and perfected in Heaven This doth evidently prove that the Blood of Christ was shed for the Expiation of Sins and that as the High-Priest went into the Holy of Holies with the Blood of the Sacrifice of Atonement there to make Intercession so Christ as our High-Priest with his Blood shed enter'd in Heaven where he ever lives to make Intercession for us But say they the Sacrifices under the Law did not make any proper Satisfaction for Sin therefore neither did Christ's Sacrifice So that at last they confess that Christ's death was no proper Expiatory Sacrifice for whatsoever is so must make Satisfaction to the Law and Iustice of God But say they the Sacrifices were not offer'd for Payment but for Remission I say they were a Payment in order to Remission I mean such a Payment as the Law appointed and God accepted and that is true and proper Satisfaction But we must distinguish a Legal Payment and Satisfaction from Pecuniary Payment to a Creditor And all the Confusion these Men have run into hath been from want of distinguishing these of which I have treated at large in the following Discourse Thus far it appears that they have by no means allow'd the Death and Sufferings of Christ to have been an Expiatory Sacrifice in the Sense of the Iews as it was a Ransom or Price of Redemption But there is something farther to be consider'd in an Expiatory Sacrifice and that is a Substitution in place of the Offenders For that the Jews and others understood by a Sacrifice of Expiation when the Punishment of one was laid upon another in order to his Deliverance Not that the very same was to be undergone as appears by the Sacrifice of Atonement on the Day of Expiation which was not that which the People of Israel were to have suffer'd without it but it was what God Appointed and Accepted instead of their Punishment and therefore the Scape-Goat is said to bear upon him all the Iniquities of the People which was supposed to be so much charged with them that he that let him go was to Purify himself before he could come into the Camp So in the Sin-offering for the Congregation the Elders were to lay their hands upon the head of the Bullock before the Lord and in other Sacrifices the Rule among the Jews was that none but the Owner was to lay on his hands to shew on whose Account he was offer'd up as a Sacrifice of Atonement For here the Right of Dominion was sufficient for Substitution but in a Rational Agent Consent is necessary to make it Just. Having thus seen what the true Nature of an Expiatory Sacrifice was we must now consider how far this can agreee with the Suffering of Christ for the Sins of Mankind And we have already found our Saviour himself declaring that he gave his Life a Ransom for many But that is not all for when he instituted his last Supper for a Commemoration of his Suffering he said For this is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the Remission of Sins His Disciples to whom he spake these words must understand them as the Jews commonly did when the Blood of a Sacrifice was offer'd for an Atonement in order to the Remission of Sins And one great end of his Preaching was to declare that he came into the World with that design that it was the Will of God he should suffer and that he came to do his Will And therefore speaking of laying down his Life he saith No man taketh it away from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again This Commandment have I received of my Father So that here we have God's Appointment of such a Sacrifice of Atonement for Mankind Christ's free and voluntary Consent for the undertaking it and a Translation of the Punishment of our Sins upon him which St. Paul calls God's making him to be sin for us who knew no Sin which shews that the Sufferings of Christ were on the Account of our Sins being laid upon him by his own Consent as our Sin-offering or a Sacrifice of Expiation for our Sins And in another place saith that he hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us How could he be made a Curse for us in order to the Redeeming us from the Curse of the Law if his Sufferings were only a meer voluntary Condition in order to his Exaltation without bearing the Burden of our Sins But St. Paul adds that we have Redemption through his Blood the Forgiveness of Sins That God hath set him forth as a Propitiation through Faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the Remission of Sins That when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son That he hath given himself for us an Offering and Sacrifice to God That he appeared to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of himself and that he was once offer'd to bear the Sins of many That he gave himself a Ransom for all Neither was it St. Paul only who speaks after this manner but St. Peter saith that his own self bare our Sins in his own body on the Tree That Christ also hath once suffered for Sins the Just for the Unjust And St. John that the Blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin and that God sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins So that Christ and his Apostles agree in the same manner of expression and great weight is laid upon Christ's being a Propitiation for us and our Hopes of Remission of Sins and the Favour of God depend upon it What now is to be said to all these places of Scripture Were they designed only to humor and impose upon the Credulity of Mankind by telling them of such an Expiatory Sacrifice in the Death of Christ which never was nor could be being Repugnant to the Iustice of God For Christ say they being Innocent could not suffer the Punishment of our Sins and God being Just could not accept of it although he freely offer'd himself as a Sacrifice for our Sins Doth this agree with the Force and Design of all these Expressions Had not Christ the Power and Will to offer up himself as a Sacrifice of Propitiation to God And where lies the Injustice of accepting such a Sacrifice which he freely offer'd But it could not be say they by way of Punishment for our Sins What then is the meaning of all those places wherein he is said to bear our Sins and to suffer in our stead the just for the unjust What is this but to contradict the Tenour and Scope of the New Testament with respect to the Death of Christ and to turn their Sense quite another way from what they were thought to signifie at that time which
