prayed his Father to forgive his Murderers for they knew not what they did But the Martyr's enemies would have had little reason to have admir'd his Charity had he presented his Prayers for them to one who had no power to forgive them and the Jews would be as ready now to make the Objection as heretofore Who can forgive sins but God only And if God to whom vengeance belongeth in whose sight the Death of his Saints is precious would certainly avenge the blood of his Saints and Martyrs upon their Persecutors to what purpose was it to pray to him to forgive them who not being the most high God himself could have no Power to forgive those who had sin'd against the most high God so as to give them any security but above all He could never have hoped for any acceptance at the hand of God in any Petition whatsoever had he now in his last extremity been guilty of Idolatry Saint Paul had been made partaker of extraordinary Revelations had been snatch'd up into the third heavens where he had seen and heard things not lawful for a Man to utter 2 Cor. 1â— 7 8 9. indeed things unspeakable lest He should have been exalted above measure thro' the abundance of those Revelations there was given to him a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet him This was a very severe humiliation and Saint Paul was sensible of it and at first as appears by the Text very uneasie under it Saint Paul knew well enough that the best remedy for all calamities was Prayer that Prayers presented to the true God with a sincere heart could not return unfruitful but Saint Paul presently applyes himself to Christ For this cause I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me says he and He said unto me my Grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness By the Lord here the Socinians themselves understand our Lord Jesus and therefore alledge this Text as a proof of Pious Mens praying to Christ Now had Saint Paul prayed to Christ for Assistance and Relief in such a case where only the Supreme God could really help him if that Christ were a meer Creature then such a Prayer must be Idolatrous and such Service be called Idolatry wherein the Creature was rather worshipped than the Creator and Christ a Creature must as Lucifer of old have endeavoured to set himself up for a rival God and prosecute a separate Interest of his own and manage and assist his servants in a way of opposition to the most high God and
and prosecute by God's assistance under these Heads Our Saviour was incarnate or the Son of God was made Flesh That He might destroy the works of the Devil or put an end to his Tyranny over us That The World might be convinc'd that the Law given by Moses to the nation of the Jews was so much God's Law that it could not be disannull'd or antiquated in any particular but by an authority not inferiour to that of God himself who framed it That God's Law as given to the Jews might be exactly and according to the Letter fulfilled in our Nature and so that He who fulfilled it might be an example of Holiness and Obedience to us God was manifest in the flesh or which amounts to the same our Saviour was Incarnate 1 Joh. 3 8. That He might destroy the Works of the Devil and put an end to his Tyranny over us This is the very doctrine of the Apostle For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the Devil that is that He might get the Mastery of Sin and Death so that neither of them might prevail upon us to our eternal Destruction The Devil had got a strange Ascendant over Men since the Fall so that he seemed to preside in every humane action this Prevalency of his almost banished all Natural Religion out of the World or perverted it to so ill Intents and Purposes that it lost it's name in gross Superstition and ridiculous Idolatry The Devil made use of all the various Dispensations of Providence for the promoting of his own wicked Designs so that the bare Permission of him to prevail was thought a sufficient argument by which to assert his own Independent Supremacy over the World and consequently to engross to himself all that Divine Worship which Originally belonged to the Almighty Nor could it be strange that He who seemed to manage all the affairs of the Universe without controul should be generally feared and sacrificed to if it were for no other reasons but that he might do no outward mischief Having thus insinuated himself into the Throne of God tho' he might now and then for his own credit propound some honest Moral Principles to the World yet He took far greater advantages to instil all manner of Impieties into his Adorers it was his malicious and desperate aim to revenge himself on that terrible Justice which had condemned him to eternal burnings and this revenge as he commenc'd with tempting Men to sin at first so he carried it on by moving deluded Wretches to do all such things as seemed the most directly to contradict the Will of Heaven hence arose that horrid complication of sins of which the Pagan world were guilty summ'd up by the Apostle It was Man's unhappiness Rom 1.28 c. that notwithstanding the visible fatal effects of the first sin they would yet believe it possible there might some unknown sweets lye hid in the perpetration of wickedness Sin always made a gaudy shew like a common Whore in gay trappings who carries so much of Witchcraft in her lascivious looks that tho' many rot away piece-meal in her poysonous embraces yet other wicked and adventurous fools are always adding to the tale of her nasty Trophies This gay outside of sin could prevail not only upon the inferior World but upon the Sons of God themselves those separated from the rest of Adam's race by nobler principles and a diviner knowledge tho' the product of that unhappy softness was nothing but Brutes and Monsters the Plagues of Nature and the insolent Enemies of Heaven Sin prevailed afterwards when God had chosen to himself a particular Nation and made them the proper Lot of his inheritance and where God could discover but 7000. of those who had not bowed the knee to Baal who had not defiled themselves by a miserable prostitution of their Souls to Hell the Devil had a spreading and destructive Interest among the thousands of Israel every day added more to his strength and his ready apprehension of his mighty Conquerours approach edged his Industry and raised his Rage to more than a double heat because his time was short It grieved that enemy of Souls to think of the impendent abridgment of his Insolence He had been so us'd to easie Conquests that He knew not how to veil to the blessed Jesus nor could he speak less to him than as if he had still been the Governour of the Universe and could really by virtue of some inherent authority of his own have bestowed all the kingdoms of the world and the glories of them upon whomsoever he pleased If we would make more particular remarks of the Devil's influence on the World about our Saviour's Incarnation we shall find it notorious in the exertion of a double Tyranny He exercised at that time a prodigious and unaccountable Tyranny over the Bodies of Men He could not be content with enslaving Man 's nobler part but as God himself so the great enemy of God would have the whole Man entirely to himself not that it could be any way advantageous to himself and his own destructive purposes for where he had got the Conquest over the Soul before he knew well enough the body must follow but he cared not what impertinent mischiefs he ingaged himself in provided he might but the more directly cross his Maker and his Punisher Hence he came to take Possession of so many bodies and to vent his malice in so many tormenting Distempers and especially he invaded those of the Jewish nation as if knowing by force of antient Prophecies the World's Saviour was to be born among them He 'd take possession entirely of all he could as if it were by violence to keep out the Lawful Heir from that Inheritance which belong'd to him It has seem'd strange to Many that whereas a Corporeal suffering by the ingress of the Devil into a Man is so very rare now a-days and was not so very frequent among the Gentiles even in our Saviour's time yet so many should be possest among the Jews as we find upon record in the Evangelists This has made divers believe that all violent or convulsive distempers were generally taken to be the effects of the influence of some malignant Spirits not as if there had really been any Devil within them but at most as if he had been permitted then as he was in Job's case to inflict bodily diseases upon some by external causes and not otherwise We know well enough that the Devil in some sence may be called the author of all those Distempers Men's Bodies at this time labour under for it was Sin that introduced Death and all the Preliminaries to it and the Devil introduced Sin But to resolve all these Posessions by the Devil recorded by the Evangelists into nothing but some more violent or unusual diseases than ordinary can no way be allowed For we find it not said of those that were Lepers
try'd He could not reasonably refuse to stand to that Tryal but neither do we find that his Enemies ever went about to shew the Discrepancy between his Doctrines and his Practice and therefore when they thought to cajole him into their snares by a most malicious Complement they gave him indeed no more than a true and proper Character Master we know that thou art true Matth. 22.16 and teachest the way of God in truth neither carest thou for any man for thou regardest not the persons of men this Character was really his due whatsoever they meant by it and they who were unwilling to acknowledge their own Hypocrisie could never fairly go off from so remarkable a Testimonial If then the Blessed Jesus were so signally innocent He was above all other the fittest to assert and vindicate the Authority of his Father's Laws and this he carefully did and made his appeal to all those Laws without exception according as occasions offer'd themselves After all then if he would really put an end to the Ceremonial Law and yet maintain to the last his Character of Truth and Justice He must of necessity be the Son of God and God himself his Authority otherwise notwithstanding the mutable Nature of those Laws not being sufficient to bear him out in so great an Alteration Our Saviour was Incarnate That the Law of God as given to the Jews might in our Nature be fulfilled exactly and according to the Letter and so that he who fulfilled it might be a compleat example of Holiness and Obedience to us and how great an Undertaker this required we shall have hereafter Opportunities enough to understand Now when I lay down this reason by the word Law I understand whatsoever was given to the Jews whether Moral as confirming the Law of uncorrupted Nature or Political as relating to their Civil Government or Ceremonial as referring to their various Religious Rites both the last so far as they could concern the Practice of a private Person so that indeed the whole Law as given to the Jews contain'd in it whatsoever could have been expected from Adam had he retain'd his original Innocence or whatsoever humane Nature in its utmost perfection could possibly attain to Now that such a compleat Obedience should be expected from some One Partaker of humane nature was but reasonable when the great work of Man's Redemption was in hand for since Man created in all that Perfection his Nature was capable of had yet fall'n from that Obedience which was justly expected from him he being in a condition every way capable of performing it and by that fall of his had necessarily involv'd all those who should be deriv'd from him in all those Miseries attending the guilt of Sin and since the intent of God's Goodness was that from the Obedience of one man descended of the same flesh and blood many should be made righteous or be blessed with those Rewards attending upon Righteousness as the Apostle assures us it came to pass it was but just and reasonable that that Man from whom that righteousness was to descend to Mankind that that Man should compleatly make up that Character of the first Man when in Innocence which had he persever'd in as he ought his whole Posterity had been entirely happy and yet that task was abundantly greater for the second Adam our Lord Jesus Christ than it was for the first Adam our great Parent for Adam had no Corruption deriv'd down to him from his Original from whence it has been not impertinently question'd Whether before Sin enter'd into the World and Death by Sin He was liable to the common Rules of Mortality But our Saviour when he took Flesh of the Virgin took it up at such a time as Humane nature was sunk into its utmost depravation nor would an allowance of that Roman Foolery That the Blessed Virgin was born without any Original Sin or Guilt upon her help the matter For so long as she was descended from such Parents as had their share in the Corruption of Humane Nature her Freedom would not of consequence free every one who should be born of her but she being no way beyond other Women but only on account of her Practical Holiness our Lord as descended from her must be in all things like his Brethren liable to all the Inconveniences attending a Body certainly mortal for as for his being without Sin it depended on the Union of a Mortal to an Immortal Being the very nature of which superiour Being was more effectual than the Refiner's Fire on Gold or Silver purifying that otherwise corrupt Body it was united to and fortifying it against all that proclivity to Sin and easie succumbency to Temptation which the rest of Mankind was obnoxious to Nor was it any thing but such a coacting Omnipotence which could possibly have produc'd a clean thing out of an unclean or a Body without Sin out of that which was naturally sinful There is certainly such a state as that of Eternal Happiness but it is attainable only as the reward of Merit in a proper sense or as we ordinarily say it 's as Wages which he who faithfully performs his work deserves and may justly lay claim to as his own and therefore cannot be deny'd without Injustice as for instance whereas the condition of eternal Life is This do and live whosoever it is that performs the Condition and does what 's requir'd he has for so doing provided there be no circumstantial failure in the performance of the work a just and rightful claim to that eternal Life propounded and God himself could not be just should he deny the propos'd reward to such a One as should compleatly perform the Condition set before him Had Man continued in the state of Innocence he had had this proper claim of his own to eternal Happiness he might justly have claim'd it and could not without extremity of Injustice have been deny'd it but that eternal Happiness which we now expect is of Grace or it 's the free Gift of God which we as Sinners and such we are all without exception have no proper or inherent right to but it 's not the immediate free Gift of God as if he without any performance of incumbent duty on our part would bestow upon us an eternally glorious Inheritance for this would be as inconsistent with that infinite Justice which makes up the Idaea of the Supreme God as it would be to deny Wages or a Reward to him that had truly deserved it nor is it a free giving Man such an inward Ability to perform all the punctilio's of the Divine reveal'd Will as by which they might make a full compensation to Divine Justice for the original pravity of Nature and do all such things to the utmost as could be requir'd from the beginning to the end of Life for this were to alter the whole frame of Humane Nature and to give it in the present state of things an
good their Assertion That there was no need of Satisfying God's Justice on the behalf of Sinners and therefore that all what our Saviour did or suffer'd was not of a satisfactory Nature and from hence too they endeavour to confirm their Heretical Opinion That our Saviour was not God equal with his Father for that Truth being throughly cleared all the Socinian Chain of Heterodoxies is broken and comes to nothing But They say Christians generally think that Christ suffered proportionably for our Sins Ca◠Rac. §. 6. c. 8. p. 145. or that He underwent Punishments equivalent to what we Sinners should have undergone and that by the Merit of his Obedience he made a compleat compensation for our Disobedience but this Opinion say they is fallax erronea admodum perniciosa it is fallacious and erroneous and of very dangerous Consequence and this they assert upon these grounds Because such an Opinion is not founded upon clear Scriptures and then Because it is repugnant to the Rules of right Reason and when they come to discourse of its not being founded upon Scripture the great ground they go upon is Because the Scriptures testifie that God remits the Sins of Men freely Now this we assert as well as they and are infallibly assured that it 's only by Grace by free and unmerited Grace on our part that we are saved and when we remember that it has been proved by unanswerable Arguments that our Saviour is the Son of God that He is God himself and that He when there was no help left for guilty Mankind according to the eternal purpose of his Will came down from Heaven to Earth and took our Nature upon him only that by what he did in that Nature he might procure our eternal happiness when we consider his eternal Father as acting in agreement with him and for his Son's sake forgiving miserable Sinners and the One willing and the other doing and suffering so much on our accounts when it was impossible we should have any Motives in our selves that might serve to excite so immense a Goodness when we remember all these things we cannot but say that as many of us as have our Sins forgiven have them freely forgiven God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost all concurring jointly in the Pardon and all the Motives procuring that Pardon proceeding wholly from the Deity it self And this Truth will receive yet more light by considering the Import of those very Texts which the Socinians in their Catechism bring to make good their own Opinions so they prove the free Pardon of Sin from that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.19 That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses to them we need not here take any notice of another gross Error founded by them upon this Text viz. That by the Death and Obedience of Christ God was not reconciled to the World for he never was angry with it but the World was reconciled to God the World having foolishly forsaken him and being altogether alienated from him by Sin not to reflect any further directly on that Position we find by the Text now cited that God does not impute the Trespasses of those who believe to them but why only because they are reconciled to him in Christ not because he passes by their Trespasses purely on account of his own Will or because of his immediate Love to the Trespassers but it is for the sake of Jesus Christ their Trespasses must have stood imputed to them had they not been reconciled in him but if he particularly procured the Reconciliation of Sinners to his Father then it 's plain enough they were incapable of making any such Reconciliation for themselves and so could not procure the Remission or the non-Imputation of their Sins the reason of which could be no other than their want of Merit for had they had any inherent Merits of their own to plead the same infinite Justice which was concern'd to punish their Sins was equally concern'd to reward their Merits but if the want of Merit hinder'd their procuring their own Reconciliation there must have been some Merit in Christ which was able to effect it and that Merit must have been exhibited on our account and that Merit supplying the Sinners defect must have been satisfactory to divine Justice which otherwise must have fallen upon Sinners while they had no better deserving to plead on their own accounts but if God reconcile the World to himself in Christ and Christ be One eternal God co-essential with his Father what 's done by One is done by the Other and so though the Son merited at his Father's hand the Sinner's pardon yet the Sinner is freely forgiven of God the Son freely interposing between him and Divine Justice and freely concurring in the same Pardon of his Trespasses Again the Socinians prove the Freedom of God's Grace or Favour to us by that Rom. 3.24 25. Being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God here we own Free Grace or Pardon or Justification which signifie all the same thing with respect to this passage is plainly and clearly set forth but still this free Pardon or Justification is the consequence of that Redemption wrought for us by Jesus Christ that Redemption is effected by the offering of his Blood that Blood which is of a propitiatory or atoning Nature our Faith in or our certain belief of the infinite value of which Blood is necessary to procure us any good by it but neither would that Faith of ours be necessary nor would that Blood be so intrinsecally valuable if it were no way meritorious nor could Redemption be wrought for us if there were no Price paid on that account for a Prince is not said to redeem a guilty Prisoner when he sets him at liberty without any ransome but he is said to redeem the Prisoner who pays down that Price or undergoes that Penalty which is set on the Criminal's head so our Saviour paid that Price which was set on our Heads without Blood there could be no Remission therefore he gave his Blood for us without Punishment for Sins there could be no acquittal of Justice therefore he suffered to the loss of his Life beside those unknown Sorrows as the Ancient Church has stiled them which his innocent Soul underwent on our account But after this Redemption effected this Propitiation offer'd the Remission of Sins follow'd Now the Punishment of Sins being the effect of Justice and the Remission of them the effect of Mercy this Redemption-Price paid down satisfied Justice and made way for Mercy and therefore that Price so paid down was meritorious and meritorious for us who had no Merits of our own therefore this Remission
Obedience uninterrupted and universal at least it must be said He 's very unkind for He who can forgive and as Socinus asserts does forgive all our Sins without any Satisfaction tender'd to his Justice might as well forgive us without putting us to the trouble of informing our Minds or regulating and restraining our Actions for we cannot easily give any reason why he should exact such Duties of us as Conditions of our Salvation when if it pleas'd him he could give us Salvation without any Conditions at all If it be objected that He has declared otherwise in his reveal'd Will and it's Justice in him to be true to his own Declarations that Plea again reduces all to perfect Arbitrariness and he will be irrespectively Merciful merely because he will be Merciful and he will be irrespectively Vindictive merely because he will be so which things seem somewhat to contradict our common notion of Justice That it does suum cuique tribuere give to every one what 's due and proper to him We believe more safely that God lays those Duties which yet we are unable to perform in that perfect manner we ought upon us that they might be as continual Remembrancers to us of that Satisfaction which he really requires at our hands for could we perform all God's revealed Will without any failure either in Time or Circumstance God's Justice would be otherwise satisfied and employ'd wholly in distributing Rewards among us but since when we take the utmost pains our Duties are either at one time or other essentially or circumstantially sinful therefore we our selves ought to conclude some such Satisfaction necessary as may make up for our unavoidable defects and since we are assured by God's Word that One has undertaken that Work who was every way capable of performing it we are obliged in gratitude to so great a Benefactor to endeavour after all that Holiness and Perfection how little soever it is that we are capable of and we are oblig'd to do it for our own sakes because it 's no way reasonable those should be Partakers of any benefit from Christ's Satisfaction who do not perform those Conditions upon which only that Satisfaction can be any ways beneficial to us To this we may add yet further That if God can forgive Sinners without Satisfaction made for their Sins without any derogation from his Justice how merciful soever God may seem to Mankind yet he seems wholly to have forgotten all that Mercy with respect to the fallen Angels for if no Satisfaction was needful for Sin why could not their Maker forgive their Transgressions too without it as well as Men's there might have been a thousand Means doubtless found out to confirm a Covenant of Grace with them as well as that of the Death of Christ to confirm the same Covenant with Men but it seems God would not so forgive them though he could they could offer no Satisfaction for themselves therefore they are eternally and immediately damn'd these Conclusions are necessary and inevitable from Socinian Principles but in themselves are detestable and damnable But what the Socinians fail to effect by God's Word they make no doubt of making good by dint of Reason in which they look upon themselves as wholly invincible Here then they assert That if Christ have made Satisfaction for us and that suitable to our Necessities then Christ must have suffer'd the pains of Eternal Death because Mankind by Sins were liable to such Eternal Death but here we may observe that they fasten upon that single Instance of Christ's Sufferings viz. his Death in the matter of Satisfaction for Sinners onely whereas our Lord was a continual Sufferer on that account from his first Condescension to take our Nature upon him to his Crucifixion and I make no question but what he underwent when he bore humane Infirmities when he was in that bitter Agony in the Garden when he cry'd out upon the Cross My God My God why hast thou forsaken me I make no question but his Sufferings in those Instances were much greater than what he underwent in Death it self and so the very Story of his Passion represents things in relation to those latter Scenes of his Life on Earth for what prodigious Cause must we imagine there was that he declar'd to Peter and the Sons of Zebedee Matth. 26.38 My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Soul is compass'd round about or even overwhelmed with Sorrow for so the Original imports In his Agony in the Garden what through a clear Apprehension of that dreadful Task he was then to set about more immediately what with the Fervour and Earnestness of his Prayers to his Father either that if it were possible that Cup that bitter Cup he was then to drink might pass from him or that what he was then suffering might be truly effectual to that great End for which he suffer'd Luke 22.44 his Sweat was as if it had been great drops of blood falling down to the ground the Terror of his instant Sufferings to that Flesh and Blood he had assumed as well as the Strength of his Enemies and the greatness of the Conflict he was then engaged in might be the occasion of that stupendous Sweat for experience tells us that Fear opens the Pores of the Body and emits as grumous Sweats as the most earnest Intention whatsoever of the Body or the Mind and the Angel appearing to Christ in the Garden and strengthening him seems more necessary with respect to those Terrors ready to seize on Flesh and Blood engaged in mighty Sorrows and oppressing Woes than meerly to re-inforce that Earnestness in Prayer which the greater the Danger is so long as the Soul is consistent with it self will naturally be the more earnest and importunate for Assistance or Deliverance His Sufferings yet seem to work more violently upon him when he comes to that bitter Cry My God My God why hast thou forsaken me why dost thou seem to hide thy Face from me and to leave me wholly to the barbarous Cruelties of wicked and malicious Men the Complaint was more natural and carried with it a greater Emphasis when proceeding from that Son of God that onely that beloved Son in whom he was well pleased so far his holy Soul seems to be upon the rack but when he receives his last bitter Draught and owns the mighty work as well as the Types and Predictions relating to him were finished the Storms that ruffled him before seem to sink into a Calm and he breath'd out his Sacred Life with those charming eruptions of unbounded Love Father forgive them Luke 23.34 for they know not what they do and those full expressions of absolute Satisfaction in what he had undergone Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit v. 46. Our Lord's Sufferings ended there and there with his dying Breath he rais'd to himself the first Trophies of his glorious Victories for though
equal value to those Injuries done by that Prisoner to him to whom that Redemption-Price is paid down as if I take up Goods or Silver Coin of any one for which I my self am wholly insolvent and another undertakes for me to discharge the Debt the Creditor will scarce take it ill if he paid to the full in Gold or Jewels for that Silver or those Goods he had given credit for though the Debt be not paid in kind Cat. Rac. §. 6. c. 8. p. 146. But say They it 's ordinary to say That one Dâ—â—p of Christ's Blood was enough to wash away the Sins of the whole World therefore God must be very unjust to exact so extraordinary Sufferings at the hand of his Son that he should shed so much of his Blood and die at last and so pay a Price for Man's Sin so much greater than necessary We might easily answer this Cavil by saying that an Argument drawn against an Article of Faith meerly from an Hyperbolical Expression is altogether invalid nor is the Christian Church in general bound to answer for every passionate Expression which one of her Sons may use But we may consider further that whereas the reason of the Bloody Sacrifices offer'd by Men in former Ages was to signifie to the World that an Expiation was to be made for the World's Sins and to keep up their hopes and expectations of it and whereas we are assured in God's Word that without Blood there is no Remission though the shedding one Drop of the Blood of the intended Sacrifice be as real Blood-shedding as the drawing out of all is and though one Drop of that Blood of the Sacrifice had as much Virtue and Efficacy in it as the whole Mass could be thought to have yet that was not all that was aim'd at for the Blood of the Sacrifice was so to be shed as that Death might naturally follow on that Action which was not likely to follow on the shedding one or only a few Drops and without this Death the Beast was not fit for Sacrifice so much Blood being required as was necessary to sprinkle on several things in agreeance with which the Blood of Christ too is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 12.24 the Blood of sprinkling The Blood then shed of old represented somewhat Expiatory but not as it was the Blood of an Animal but as it was the Blood of such a Creature sacrificed on the Altar to that God who was to be atoned so though the Blood of our Saviour in every Drop of it as shed for us was of an infinite Worth yet the Worth of that Blood with respect to us depended on his being Sacrificed or made an Offering for Sin which he could not have been had not his Life been taken away by the pouring out of his Blood before for as we easily apprehend that the fairest Beast design'd for Sacrifice by Men if yet it dy'd alone or accidentally was no Sacrifice but that to make it such it was necessary the Priests should make it bleed to Death So had our Saviour's Humane Nature submitted only to the common Rules of Mortality or fallen by a natural Death he had been no Offering no Sacrifice to God but he really was a Sacrifice and is own'd as such in Scripture therefore his Blood too was to be shed and that so far as to put an end to his Humane Life or the Union between his Rational Soul and his Mortal Body so that the extraordinary Sufferings of our Saviour take not away from the Worth of his Blood in it self but his Blood could have had no effect upon us for the washing away of our Sins had it not been the Blood of our Sacrifice our Propitiation as well as it was the Blood of the Son of God and therefore we own with all Humility and Thankfulness the Goodness of our Lord in offering up himself a Sacrifice for Sin on our account by permitting those Powers to kill him which he could have destroy'd with one revenging Word Nor can we less acknowledge the Goodness of his and our Father who was pleased to accept of that Propitiation for our Sins his Son's Satisfaction for our Debts which he was no way oblig'd to but by the Concurrence of the Divine Love and Goodness of the Father and the Son from all Eternity But from this Doctrine of Christ's making Satisfaction to his Father for our Sins they draw a very unhappy Consequence for they tell us Quod Hominibus fenestram ad peccandi licentiam aperiat aut certè ad socordiam in pietate colenda invitet c. That it gives Men an open Liberty to sin or at least gives them great encouragement to Slothfulness in the Duties of Religion for if Christ has satisfied for all our Sins then we are free from all obligation to any punishment for Sin and therefore there can be no Conditions reasonably propounded to us by virtue of which we should be free from those Punishments or it 's unreasonable that God should still make Practical Holiness a Condition of our Salvation when Christ by his Death has fully satisfied his Fathers Wrath with respect to all our Sins past present and to come This Charge would be very heavy if it were true but would they consider those very Texts they endeavour to confirm this Objection by they would easily see how they confound themselves and slander that Holy Doctrine The Apostle tells us of Jesus Christ Tit. 2.14 That he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works All this we stedfastly believe 2 Cor. 5.15 And that Christ died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them and rose again We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our Sins Gal. 1.4 that he might deliver us from this present evil World Eph. 5.27 That he might present his Church to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish We believe Heb. 9.14 that our Lord offer'd himself without spot to God that he might purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God 1 Pet. 1.18 19. and that we are redeemed from our vain conversation not with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot and from all these things we conclude That our Saviour's Sufferings for us were originally design'd to free us both from the Punishment and Guilt of Sin and therefore as we look up to our Saviour as our Priest and our Sacrifice so we acknowledge him to be our Prophet and our King our Instructer and our Governour that he has been our Instructer in all Ages by his Messengers Prophetical and Apostolical and those to this day lawfully entrusted with the
Dispensation of his Word and Sacraments that he is that great and glorious King in perpetual Obedience to whose Commands we are oblig'd to live and without Obedience to whose Commands perform'd according to our ability we certainly merit Eternal Punishment and this power over us as a Prophet and a King we doubt not took its Original from that Sacrifice he offer'd for our Sins in the fulness of time but on account of the certainty of which Rev. 13.8 he was effectually that Lamb slain from the beginning of the World Well then our Saviour in his Suffering paid a sufficient Price to satisfie for the Sins of all Mankind to atone God's anger against them as Sinners and to prevent their eternal Damnation but these Advantages accrueing from his Priesthood and his Sacrifice can only be participated in by those who submit to his Instruction and his Government he purchas'd that Interest in us at a dear rate and the Connexion between the one and the other is indissoluble He therefore that would reap any Benefit from the Sufferings of our Saviour must obey his Directions submit to his Laws do his Will he who acts so must certainly be very perfect in all Religious Duties therefore those who are eternally saved by Christ's Death must as far as possible be perfect in all Religious Duties therefore the true genuine Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction must infer a necessity of Practical Holiness not destroy it thus we see when God appointed the brazen Serpent to be set up in the Wilderness for the relief of those who were bitten by fiery Serpents that brassy Representation had a power sufficient annex'd to it to heal all that were hurt but if any bitten Israelite out of an obstinate humour would not have cast his eyes upon the brazen Serpent though the Serpent had been just over his head he would have dy'd by the Wound because the Condition on which alone the Cure was to be had was annex'd to the appointment of that Serpent viz. that the wounded Person should look up to it Or let us take our view of the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction from another place then we shall find Faith as an originally necessary Condi ion of receiving any Benefit by it and Faith to be true must as necessarily work by Love for if I am cast into Prison as a Debtor and another out of pity to my deplorable state go and discharge all my Debts and receive an entire acquittance of all such Debts for me and in my name this is Love and Kindness and sufficient in the case in the Judgment of all Rational Men but if after all this done and the Acquittance shew'd me and attested I 'll not believe one word of all the matter and to prove I do not believe will continue a Prisoner still though always complaining of the sadness of my own Condition my Friend did enough for me but what am I the better my Incredulity makes my state and condition still as sensibly lamentable as before so whereas by Adam's Transgression all Men are brought into a state of Guilt and all stand as Prisoners under the hand of God justly incens'd against us and are such Debtors to his Justice as unless that Debt be discharg'd by or for us we must be eternally miserable Our blessed Saviour assured of our Insolvency has by himself satisfi'd his Father's Anger he has discharg'd that Debt we stand engaged in to Heaven his whole Gospel is a sufficient Evidence of what he has done for us in it we are acquitted by God the Father from those Punishments we were liable to for the sake of his Son and the truth of that Gospel has through all Ages been sufficiently attested to the World but if after all this we all turn Socinians if we will not believe that our Saviour has really extended any such Goodness towards us and to prove that we do not believe it we slight all those Rules of Holy Living which are given us and resolve with the rebellious Citizens in the Gospel that we will not have this Man to reign over us that we will not submit to his Laws nor acknowledge his Soveraignty his Satisfaction is ineffectual to us and though we groan under never so deep a sense of our natural Misery we can reap no good from that we must therefore believe in our Saviour we must believe him able willing and really to have satisfied his Father for our Debt we must believe that by virtue of that Satisfaction so made He 's able to save to the uttermost all those that come to God in and by him We must believe he 's really able to Teach us and that he certainly has a Right to Command us and when we sincerely believe all these things and that as it was one great end of our Lord's offering himself for us to free us from the Punishment so it was another to free us from the Slavery of Sin so that we should not obey it in the Lusts thereof it will be impossible that we should indulge our selves in Sin nay we cannot confirm the Truth of our profest Faith or make it credible to the World that we really Believe what we pretend to do unless we endeavour as he that has called us is holy so to be our selves holy in all manner of conversation Let those then who talk so freely of the Doctrine of our Lord's Satisfaction who would persuade us that it 's so irrational and pernicious to believe any such thing find out any Arguments from their own Scheme of Doctrine which may serve to enforce Practical Holiness more vigorously than what we have delivered if they can Will They tell us we are oblig'd to it out of pure Gratitude to Heaven bcause God is pleased to forgive us our Sins past freely and to confirm that free Pardon to us by the Death of his Son as if he meerly dy'd a kind of Martyr for that Truth which they make almost the sole end of all our Saviour's Sufferings Gratitude it 's true may operate powerfully upon a generous Soul but the most generous of all would be willing to understand the nature of that Obligation they have to be so grateful and the reasons of it We are then obliged by God's free pardoning of our Sins how do we know he has done so By the Testimony of Scripture that Word of God which is sufficient to instruct us to Eternal Life Well we own Scripture does inform us That our Sins are freely pardoned by God and we should build very confidently on that evidence did not those we have to do with teach us a great deal of Diffidence and show us that such Passages of Scripture are capable of very different Interpretations and that when we think we have a very clear proof of this or another Particular when we come to scan things accurately by our own Reason we find we have none at all for the same Scripture which tells us we are freely pardoned
Mankind are eternally damn'd we conclude their Damnation is the effect of infinite Justice and that they have no more than they deserve and whereas all those who believe in Christ have their Sins pardoned and are eternally saved we believe that the consequence of the same infinite Justice for since Christ has really satisfied for our Sins and his Father has accepted it for us and the Will of God the Father and of God the Son being eternally the same so that the Satisfaction and the Acceptance were of eternal Determination God could not evidence that Justice to us but by making good that Original Contract or Agreement and so by bestowing Pardon and eternal Happiness on all those who believe in his Son and the same Justice is as much evidenc'd in the condemnation of the Wicked because the Satisfaction offer'd by Christ being sufficient to atone for all Sins upon condition that all Sinners believe in him who has so satisfied that sleight put upon the Condition or the Unbelief of the greater part of Mankind exposes them justly to Divine Vengeance as even common Reason teaches us The Socinians tell us as if they were the Privadoes of Heaven that God's Mercy and Justice are both moderated by his Wisdom and Goodness as if they needed somewhat of Limitation or Restraint but why should Justice and Mercy be moderated or governed by Wisdom and Goodness more than Wisdom or Goodness should be managed by Justice or Mercy God's Attributes do not superintend one another but they are all infinite concentred in one infinite Being therefore all equal and no more capable of interfering one with another than God can be supposed capable of disagreeing with himself and whereas we are taught by those Men of Reason that that Justice which is exercised in punishing Sinners is called in Scripture God's Severity his Anger and his Fury if we allow it will they say that Severity in God or Anger or Fury are unjust We know those words are generally understood in an ill sense Severity among Men can admit of no more favourable Character than that of Summum Jus or extremity of Law which is thought to be Summa injuria or extremity of Injustice and Anger and Fury in Men are generally taken for vicious Excesses and such as till a Man can govern or conquer he 's not look'd upon as any extraordinary proficient in Vertue but we hope there are no such vicious Excesses in God therefore such words are made use of only according to Mens Capacities to shew us how very angry God is with Sin and Sinners and yet no more than Justice in consistence with Mercy will allow and to strike a just Aw and Terror upon Men then they who will avoid breaking such or such a Law out of Fear of the Indignation of the Law-giver whose superiour Power and Authority may render him formidable may much more be afraid of breaking the Laws of that God whose Anger is irresistable and whose Justice is inevitable and though there be neither Justice nor Mercy in punishing the Innocent or in acquitting the Guilty yet there is no trespass upon either in pardoning the Guilty when the Innocent Freely and Voluntarily takes that Guilt upon himself especially when the Quality of that Innocent so offering himself is such that the same degree of Punishment or Punishment as heavy falling upon him cannot possibly bring eternal Ruines upon Him as it would upon inferiour Offenders as we often see among meer Men some of so strong and vigorous a Constitution that the same Pains shall scarce disorder them which bring present Death to those of feebler Tempers And if it were no Injustice for the Jewish High-Priests by God's immediate Command to transfer the Crimes of themselves and the People upon the Heads of those Beasts they offer'd in Sacrifice for Sin which Translation of their Guilt they signified by laying their Hands upon the Head of the intended Sacrifice Exod. 29.10 which Beasts were really innocent yet then died for Mens Sins not as in their own nature expiatory Vid. Oughtram de Sacrificiis l. 1. c. 22. but as referring to the Sacrifice of Christ which alone was so in it self then neither was it Injustice in God to lay upon Christ the Iniquity of us all and by so doing to expiate our Sins in earnest though the same Blessed Jesus were Holy Harmless and Vndefiled as we are sure he was Nor indeed could any thing but what was truly innocent be substituted to suffer for the Guilty since otherwise its native Crimes must have needed Expiation whence among other Reasons I conclude Humane Sacrifices abominable to God because all were Sinners and one Sinner could not reasonably atone for another which was no Exception to the Sacrifice of Christ But our Adversaries have their artificial Glosses whereby to put off the plainest Evidences of Scripture that assert His Satisfaction for our Sins for when we are told that our Saviour Died for us that He laid down his Life for Sinners c. they allow no more to be signified by it than this That Christ was a Sacrifice for us in the same manner as former Sacrifices were for those who offered them so that as those Sacrifices were never look'd upon as any Compensation for the Sins of the Offerers neither could that of Christ be a Compensation for theirs for whom he offered himself only his Offering Himself so seems like the others as a certain Condition on which Remission of Sins should be granted But if common Sense may be our Guide the Difference must be very great between this of Christ and all former Sacrifices offer'd by the Jews as generally the Antitype is accounted of a superiour Nature to the Type for tho' Remission of Sins were granted to the Offerer upon his Sacrifice being offer'd yet it was not upon account of that Sacrifice offered but upon account of the Sincerity and Obedience of the Offerer and that respect his Sacrifice had to the Death of the Messias yet to come for though Beasts were innocent there was nothing meritorious in their being sacrificed their Sufferings being involuntary and themselves in a corrupt and insensible state because there was nothing in the ancient Holocausts considerable but their relation to the Messias therefore they were offer'd continually from their first Institution to the time of our Saviour's Death but when the Messias was once come and had offer'd himself knowingly and voluntarily for Sin the former Sacrifices were all effectually to cease and our Lord to offer himself no more than once therefore there must be something extraordinary in that one Sacrifice which was not in others and once offering of that must be more than equivalent to all the former that really and effectually in it self expiating Sin which the others did not and this the Apostle himself urges when he tells us Heb. 9 9â— 11 12. That the Jewish Tabernacle was a figure for the time then present in which were
offered both Gifts and Sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as concerning the Conscience but Christ being come an High-Priest of good things to come not by the Blood of Goats and Calves but by his own Blood he enter'd in once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal Redemption for us that eternal Redemption is an absolute Freedom from the Punishment of Sin effected by Christ but only signified by Jewish Institutions the utmost of the virtue of those Symbolical Rites The same Author presently subjoins the Blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the Vnclean sanctified to the purifying of the Flesh i. e. God having for the use of the Jews ordained those Rites and Sacrifices and promised to receive them as Clean who punctually observed his Institutions they were consequently Legally clean who so observed them but otherwise than in the Sense of the Law no cleaner than the rest of Mankind who never heard of those Institutions but the Argument follows à fortiori How much more shall the Blood of Christ v. 13 14. who through the eternal Spirit offer'd himself without spot to God purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the Living God The Difference then between the Sacrifices is apparent enough those could only give a Legal Purity to Jews and that only to their Flesh without which Ceremonial Purity Men may be saved but the Sacrifice of Christ reaches the Pollutions of the Soul takes away the Defilements of the Mind and opens a free passage for us to the throne of Grace without which means Remission of Sins and eternal Salvation are never to be obtained Again the Apostle speaking of that Blood which according to the Levital Law was to be sprinkled upon several things adds It was necessary that the Patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these or rather the Patterns of Heavenly things for so the following Words explain the Phrase but that the Heavenly things themselves should be purified with better Sacrifices than these for Christ is not entred into the Holy places made with hands which are the Figures of the true but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us i. e. as a Mediatour on our behalf but he enter'd not there that he might offer himself often as the High-Priest entred into the Holy place every year with the Blood of others for then must he often have suffered since the foundations of the World v. 22. ad 27. but now once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the perfection or completion of Ages i. e. in the fulness of time hath he appear'd to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself The same Divine Author urges the matter further in the following Chapter and directly confirms what I before asserted That the Law having a Shadow of good things to come and not the very Image of the things can never with those Sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect for then they would not have ceas'd to be offered because that the Worshippers once purged should have had no more Conscience of Sins and if the Worshippers could have been so purged at once by those Legal Sacrifices the successive continuance of them would in the same manner have purged all those concerned in them and then another and a better and greater Sacrifice would have been altogether needless but alas in those Legal Sacrifices there was every year made a Remembrance of the same Sins and of the Guilt of the same Sinners Heb. 10.1 2 3 4 10 11 12 14. for it was not possible that the Blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away Sin But now by the will of God we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all Every Jewish High-Priest stood daily ministring and offering the same Sacrifices which can never take away sin but this Man after he had offered one sacrifice for sin for ever sat down on the right-hand of God nor did he need to offer oftener for by one Offering he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified The Difference then between the Sacrifice of our Saviour and those of the Law is notorious but now if Remission of Sins could be granted to the Offerer of a Legal Sacrifice and yet a Legal Sacrifice could not take away the Sins of the Offerers and if the single Sacrifice of Christ did really take away Sins both which things are asserted in the Texts now cited then a great deal more must be meant by Christ's Sacrifice taking away sin than the bare Remission of Sins amounts to It must signifie taking away that Guilt of sin by which Men are render'd obnoxious to Punishment which considering that Justice inherent in Almighty God cannot be removed but by substituting somewhat so innocent in the Sinner's room that the Sufferings of that Innocent may satisfie for the Impunity of the Sinner but it being inconsistent with Justice to punish the Innocent for the Sinner if the Innocent be unwilling or depend upon his Innocence as his Security from Punishment therefore our Saviour for the acquittal of Divine Justice offer'd himself voluntarily to die for us and that when no Power on Earth could have taken away his Life from him which Offer of his being the effect of his eternal Will and his eternal Will the same with that of his Father Eternal Justice required his Sufferings and accepted those Sufferings though to be undergone in time as really and in their own intrinsic Nature equivalent to those Punishments otherwise due to a sinful World Upon the whole Christ died for or in the room of Sinners not to prevent their temporal but their eternal Death and by his Humiliation and his Death who was so Innocent and so Great gave eternal Justice as absolute Satisfaction as the eternal Punishment of all those who are now saved through Him would have done and therefore when Socinians seek for a reason for their denying Christ's Death to have been in our stead and fly to that of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Christ died for our Sins 1 Cor. 15.3 and plead from thence that since it cannot be said that Christ died in the room of our Sins no more can it be said that he died in the room of Sinners this is meer Stuff and Cavil for if Christ died on account of our Sins which is the direct English of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it 's then the more probable He died in the room and stead of those Sinners or suffer'd a vicarious Punishment for them for or on account of whose Sins he resign'd himself to the Death upon the Cross Or they know it 's no uncommon thing in Scripture to put Sin for Sinners and they 'll confess though not in that sense which we do that He who died for Sin died for Sinners they being inseparable from one another But
the Socinians tell us otherwise that Christ's dying for us signifies his procuring a great deal of good for us by his Death this we certainly believe he did but cannot imagine it 's any detraction from the Worth of that Good he procured for us to conclude that he suffered instead of Sinners for if he offered himself to Divine Punishment in the place of those who were unquestionably obnoxious to it and if his Father accepted of that Offer then all those Sinners who accept of those Conditions on which alone his Death is effectually beneficial to them are certain of the pardon of their Sins and of eternal Happiness the natural Consquence of that Pardon But they have yet a farther Shift and because St. John tells us We ought to lay down our Lives for the Brethren 1 John 3.16 Col. 1.24 and St. Paul tells the Colossians that by his sufferings he fill'd up what was behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for his Body's sake which was the Church they conclude that as those who die for the Brethren cannot be said to die in their stead nor St. Paul to satisfie by his sufferings for the sins of the Church so neither could Christ on account of his being said to die for us be reasonably thought to satisfie for our sins but this Allegation is impertinent for though we are obliged to expose our Lives to the utmost hazards for the Conversion and Edification of others yet where was it ever said We should be wounded for the Transgressions of our Brethren or be bruised for their Iniquities or that they should be healed by our stripes that God should lay on us the Iniquities of all our Brethren that We should make our Souls an Offering for Sin that We should be delivered for the Offences of our Brethren and should bear their Sins in our own Bodies on the Cross all which things with more to the same purpose are spoken of Christ and ought to be the Explications of the other As for that of St. Paul if we translate it as we very well may all their pretences from it are lost I rejoice in all my sufferings for you all or in those Troubles and Persecutions I undergo for Preaching the Gospel to you and in my turn fulfil in my flesh the latter parts of Christ's Afflictions for his own Body that is the Church and so Afflictions or Sufferings for the Church are not apply'd to St. Paul but to Christ who really laid down his Life for his Flock and all the Afflictions of the Servants of Christ are but the Counterparts of what Christ has done for them it being their Duty to mantain what he has delivered to them and to be faithful to Death as he dy'd before for them and the Church the Body of Christ is exceedingly edified and benefitted by the couragious Sufferings of their Fellow-Members Martyrs and Confessors giving the best evidences of the Excellent Nature of the Gospel and confirming and encouraging others in the same Resolutions of dying rather than forsaking Truth but neither can any of the former passages be applied to St. Paul therefore his Words cannot bear the same sense as applied to him as the same Expressions do when they are apply'd to Christ Scripture which is its own best Interpreter no where explaining it in the same manner But further our Saviour is said to have born our sins and to have carried our sorrows this seems to be a Metaphor taken from a Man carrying that Burthen himself which another ought to carry and this is commonly lookt on as a considerable evidence of Love and Kindness 1 Tim. 3.16 c. 2. the same has carried Men out to a willingness to die for one another so Pylades was willing to die for his Friend Orestes only that he might escape a Tyrant's Fury and Nisus in the Poet would gladly have redeem'd his lov'd Euryalus from the Enemy's Sword by putting himself into their hands in lieu of him but the tendry in these Cases was certainly a vicarious Death and the Persons so offering themselves without all doubt concluded that whatsoever could be pretended to by the most severe Justiciaries would be well satisfied by an Innocent's offering his own Life for an Offender and that voluntarily by virtue of which Consent or Desire there could be no wrong done to the innocent Sufferer and hence St. Peter tells us of Christ that he suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once for sins 1 Pet. 3.18 the Just for the Vnjust where by the way we may observe the phrase of dying for Sins is authentically explain'd by dying for Sinners or for the Unjust i. e. He bore that Burden of God's Displeasure in himself though he were Just and Righteous which was due to the Unrighteous and yet as among Men those generous Offers made by Friends for one another are not wont to be displeasing to the greatest Princes nor are they a whit the more angry with the vicarious Innocent though to satisfie the Rules of Justice they accept the Offer no more was God displeased with his Son for taking upon him that Burthen due to Sinners since it only was the Sin which had trespass'd so much on Justice and provided that were punished either in the real or the substituted Offender who was only putatively Criminal infinite Justice would be satisfied Sin condemned and all Mankind be afraid of committing that which they saw was in its own Nature unpardonable One would think too that other passage of the same Apostle were plain enough 1 Pet. 2.24 That Christ bore our Sins in his own body upon the Cross Sins are there put for the Punishment due to Sins and the bearing them in his own Body must signifie his Body's being punished for them and if for them then for those who had committed them now if Christ did not take our place or appear in our room in those Sufferings there can be no reason suitable to Divine Wisdom and Justice why he an Innocent should die at all for our Transgressions for to say That his Father had design'd him for it before and therefore he must die would be impertinent to say that without dying a vicarious Death for us he could procure any good with respect to our Sins would be very hard to prove for he might Die to make good the Truth of those things he had preach'd to set us an example of Patience Submission and Humility which Socinians tell us were the great Ends of his Death and yet we be as far from obtaining Remission of Sins by the means of his Death as we were at first So we believe that St. Stephen was murdered for giving Testimony to Evangelic Truths the very Circumstances of his Death prove him an eminent Example of Patience Fortitude and Resignation his Resolution appearing upon a Socinian view much beyond that of our Saviour himself yet St. Stephen is not said to have died for the sins of the World nor
Righteousness that he might be just and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus the last Verse teaches us that Care taken to vindicate Divine Justice in the World's Eye by the Death of Christ which could scarce have been done had not Christ laid down his Life for us and in our room so satisfying the Justice of his Father and so the Justice of accepting as righteous every Believer in Christ is apparent too for if he have paid an entire Satisfaction a full Redemption-Price to his Father for our Sins on that Condition that those who believe on him should be Partakers of the Advantages flowing from thence God then could not be just should he refuse to justifie such Believers so that God's Justice is as deeply concerned in the Pardon of Believers as in the Punishment of Infidels Again St. Paul tells the Elders at Miletum Acts 20.28 that God had made them Overseers of that Church which he had redeemed with his own most precious Blood Now whereas God is said to have redeem'd his People Israel from their Aegyptian Bondage that Redemption being really effected by Jesus Christ who was that great and powerful Agent in that mighty Work what was done for Israel then was but the pre-signification of what he intended in due time for all Mankind so that he is called their Redeemer especially with respect to that future Design though the rescue of them from the Power of their Enemies be a Metaphorical Redemption and applicable in such a figurative sense to all those who even by an unjust Violence set open the Prison-doors and make a way for the escape of the most notorious Criminals Again Acts 7.35 it 's true Moses is stiled a Redeemer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a Leader to Israel God making use of him as his Instrument to execute Vengeance upon rebellious Aegypt and to lead out Israel from thence with a mighty Hand and a stretched out Arm but we no where find that the Israelites were redeem'd by the Blood of Moses from their Slavery We find not that the Sins of the Israelites were forgiven on account of that deliverance God indeed sometimes heard the Intercessions of Moses for those ingrateful Wanderers and for his own Name 's sake was pleased to pass by their Offences and to glorifie his own Name in that constant protection he afforded them among their observing Enemies but the deliverance it self was no cause of God's remitting the Punishment due to their Trespasses nay their Ingratitude for that Mercy was a frequent reason of their Sufferings and amongst the rest of the total Destruction of that Generation of People who came out of Aegypt it 's further observable that that God who convers'd with Israel in their passage to Canaan calls them his Son his First-born and threatens Pharaoh that if he would not let them go He would destroy his Son his First-born Exod. 4.22 besides He required the Sanctification of the First-born of all Israel to himself which requiry of his obey'd together with the exact execution of his former Menace was a kind of Redemption-Price accepted by God on account of which he gave them deliverance from their Enemies Nor was the Blood of the Paschal Lamb insignificant in the case that Blood prefiguring the Blood of the Lamb of God which did really atone for the Sins of the World Upon the whole howsoever we may allow others besides our Saviour to be called Redeemers yet so long as there is no Parallelism between the Circumstances of those Redemptions they have wrought and the Circumstances of Christ's we must of necessity conclude that Scripture means a great deal more by naming Christ a Redeemer than by giving Moses or any other eminent Person the same Character that Name is figurative as applied to all others it is proper as applied to Christ we may illustrate the Case by such an Instance as this A Soveraign Prince blest with One onely and infinitely beloved Son having in his power a Capital Offender against his Laws in concert with that Son determines that such Punishment as is proportionable to his Crimes ought to be inflicted on him yet pitying the Weakness and deplorable Condition of the Criminal and designing to make his Clemency towards the Offender evident He in concert with his own Son orders it to be proclaim'd every where that if any Person not obnoxious to the same Punishment by reason of personal Guilt loves the Condemn'd so well as to offer himself freely to undergo proportionable Penalties to what the Law would have inflicted upon him the Criminal acknowledging the Kindness offer'd and his mighty engagements to his Deliverer shall be free this Condition once propos'd the Prince's Son lays hold on the Opportunity to express his Love to the Offender offers himself to die for him and since the Law requires it and must be satisfi'd really does so the Prince according to his Proclamation accepts of his Son 's vicarious Punishment the Law and Justice have their Course and the grateful Criminal obtains his Freedom thus are Believing Sinners redeemed from that Punishment they are obnoxious to with respect to infinite Justice The Socinians tell us indeed That Christ's Obedience to his Father even to Death was no more than was due on his own account and that though it was perfect and blameless yet he received Rewards for it infinitely beyond what he could merit by such Obedience This is to put our Saviour into the State and Condition of the common World for all those Glories promis'd to repenting Sinners are infinitely greater than they by any personal merit can pretend to but it seems very unreasonable that he should take upon him as a Mediator between God and man or that his Name should be so powerfully influential for the advantage of others who had just cause to be wholly employ'd in expressions of Gratitude for his Father's Kindness to himself or to be wholly ecstasi'd with Admirations of that unbounded Goodness which had confer'd such mighty Blessings on him beyond his deserts this we rationally suppose will be the Employ of beatified Souls and ought to be Christ's too upon the Socinian Hypothesis we own Christ's Obedience as he was Man to his Father's Will to have been most perfect and absolute his Original Divine Nature never knew any thing of dissent with his Eternal Father therefore that Humane Nature he assum'd could not be liable to Disobedience 2 Cor. 5.21 It 's observed of him that He knew no sin he neither had nor could have so much as a deprav'd Inclination he had no strugglings within himself between the Law of his Members and the Law of his Mind which yet he could not have been without had he been a meer Man a Partaker of Flesh and Blood at the same rate as the rest of Mankind were but the Deity assuming Humanity and so being naturally incapable of Sin we are not wont to assign Merit to his Life and Conversation any
farther than as it laid him open to Sufferings but only to his Death and Passion and the Preliminaries to them that absolute Innocence reigning in his Humane Nature rendering all those Sufferings to which Humane Nature alone was liable the more meritorious and that inexpressible Condescension of the Eternal Son of God to take our Nature upon him join'd with his consequent Sufferings made one entire sufficient Oblation and Satisfaction for the Sins of the whole World But to suppose as Socinians do that one great meaning of the Death of Christ was that God by that means might give Men a pledge of that Favour or Pardon he intended for them is idle those who had any thing of a true Notion of a God would have depended upon his Word authentically revealed without any such extraordinary Pledge those who had perverse Notions of him would take very little notice of such a Pawn given for the Argument would be very obvious to a Sceptic If God be such as some define him infinitely Wise Good Powerful True there 's no need of such extraordinary Methods to confirm Men in an opinion of his Veracity if he be of a different or less perfect Nature a thousand such Strategems can give us no sufficient reason of Confidence in him We find indeed the Ancients upon Leagues or Compacts between them offering Sacrifices to their Gods and with their Hands laid upon the Victim's Head calling their Gods to witness their Sincerity in such Leagues and making their solemn Protestations one to another to observe propounded Articles the design of that Ceremony seems to be onely to intimate the agreeing Persons serious Imprecation that their own blood might be shed in the same manner as that of the dying Victims in case they falsified that Contract then made but we can imagine nothing of this nature to have pass'd between God and man in the Death of Christ Men were so far consenting indeed as to shed the blood of Christ but far from promising Faith and Obedience to their God at the same time no they acted in plain defiance to those Revelations God had made of himself and those very Persons who pretended to the most immediate Dependance upon Christ had very little Confidence in him till such time as his Resurrection from the dead reconfirmed their fading Hopes and made them believe he was capable of being their Saviour and Redeemer But if at last it were necessary that Almighty God should so seal the assurance of his Pardon to Mankind a meaner Victim might have serv'd than that of his onely Son since nothing could possibly create in guilty Men a greater Diffidence in God's Mercy than so severe a procedure on so very slight and impertinent a Reason with that Son concerning whom he profest that he was well pleased with him After all the Socinians would flamm us off with a metaphorical Redemption the Consequence of which I fear must have been but a metaphorical Pardon of our Sins in spite of which we might still be really and properly damn'd St. Peter drawing the parallel between ours and a proper Redemption teaches us to believe that our Redemption is proper too forasmuch as we were not redeem'd with corruptible things as Silver and Gold the ordinary means of redemption for Criminals or Captives 1 Pet. 1.18 19. but with the precious Blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without Spot which precious Blood being of infinitely more value than Silver or Gold could and did effect as proper a Redemption for them for whom it was offer'd as the greatest Summs of Treasures paid down for their Ransom possibly could To convince us yet further of Christ's Satisfaction for our Sins the Scripture represents him to us as a Mediator but our Adversaries reply to this that Moses is called a Mediator too yet Moses never satisfied for the Sins of Israel to prove that Moses is so called they allege that of the Apostle That the Law was ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator Gal. 3.19 yet it 's well known that Ancient Writers and Interpreters generally understand that Passage of Christ whom they certainly and truly conclude to have been that God more particularly appearing to the Israelites in their passage from Aegypt to Canaan and so he delivered the Law to them by his own power or with his own Hand as we may well express it the Decalogue the great binding part of the Law being written with the Finger of God as Moses informs us and so put into the Hands of Moses and the blessed Angels as ministring Spirits attending their Lord in the Solemnity and this Interpretation is not easily to be eluded But if by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mediatour we only understand with Suidas one that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Peace-maker it then is applicable to Moses or to any other who goes between contending Parties to make up any quarrel or breach that may be between them But in this case we must always consider the Persons between whom matters are to be rectified their Natures and the nature of that Offence which may have caus'd a breach between them and he who undertakes such a Work had need to have a considerable Interest in both the Parties who are at odds for an Vndertaker in such a case who is liable to any exception on either side is like to mediate to very little purpose Now it 's no very hard Task to find Persons fit enough to take up quarrels between Men and Men all Men agreeing in one and the same Nature and Offences between them generally arising from both sides but that breach there is between God and man is not so easily made up their Natures are infinitely different one absolutely pure and unchangeable the other miserably corrupt and humourous man continually offending God continually obliging man proud haughty disdainful insensible God kind condescending essential Love and Goodness yet a Mediator such as should be able to procure Peace between God and man must have a very great Influence on both sides to which purpose it 's indispensibly necessary he should be compleatly Innocent Moses was uncapable of such a Mediation though he interceded for the People of Israel by his Prayers and was earnest and importunate with God to turn from that fierce Anger he had justly express'd against a stubborn and ungrateful Generation but Moses himself at the very time of his zealous Interposition for Israel was as other Men obnoxious to God's anger and felt the effect of it when for his Transgression at the Rock he was deny'd entrance into the Land of Canaan so that in effect he did no more than what 's particularly incumbent on God's Priests in all Ages i. e. to offer Prayers and Supplications for the People they live among and by such means to the utmost of their ability to stand in the Gap and to divert threatning Judgments from guilty Heads Our Saviour as necessity required was Holy
return to their Obedience to him and he is said to reconcile the World to himself in his Son because He in concert with his Son determined on that means of Pardon and Remission to be granted to Sinners which Sinners themselves could never have pitched on and because Man was naturally backward to his own good but God ever seeking it Yet when we consider 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a word of Ecclesiastical use and signifying particularly such a Reconciliation as is of Penitents to the Church by which for their Crimes they had been before excommunicated We look upon our Saviour as our great High-priest making that Peace for us and as Penitents are not required to forgive the Church which they have offended but the Church kindly forgives them though Offenders so the World reconciled to God do not forgive God or restore God to their Favour but God by the Sacrifice and Intercession of their High-priest forgives them and restores them to his Favour to which end the Doctrine of Reconciliation i.e. the Doctrine of Repentance is committed to God's Ministers and we 2 Cor. 5.19 20. as Ambassadours from Christ entreat Men that they would be reconciled to God that is that they would turn every one from the Wickedness of their Ways and so be re-instated in his Favour It might seem not very easie to pervert the meaning of Scripture when it calls our Saviour a Propitiation for our sins so St. John 1 Joh. 2.1 2. If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he is the Propitiation or the propitiatory or atoning Sacrifice for our Sins and again In this is Love not that we loved God 4.10 but that he loved us and sent his Son a Propitiation for our sins and so St. Paul Rom. 3.25 God hath set forth Christ to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood c. Now would I fain be satisfied what is the Benefit of our Faith in the Blood of Christ a Faith peculiar extraordinary and indispensibly necessary to Salvation if the shedding of that precious Blood had no effect with relation to atoning or satisfying God's Displeasure justly exprest against our Sins That Christ's Blood had a real intrinsic Value it would look somewhat harshly to deny yet it was not necessary it should have any such Worth to render it capable of confirming the new Covenant mutual Compacts made among the Ancients with the Solemnity of a Sacrifice depended not at all on any inherent worth in the Blood of that Sacrifice nay Cataline's Conspiracy though confirm'd with Humane Blood was not so confirm'd because Humane Blood was of a greater value in it self than that of other Creatures but that by joining at first in so horrid an Action they might desperately conclude it to no purpose to stand out at any Wickedness whatsoever but our Saviour's Blood is particularly preferred in its Worth to Silver and Gold and any corruptible Riches whatsoever therefore must be in it self of infinite or transcendent Worth and that infinite Worth could not but effect some mighty good for us on account of which we were to depend on that Blood nor could the Blood of our Redeemer or his Sufferings be less Satisfactory because God is said to have given him for so he might though our Lord's Humiliation was voluntary the perfect agreement of the Divine Will in the Father and the Son neither detracting from the Father's Bounty nor the Son's Willingness or Freedom so Isaac who was a Type of our Saviour must have been able to have resisted his aged Father when he was preparing to sacrifice him but he did not imitating the Antitype in that very particular of being led as a Lamb to the slaughter yet Isaac's Willingness did not hinder but that had the Solemnity gone on as begun he would have been his Father Abraham's Sacrifice or his Gift to Almighty God as would Jephtha's Daughter too notwithstanding her ready complyance with the Import of her Father's Vow But it 's objected That the Covering of God's Ark appointed to be made by Moses according to the Pattern in the Mount is called the Propitiatory Exod. 23.22 which we translate the Mercy-seat the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same Title by St. Paul affixt to our Blessed Saviour the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was certainly in its original Signification no more than what answered to its position about the Ark that is a Covering or that which clos'd it up on the Top translated by the Word which signifies a Propitiatory on account of that immediate Residence which God promised to keep there from the Cherubims placed on which Covering he gave Answers to the Petitions of his Supplicants thence called emphatically That God who dwelt between the Cherubims from whence it may appear that when the Apostle applies that Word to our Lord of whom that Propitiatory or Mercy-seat was always accounted a Type he means that the Man Christ Jesus was the peculiar Residence of the Deity or as he expresses himself that Person in whom dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily from which Body of his God himself gave his answers of Mercy and Compassion to Mankind and this must necessarily have been if he inform'd his Disciples rightly when he told them He and his Father were One and that whosoever had seen Him had seen his Father also The Socinians seem very willing to own that our Saviour's Passion serv'd to expiate our Sins Cat. Rac. §. 6. c. 8. p. 153. Cum Joannes eum Propitiationem pro Peccatis nostris appellat significat per eum Peccata nostra expiari when St. John calls him the Propitiation for our Sins he means that our Sins are expiated by him but nothing can expiate Sins but what is satisfactory for Sins or what bears that Punishment for Sinners which Sinners themselves should have born hence Expiation is often explained by Satisfying so the Beasts offer'd in Sacrifice were put to death to intimate the Demerits of the Offerers who ought to have died for their own Transgressions hence those Offerings made for the Sins of Men were stiled Expiatory or Purging not as if the Beasts offer'd by Men to Almighty God had any thing expiatory in themselves but they were call'd so on account of that relation they had to the great Sacrifice of our Saviour which really did what they only shadowed out i. e. made a sufficient Satisfaction for the Sins of the World otherwise why should the Apostle tell us that it 's impossible the Blood of Bulls and of Goats should put away Sin since they were appointed by God himself to be sacrificed as expiatory for Sin but that their whole Effect depended on their relative Nature and their Praesignification of that glorious Offering to be made for Men at last it had been only to put a Sham upon miserable Wretches to tell of expiating their Sins by those Means by
both at the same time opened him that entrance into Heaven but there as our great and never-dying High-priest he makes Intercession for us to his Father he presents to his Father's view those mighty Sufferings he had undergone on our Account which serving as a Memorial of that eternal Determination of the Deity for Man's Redemption has the same and greater Efficacy on our behalf than a Plea from divine Truth and Justice it self he being invested with that Almighty Power of bestowing those Blessings he has purchas'd for us and the Demonstrations of his Merits his Will and his Goodness being all one Act. It 's true the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us Heb. 9.7 that the High-priest went not into the Holy place without Blood which he offered for himself and for the Errors of the people but how that was we have explained before since that Blood was made use of for purifying even the Holiest Place render'd impure by the Sins of the High-priest himself and by the Errors of the People Perhaps it would not be amiss to take some notice of those different Expiations of Sins in the Old and in the New Testament which the Socinians in their discourses concerning Christ's Priesthood tell us of i. e. That Legal Sacrifices were only appointed for such Crimes as were committed by Imprudence or Infirmity greater Offenders not being directed to make use of any but were doom'd to die for their Crimes whereas as they say the greatest of Sins provided Men persevere not in them but are truly penitent are expiated by the Sacrifice of Christ and this they prove from that of St. Paul Be it known unto you Act. 13.38 39. that through Christ is preach'd unto you the forgiveness of Sins and by him all that believe are justify'd from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses But here we are to consider that the Political as well as the Religious Laws of the Israelites being given at one time by Almighty God they are so blended together and made Dependents on one another that where an ordinary Sacrifice could not there the Death of the Offender himself might satisfie for the Crime committed A Sacrifice offer'd though by its Institution it were expiatory yet if the Sinner however ignorant or weak persisted in his Sin or approach'd the Altar of God without true Humility and Repentance for the Sin committed his Sin could not be pardoned on account of the Sacrifice offer'd but if such a Sinner did truly repent and amend his Errors his Offering was then accepted and not only temporary but eternal Judgments diverted from him for such Sacrifices typified the Sacrifice of Christ which was powerful to save us from both Worldly Punishments and the Damnation of Hell and as we have before observed the Virtue of those Sacrifices consisted wholly in that relation the Types had to their Antitype Now where the Jewish political Laws reach'd the Life of the Delinquent and took his Blood there it would have been an Impertinence to offer the Blood of other Creatures for him but it follows not but that the same Conditions of hearty Repentance and true Resolutions of amendment might procure the Offender's pardon from God though he suffered under the Rigour of the Sanguinary Laws and the daily Sacrifices were of some import with respect to such Criminals and the Blood of Christ though to be shed afterwards was available to the Salvation of such so a Terrour was struck upon Others by the Delinquent's outward Sufferings and Encouragement was given to the greatest Sinners to repent by the reasonable Hopes of their being pardoned by Heaven who yet were to suffer upon Earth And so we find among Christians in Christian Governments the Laws take notice of and animadvert upon notorious Sins some are punished by lighter Penalties some by Death it self yet the Prayers and Intercessions of the Church offer'd to God in the name of Christ may be and frequently are effectual to the Eternal Salvation of such Persons so justly suffering for their Crimes but for the Text alledged the Import of it is this That by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ we are really and effectually freed from all Sins whereas the Ceremonies of the Law had no such intrinsic purging Power of themselves all their Validity depending wholly and onely on their Relation to this All sufficient Sacrifice of the Son of God But we are taught by these Innovators that this Sacrifice was not compleat till our Saviour enter'd Heaven Cat. Raco §. 7. p. 173. nor he possest of his High-Priesthood till that time yet at the same time they own Christ was a Priest when hanging on the Cross if he were a Priest he must be our High-priest for we meet with no Gradations in that Office of his in Scripture nor that by executing the Office of an inferiour Priest very well he purchas'd a title to an higher Dignity If he were an High-priest he was compleatly so else he was and he was not the High-priest at the same time but the Socinian Error in this matter lies in not distinguishing rightly of the Priests Offices the Apostle teaches us Heb. 5.1 2. That an High-priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God Now things pertaining to God are not only external Gifts and Sacrifices but those that are internal and Spritual too such as are Prayers and Supplications with respect to which it 's necessary an High-priest should have compassion on the Ignorant and on them who are out of the way for that he himself also is compassed with Infirmities a Sense of his own Wants is apt in any Man to raise a sympathizing Tenderness for others so that when he begs of God Pardon for his own Sins he may at the same time implore Divine Mercy for the Sins of others now the High-priest is compleatly such in doing both or either of these so upon the Cross our Saviour was our High-priest and his external expiatory Sacrifice was compleatly offered in Heaven interceding for us with his Father he there presents that Sacrifice shadow'd to us by what we commonly understand to be the meaning of Prayers and Supplications i. e. Christ in Heaven intercedes as powerfully and effectually for us as if he really did pray and supplicate as present on our behalf but that he should literally do so is unnecessary and not to be understood by his Intercession for us for he 's an Intercessor not only who prays and supplicates immediately for another or on his behalf but He 's one who by some extraordinary Action pleasing to him with whom he intercedes purchases a Power of doing that thing or shewing that Kindness to his Friends at all times by himself which without that purchace he must make continual and repeated Intreaties for such a Power has our Lord purchased for himself by offering himself a Satisfaction for the World's Sins in his Sufferings compleated
by those particular Sufferings upon the Cross for his Father accepting that Price so paid down Christ as Man Heb. 7.25 acquired that Power as to be able to save to the utmost all those that come to God by him and therefore his humane Nature is immortal that he may always be capable of exerting such a Power But the Socinians would prove their position by that Heb. 8.4 That if Christ were on Earth he should not be a Priest seeing that there are Priests which offer Gifts according to the Law but here they are vastly wide from the Apostle's meaning for the Apostle writing there to Jews and arguing the matter with them concerning the Messiahship of Christ shows them that though he asserted Christ's High-priesthood yet he pretended not that he was any Successor of Aaron or the Legal High-priests for says he 7. 13. 14. it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah of which Moses spake nothing concerning the Priesthood therefore our Saviour was a Priest according to Prophecy after the order of Melchisedech and not only after that Order but for ever so a High-priest never to die never to be succeeded in that sacred Office by any other now being after that Order and under a necessity of having somewhat to offer as a Priest for so we are taught and 8.3 as a Priest having no right to offer any Jewish Sacrifices or Gifts the Order of Melchisedech not having any relation to them Christ offered himself the greatest the noblest Offering in the World having made that glorious Offering he soon left Earth having there no further immediate concern for could he have made his Title to Priesthood never so plain and offered himself never so freely among the Jews to execute the Priestly Office it had been to no purpose they having Priests of their own of the Aaronical Line of whom by Divine prescription they were to make use in things pertaining to God those Priests properly officiating so long as Sacrifices were legally necessary and when they were render'd unnecessary by the perfection of our Saviour's Sacrifice there being no need of any Priests at all to offer such external Sacrifices or Gifts the Apostles of Christ and their Followers succeeding their Master onely in the Instructing Governing and Interceding Parts of his Sacerdotal Function As for some part of their Argument to prove that Christ was not a compleat High-priest till his Entrance into Heaven it 's more dark and unintelligible to me than all those Mysteries in Religion which they pretend to explode for say they since the Apostle asserts that he ought in all things to be like his Brethren that he might be a compassionate and faithful High-priest in things pertaining to God and for expiating the Sins of the People it 's plain that so long as he was not like to his Brethren in all things i. e. in Afflictions and in Death so long he was not a compleat High-priest well is the Consequence from all this therefore he was not a compleat High-priest till he appeared in Heaven before his Father nothing less It will only follow on their own Principles that upon his Death without that Consequence the expiatory Sacrifice was compleated for there was no need of sanctifying the highest Heavens with his own Blood nor does this at all abate the necessity of Christ's Resurrection or Ascension into Heaven since without these that Faith fixt in one who had been false to his own Promises concerning himself who could neither have rais'd himself nor others who could neither have possest those eternal Mansions in his own Person nor have prepared them for his Followers who could neither have protected nor assisted them to the end of the World could have been no way justifiable but Christ's assimilation to his Brethren could proceed no further than to the end of his Sufferings which ended with his Death upon the Cross since none of his Brethren had been so glorified or had so risen as he did or so ascended into the presence of God to make Intercession for Sinners but indeed Death it self was not so essential to that Resemblance as they imagine for whosoever is liable to common Infirmities and obnoxious to Sufferings must of necessity be obnoxious to Death on the same reason though he should actually be translated with Enoch or carried up into Heaven with Elijah for though those holy Men after such a Translation were no more in a mortal state yet all that was no greater Privilege than all are Partakers of who after their final Resurrection die no more or than those who shall be found alive at the day of judgment for though such shall only be subjected to a change and not really die as others yet that hinders not but that in their own Natures they shall be mortal and as liable to Distempers so to Death as well as others To say truth our Saviour during the whose course of his Life and in all its particulars liv'd as Men do and being a Partaker of real and not fantastical Flesh and Blood it was not probable he should live otherwise only in his exemption from Sin he was beyond that general Rule the Deity not being capable of an Union with any thing imperfect or impure But having liv'd as real Man and suffer'd as such and having by himself throughly purged our Sins Heb. 1.3 he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high the Socinians indeed seem to point at somewhat of an Interstice between his Ascension and his Session at the right hand of God that 's not at all grounded upon Scripture for though we know he convers'd some time with his Disciples before he left them that was not the time of presenting himself before his Father and for any thing of a formal presenting himself before his Father as a Suppliant with his own Blood it 's an irrational Dream neither becoming Men pretending to Scriptural nor to Philosophical Reason for since we must to please their Fancies make an exact Parallelism between the Annual Sacrifice and that of Christ we must consider that the High-priest entring into the Holy of Holies had really with him the Blood of the Victim already dead and in that state of Death to continue till consumed by fire without the Camp and so never capable of a Resurrection but our Saviour rose again from the dead and though those of Rome would persuade us some of his Blood was gathered from under the Cross and preserv'd as a venerable Relick by some very Pious and Devout Persons and may be seen at this day by those who have Faith enough yet we doubt not but that Blood so shed was re-united to his Body being easily gathered by Almighty Power from that Diffusion it had suffer'd at his Crucifixion so that though our Lord had died yet his Blood after his Resurrection existed only as in a living Body therefore it could be presented before God only as in such a
Body therefore it could not be presented so as the Blood of the Annual Sacrifice was by the Jewish High-priest nor could the Blood of Christ be so sprinkled as that was towards Heaven or toward the Mercy seat but our Lord's Ascension into Heaven and sitting at the righ-hand of God were one continued uninterrupted Act and that Blood which had been once offer'd upon the Cross needed not to be offer'd again he was made a perfect Messias a real Saviour through Sufferings a Saviour every way sufficient for those who should believe on him and having through his own Blood made way to the Exaltation of his Humane Nature he had no more to do but to satisfie his Followers in the truth of his Resurrection and to give them proper Instructions with respect to their future Employs and so immediately to ascend to and to sit on the right hand of the Majesty on high i. e. to exercise that absolute Dominion and Soveraignty over Believers as Man which as Man he had purchas'd at the dearest rate and as such we find him appearing in Apocalyptical Visions though at the same time bearing that Title King of kings and Lord of lords and thus have we cleared those Proofs justly alledged for our Saviour's Satisfaction for Humane Sins from Socinian Glosses and irrational Interpretations I shall now add only some short positive Evidence of the same Truth from particular Circumstances attending his Death and so conclude this particular It must therefore be remember'd That one End of our Saviour's exact fulfilling the Law was that he might be an example of Holiness and Obedience to us but if our Saviour's Sufferings were of such a nature as to import a great deal more than barely such an Example then it was really to be considered further and the Reasons of that Import to be enquired into Holiness includes all sorts of Vertue amongst the rest Patience Fortitude Courage and the like supposing our Saviour to have satisfied our Heavenly Father for our Sins to have atoned that Anger justly excited against a Rebellious World these Vertues were prodigiously eminent in him the weight of God's Wrath against Sin and Sinners was enough had it been permitted to take its course to have crush'd a world of miserable Wretches therefore it had been impossible for a meer Man to have struggled with and to have averted that terrible Indignation from us but if we take away this particular Consideration of his treading the wine-press of his Father's Indignation alone nothing seems more mean among the various accounts of the Sufferers for Truth than the Carriage of our Blessed Saviour that Man whom yet Socinians themselves acknowledge to have moved in a Sphere superiour to the rest of Adam's Race If we look upon that Death our Saviour dy'd it must be own'd it was grievous and painful yet when we consider it duly the Shame and Ignominy in it was the heaviest Circumstance attending it otherwise when we come to compare his Death as to its outward Circumstances with the Sufferings of Prophets and Martyrs of old they were meerly Trifles and inconsiderable The Apostle tells us among Faith's ancient Heroes of those who were sawn asunder so we are told in particular that great Prophet Isaiah was sawn with a wooden Saw the more dull the more lingring the more tormenting so the three Children were cast into the burning fiery Furnace by Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel into the Lions Den to have been torn in pieces under the cruel Paws of ravening Beasts where we are not to look upon the Miraculous Deliverance those illustrious Sufferers met with but upon the barbarous Cruelties intended against them but if from them we come to view the cruel Subtilties of Heathen Persecutors there we find all the variety of Tortures exquisite Malice could invent executed upon poor Christians the terrible Racks stretching their disabled Limbs and leaving no sound Joint in their Bodies a Torment terrible indeed to the strongest natural Constitutions they out-living their Pains and recovering Strength only to enable them for renewing Miseries some broken upon the Wheel dying piece by piece and Nature in the mean time sustain'd by Puddle-Water and Excrement some burnt alive in scorching Flames some broiled or roasted before lingring Fires some worried to Death by enraged Wild Beasts others cloath'd with Pitchy Vestments and so set on fire to fry away in inexpressible Pains meerly to make sport or to serve for Flambeaus to midnight Wanderers What should we descend lower to the poor persecuted Protestants in Merindo and Chabrieres or the unhappy Piedmonteses of late Years to see Mens Mouths and Womens Privities stufft with Gun-powder by barbarous Villains and so their Bodies or their Heads blown in pieces by that murdering Artifice to name no more of those inhumane Cruelties managed so that Holy Men admirable Christians have been Days and Months and Years a dying and beside all this it was oft-times the Aggravation of their Sorrows to see their Friends and nearest Relations murder'd first before their Eyes to have all the unjust and scandalous Reproaches in the World fixt upon them for Women to see their sucking Infants thrust through with Swords their own Blood and their Mothers Milk flowing from their bleeding Wounds together to see them tost and carried triumphant upon their Spears torn from their dying Mothers ript up Wombs and thrown immediately into consuming Flames these Sights such as might rack the most resolute Soul and almost squeeze sympathizing Tears from brute Beasts or insensate Rocks the very reading those dismal Tragedies are enough to make Men shiver with Horror and survey the Bloody Scene with Amazement and Consternation yet after all we find those glorious Martyrs so far from Fear or Apprehensions of their approaching Fate that never Happy Pair went with more cheerful Looks to the Bridal Bed than they went with to Racks and Wheels to Flames and Gibbets or whatever else their angry and malicious Enemies could inflict upon them nay they were so far from being daunted with the cruel Executions of their Fellow Saints that ambitious Princes were not more active to grasp at Crowns and Sceptres than they at the more splendid bloody Crown of Martyrdome nay so desirous were they of that Honour that whole Multitudes made up of Men Women and Children readily without being sought for or accus'd offered their Throats voluntarily to Pagan Governours to the Amazement and Confusion of their most violent Persecutors If we observe the Behaviour of those admirable Persons under their Sufferings their Management is all of a piece though they were all the day long as Sheep appointed to be slain though they found their Portion in this World never so severe or uncomfortable yet in all these things they were more than Conquerours through Christ who loved them they fear'd not the Cruelty of their Enemies but the Kindness of their Friends lest out of Compassion to them they should find out any means to rob them of that Crown they
and Gentiles the glad Tydings of Salvation they assisted by the Influences of the Holy Spirit did a great many Miracles among them both yet where they were most venerable for their Miracles where most zealous to spend and to be spent for the propagation of the Gospel they met with very unkind Returns and commonly seal'd those saving Truths deliver'd with their own Blood so that when we have turn'd our selves which way soever we can we must of necessity conclude either that the Martyrs were abundantly more exemplary in their Deaths than Christ himself their Lord and Master which is either Blasphemy or very like it or else we must conclude there was somewhat distinct from any thing yet mentioned in the Death of that Lamb of God which made it more terrible and heavy than all those exquisite Tortures expiring Martyrs underwent for is it possible that without any such Circumstances He who was emphatically stiled the Son of God the Son of his Love that Son in whom he was well pleased He who was One with his eternal Father should be afraid of Death of Humane Cruelties or complain of Dereliction is it possible he should be able at any time to send such Assistances to those who believed on him as should make them despise all the Terrors and Furies of a malicious World and yet himself be weak and timid start at the sting of that Death which dying Martyrs smiled at is it possible that He who knew no sin nor had any guile found in his Mouth should tremble before that King of Terrors over whom his own Followers and only by Faith in him so gloriously triumph'd these things are incredible But let us again consider our Dearest Lord as appearing as our Pledge and Surety before his Father as paying in his Death a satisfactory Price to his incensed Father for the Transgressions of Mankind let us consider him as dying for our Sins as being made a Curse for us therefore apprehensive of Divine Displeasure on our behalf as being made Sin for us as being made by God Justification and Redemption for us as having redeem'd us by his most precious Blood as having reconciled us to God by his Death let us remember that he is a Propitiation for us through Faith in his Blood that He bore our Sins in his Body upon the Cross that he was sacrificed for us to take away our Sins for all which Considerations we have the undeniable Warrants of Scripture in short let us consider our Saviour as undergoing those bitter Pains in his last Sufferings which for the Quality of him the Sufferer and for the Immensity of the Sufferings themselves being internal as well as external were equivalent to those eternal Punishments prepared for Impenitent Sinners let us but seriously weigh these things and that the Humane Nature of him who was the Son of God himself should startle and recoil can never be incredible if we look'd upon him as engaged in this dismal work how prodigious was his Patience how inexpressible inconceivable his Charity for him that was originally undefiled to be made Sin him that was the well-beloved Son to be made a Curse him whom an ungrateful World rejected to become an expiatory Sacrifice for that World for him who had never done any Sin nor deserv'd any Punishment to undergo the severest Agonies and Death it self for the sake of obdurate and unconsidering Sinners these are the stupendous Effects of inscrutably mysterious Love such as the more a pious Man meditates on the more he is rapt into Amazement and the more closely he reflects on Humane Demerits his Astonishment grows the more profound that Man so miserable should be consider'd that the Son of Man should be so mercifully visited these things observ'd the sufferings of Martyrs were not worth the naming on the same day with the Sufferings of the Son of God their Agonies were sports compared with his and he dearly purchas'd by taking off that bitter Cup all those Comforts and Joys and Triumphs which they afterwards pretended to He in his own Person conquer'd first those gigantic Monsters Sin and Death and Hell in open field he triumph'd over them upon the Cross He led Captivity captive and how easie was it then for the Sons of Faith to follow the Captain of their Salvation and to wear those Crowns of Righteousness which he had purchas'd for them with his own most precious Blood when they knew God's Anger was aton'd that they had One able to save continually sitting on the Right-hand of God as an Intercessor for them when they were infallibly assur'd those Persons were blessed who were persecuted for Righteousness sake for that theirs was the Kingdom of Heaven it was no wonder that they rejoiced and were exceeding glad nor was it strange that those who suffer'd for the sake of Truth before the Incarnation of our Saviour should express the same Courage they being Partakers of the same Faith and depending as unmoveably upon God's Promises made to them as if they liv'd upon Earth to see their utmost accomplishment so that they too had the same Mediator the same Redeemer the same Saviour the same glorious Hopes and Expectations Having thus largely insisted upon some reasons why it was necessary that God and particularly God the Son should be incarnate and consequently suffer for the Salvation of Mankind we are now to consider the Force and Import of those Arguments as laid together That a Messias was to be sent and on such a saving Errand is a Truth questioned by none but that in a meer Man such things should be made good as were foretold concerning him was impossible for in a meer Man all the Families of the earth could never have been blest though they were all ruin'd in one that was no more for the Repairer of Breaches the Restorer of Ruines the Raiser to Life ought to be greater and more powerful than the ordinary Instruments of procuring one or taking away the other for we see how every little Creature can do mischief where it requires a greater Care and extraordinary Industry to repair that Mischief when once done it was no meer Man who should reign for ever and of whose Kingdom there should be no end for such a Kingdom requires Eternity in the Administration the story of Scripture tells us that when Solomon had finished and dedicated his Temple and the Ark was carried into the Holy of holies upon the Priests coming out from thence 1 King 8.10 11. the Cloud filled the House of the Lord so that the Priests could not stand to minister because of the Cloud for the Glory of the Lord had filled the House of the Lord We meet with no account of any such Glory filling the Second Temple built after the return from Babylon yet the Comfort given by the Prophets to the mournful Elders of Israel when they were dejected on account of the Meanness of that Second Building was that the Glory of the
most incident to the Person who stands in the Relation of a Son therefore it was necessary that the Son of God should take upon him our Nature and pity us and plead for us that how deplorable soever our Condition might be in it self we might be in a Capacity of Eternal Salvation It was proper that He who first gave a Being to all things by his Power should when the Work of his hands was decay'd if he design'd Mercy for them rectifie their Disorders and resettle them in such a state as might in some measure answer the original Design of the Creation that our Saviour the Eternal Word of God was the Maker of all things we have formerly prov'd at large from the beginning of St. John's Gospel and several other Scripture Passages and it 's a Truth which even Arians themselves acknowledge In that first Creation as the wise Man observes Man was made upright Eccles 7.29 but he has now sought out to himself many Inventions were he but left a little to himself he would need no other Vengeance to be poured upon him but what he 'd soon draw down on his own Head but God in pity to him was pleased to determine otherwise but as we observ'd before though an inferiour Creature was able to bring one in a happy state before into a ruinous Condition as any little mischievous Agent may yet those Ruines so easily procured could not be so easily repair'd again We are taught in the History of the Creation that Man was created at first in the Image of God that was his Glory and Excellence beyond the other Members of the visible Creation but that Image of his Maker was miserably defaced in him by Sin the Blessed Jesus the Eradiation of God's Glory Heb. 1.3 and the express Image of his Person therefore the most proper to renew in Obedient Man the blotted Image he had at first created him in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Athanasius whom we may justly alledge now in a matter little controverted Athan. de Incar T. 1. p. 72. It was not in the power of any other but him who was the Image of the Father to create again or resettle that Image in Men. It 's true the Socinians would persuade us the original Image of God consisted in nothing but Dominion over his Fellow-Creatures but that Dominion over the Creatures could not answer that Perfection the Wise Man adverts to in Man's first Creation no more than we can prove Kings and Princes the more Perfect because of that Dominion God entrusts them with or that among Princes those who command the largest Empires should be the best and most compleat Men but the original Image of God in Man consisted in that Purity and Holiness which Man was adorned with in his first Creation and in that vast Wisdom and capacious Understanding whereby he knew every thing that was necessary to his own Happiness this Purity and Wisdom was ruined by his Fall and this our Saviour came effectually to restore by making such as believe in him new Creatures by which they are again renewed in Knowledge and in Righteousness Col. 3.10 Eph. 4.24 and true Holiness after the Image of that God who created them now when we speak of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Renewal of any thing we refer to somewhat that was before for that cannot be renewed now that never was formerly but if the Knowledge and Righteousness and Holiness in the new Man be the Image of God at present and there was such Knowledge and Righteousness and Holiness in Man before his Fall without which it could not be renewed by him who came to repair the ruines of that Fall then that Knowledge and Righteousness and Holiness was originally the Image of God in which Man was created and we need not fly to Dominion as the sole Instance of God's Image in Man especially since his Dominion was no more an Image of God's Soveraignty than the Government of all Princes since has been an Image of that for God was Lord of all things Man was not and yet Princes as well as others have had their shares in the Mischiefs arising from Man's Fall though their Governments be as absolute as ever To this we may add that Regenerate Persons being ordain'd to that Title of the Sons of God it was most proper that he who was the Son of God by Nature should be their great Guide and Conducter to that Honour this we learn from St. Paul who laying down that mysterious Doctrine of God's Prescience and Predetermination as to the future state of Men Rom 8.29 tells us that whom God did foreknow he did also determine beforehand that they should be conform'd to the Image of his Son that he might be the First-born of many Brethren where by the way we may observe that those Persons who by this very Apostle are elsewhere said to be renewed according to the Image of God are here said to be conformed to the Image of his Son therefore the Image of God the Father and of God the Son are the same thing and those whose Image is the same must be One not metaphorically but really One our Lord became our Brother by assuming our Nature by submitting to all the Infirmities of Humanity Sin onely excepted and he was the kindest and the tenderest Brother who laid down his own sacred Life to restore a crue of wretched Prodigals to the embraces of their Father he envied not that where there were many Mansions repenting Sinners should be admitted to them but after his Death and Resurrection he ascended to his Father and our Father to his God and our God that he might prepare those very Mansions for those who believe in him Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed on us that we through the Mediation of his onely begotten Son should be called the Sons of God that I insert that on good reason will appear to any one who considers with the Apostle That Gal. 4.4 5. when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were in Bondage in general and that they might receive the Adoption of Sons this then was the reason of the incarnation of God the Son and the reason of his Sufferings we have from an equally authentic hand the Blessed Jesus by the grace of God Heb. 2.9 18. tasted death for every Man He was the Captain of our Salvation being made perfect thro' Sufferings is not ashamed to call us Brethren Forasmuch then as the Children are Partakers of flesh and blood he also himself took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil And deliver them who through fear of death were all their life subject to Bondage wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a
how depraved By the Jews Page 127 Sadducees what and their Opinions Page 129 Essenes what Page 131 Pharisees what and how character'd by Jews Page 133 By the Gentiles Page 140 Their Philosophers what Ibid. Things essential to Religion unchangeable Page 145 Therefore the Law of Regular Nature neither changed by Moses nor our Saviour nor any thing as essential added to them Page 148 And therefore Mysteries not taken away either in Faith's Foundation or Symbolical Rites Ibid. Advantages of Religion founded on Mysteries 1. From them Men learn the Imperfection of their own Reason Page 160 2. Fundamental Mysterious Truths the distinguishing Characters between several Religions Page 168 3. Mysteries in Religion create a due Reverence for it Page 177 The Conclusion from all That Mysteries are essential to Christianity as well as to any other Religion Page 190 It 's then Essential to Salvation to know Christ is God Page 193 Scripture conclusive of it Page 201 II. Jesus Christ was truly and properly the Son of God Page 209 This prov'd 1. By the Promises and Predictions concerning his Birth c. Page 219 Several instanced in Page 221 c. Christ expected by the Gentiles Page 234 2. By the Manner and Circumstances of his Birth Page 237 3. By the Doctrines of himself and his Minister Page 259 The gentle and peaceful yet prevailing Nature of his Doctrine Page 267 Scripture prov'd the Word of God to Deists Page 283 God necessarily perfect in all his Attributes Page 287 His Love in particular Page 289 Which obliges him to reveal his Will to those intelligent Creatures from whom he expects Obedience to it Page 294 Scripture such a Revelation of his Will and has all requisites in it Page 299 III. Jesus Christ the Son of God was God equal with his Father Page 309 Prov'd 1. By the Old Testament Page 311 The first Chapter to the Hebrews occasionally cleared Page 315 2. By the New Testament Page 324 3. By Actions done by himself in Person or in his Name Page 381 By himself while on Earth Ibid. By his Apostles in his Name Page 400 4. By the Faith of the Ancient Ante Nicene Church Page 409 Fathers alledged Greek Clemens Romanus Page 411 Ignatius Antiochenus Page 415 Justine Martyr Page 420 Irenaeus Lugdunensis Page 425 Clemens Alexandrinus Page 427 Origen Page 430 Latin Tertullian Page 439 St. Cyprian Page 447 Arnobius Page 452 Lactantius Page 457 Zwicker alledges Socinus rejects the Ante Nicene Fathers Page 462 Why the Fathers suppose a Difference between God the Father and God the Son Page 466 The Confessions of the Ante Nicene Councils Page 470 The Judgments of Eusebius and Constantine the Great Page 477 5. By the generally allowed Practice of Praying to our Saviour he is prov'd true God Page 481 Vnder this Head is prov'd 1. That all Worship terminating on any but the One True God is Idolatry Page 483 The Ancient Notion of Idolatry Page 486 Vnitarians divided about Worshipping our Lord. Page 496 Their Vindication reflected on Page 515 2. That Christians worshipping our Lord are no Idolaters Page 518 Therefore our Lord is True God Page 536 The Summary of the precedent Discourse Ibid. The Filiation of the Son of God enquired into Page 541 The Racovian Lushington's Account and that of Thoughts on Sherlock c. prov'd insufficient Page 542 Therefore a Necessity of Eternal Generation Page 550 IV. It was necessary that God the Son should be Incarnate Page 562 1. That he might destroy the Works of the Devil Page 563 He was Tyrannical over Mankind 1. With respect to their Bodies Page 566 Possessions by the Devil not bodily Diseases Page 567 The Devil permitted to possess Bodies 1. For Tryal of Faith and Patience and to excite the greater Longings for a Messias Page 573 2. For the Glory of the Incarnate Son Page 577 2. He was Tyrannical over Mens Souls corrupting them 1. With false Interests Page 583 2. Violent and unreasonable Prejudices Page 588 3. Prodigious and unaccountable Laziness Page 592 A Second Reason why the Son of God was Incarnate 2. That he might repeal the Mosaic Law by a just Authority Page 595 The Law of Moses though Divine yet repealable prov'd 1. By its general Import it being wholly Typical and referring to somewhat Future Page 601 2. The Ceremonial Law was not essential to the Being or Well-being of a Church Page 610 3. God always put a great Difference between the Ceremonial and the Moral Law Page 617 Hence necessary that the Repealer should be equal with the first Maker of that Law Page 625 3. The Son of God was Incarnate that in our Nature He might fulfil the whole Law for us and give us a compleat Example of Holiness and Obedience Page 632 God's Mercy not diminished by what Christ merited or suffered on our behalf Page 639 Crellius his Notion of Infinite Justice considered Ibid. Justice in God no hindrance to his Mercy and vice versâ Page 645 Christ's Sufferings Proportionable or Equivalent to our Demerits necessary Page 646 Satisfaction consistent with free Remission Page 652 Christ not necessarily to suffer Death Eternal his Temporary Sufferings sufficient and equivalent to what was our Due Page 658 Why so much of Christ's Blood shed as to procure his Death Page 666 Our Lord's Satisfaction no Encouragement to Sinners Page 668 But a greater Encouragement and Obligation to Holiness than the Socinian Hypothesis Page 674 Confest by the Defender of the Unitarians Page 676 Christ a Real and Effectual Sacrifice for us Page 688 Christ's Obedience in his Exinanition not necessary but on our account Page 707 His Sacrifice Expiatory Page 722 Compleated before his Ascension Page 724 His Dying for our Sins prov'd positively Page 731 From the Circumstances of that Death Page 738 Otherwise His inferiour to the Sufferings of Martyrs Page 739 God the Son therefore necessarily the World's Redeemer because that Redemption was 1. An Effect of the greatest and Divinest Love Page 758 2. It required the greatest Interest in God the Father and the greatest Tenderness toward Mankind Page 761 3. He who made all things was fittest to restore them Page 767 The Image of God not founded in Dominion of Man over his Fellow Creatures Page 768 The Conclusion of all in two Practical Inferences 1. We learn from the whole to admire God's wonderful Love and Compassion in condescending so far to us as to be Incarnate and to die for us Page 772 2. We ought to adhere constantly to that Faith by which we believe Jesus Christ our Lord to be the Eternal Son of God true God himself and the Propitiation for our Sins Page 778 Places of Scripture more particularly Explained and Vindicated GEnesis 3.1 2 3 4. Cain and Abel's Sacrifice Page 98 3.15 I will put Enmity between thee and the Woman Page 607 18.2 Abraham stood still before the Lord. Page 311 32.28 Jacob wrestling with the Angel called Israel Page 313 49.10 The Sceptre