Texts which are confessed to express our Doctrine only by saying that they may be otherwise understood which destroys all kind of certainty in words which by reason of the various use of them may be interpreted to so many several senses that if this liberty be allowed upon no other pretence but that another meaning is possible men will never agree about the intention of any person in speaking For upon the same reason if it had been said That Christ declared by his death God's readiness to pardon it might have been interpreted That the blood of Christ was therefore the declaration of God's readiness to pardon because it was the consideration upon which God would do it So that if the words had been as express for them as they are now against them according to their way of answering places they would have been reconcileable to our opinion 2. The Scripture in these expressions doth attribute something peculiar to the blood of Christ but if all that were meant by it were no more than the declaring God's will to pardon this could in no sense be said to be peculiar to it For this was the design of the Doctrine of Christ and all his miracles were wrought to confirm the truth of that part of his Doctrine which concerned remission of sins as well as any other but how absurd would it have been to say that the miracles of Christ purge us from all sin that through Christ healing the sick raising the dead c. we have redemption even the forgiveness of sins which are attributed to the blood of Christ but if no other respect than as a testimony to the truth of the Doctrine of Remission of sins they were equally applicable to one as to the other Besides if this had been all intended in these expressions they were the most incongruously applied to the blood of Christ nothing seeming more repugnant to the Doctrine of the Remission of sins which was declared by it than that very thing by which it was declared if no more were intended by it For how unsuitable a way was it to declare the pardon of the guilty persons by such severities used towards the most Innocent Who could believe That God should declare his willingness to pardon others by the death of his own Son unless that death of his be considered as the meritorious cause for procuring it And in that sense we acknowledge That the death of Christ was a declaration of God's will and decree to pardon but not meerly as it gave testimony to the truth of his Doctrine for in that sense the blood of the Apostles and Martyrs might be said to purge us from sin as well as the blood of Christ but because it was the consideration upon which God had decreed to pardon And so as the acceptance of the condition required or the price paid may be said to declare or manifest the intention of a person to release or deliver a Captive So God's acceptance of what Christ did suffer for our sakes may be said to declare his readiness to pardon us upon his account But then this declaration doth not belong properly to the act of Christ in suffering but to the act of God in accepting and it can be no other ways known than God's acceptance is known which was not by the Sufferings but by the Resurrection of Christ. And therefore the declaring Gods will and decree to pardon doth properly belong to that and if that had been all which the Scripture had meant by purging of sin by the blood of Christ it had been very incongruously applied to that but most properly to his Resurrection But these phrases being never attributed to that which most properly might be said to declare the will of God and being peculiarly attributed to the death of Christ which cannot be said properly to do it nothing can be more plain than that these expressions ought to be taken in that which is confessed to be their proper sense viz. That Expiation of sin which doth belong to the death of Christ as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world VIII But yet Socinus and Crellius have another subterâ—uge for therein lies their great art in seeking rather by any means to escape their enemies than to overcome them For being sensible that the main scope and design of the Scripture is against them they seldom and but very weakly assault but shew all their subtlety in avoiding by all imaginable arts the force of what is brought against them And the Scripture being so plain in attributing such great effects to the death of Christ when no other answer will serve turn then they tell us That the death of Christ is taken Metonymically for all the consequents of his death viz. His Resurrection Exaltation and the Power and Authority which he hath at the right hand of his Father But how is it possible to convince those who by death can understand life by sufferings can mean glory and by the shedding of blood sitting at the right hand of God And that the Scripture is very far from giving any countenance to these bold Interpretations will appear by these considerations 1. Because the effect of Expiation of our sins is attributed to the death of Christ as distinct from his Resurrection viz. Our reconciliation with God Rom. 5.10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of hâ—â— Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life To which Crellius answers That the Apostle doth not speak of the death of Christ alone or as it is considered distinct from the consequences of it but only that our Reconciliation was effected by the death of Christ intervening But nothing can be more evident to any one who considers the design of the Apostles discourse than that he speaks of what was peculiar to the death of Christ for therefore it is said that Christ died for the ungodly For scarcely for a righteous man will one die but God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved through him upon which those words follow For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son c. The Reconciliation here mentioned is attributed to the death of Christ in the same sense that it is mentioned before but there it is not mentioned as a bare condition intervening in order to something farther but as the great instance of the love both of God and Christ of God in sending his Son of Christ in laying down his life for sinners in order to their being justified by his blood But where is it that St. Paul saith that the death of Christ had no other influence on the expiation of our sins but as a bare condition intervening in order to that power and authority whereby he would expiate sins
what makes him attribute so much to the death of Christ if all the benefits we enjoy depend upon the consequences of it and no otherwise upon that than meerly as a preparation for it what peculiar emphasis were there in Christ's dying for sinners and for the ungodly unless his death had a particular relation to the expiation of their sins Why are men said to be justified by his blood and not much rather by his glorious Resurrection if the blood of Christ be only considered as antecedent to the other And that would have been the great demonstration of the love of God which had the most immediate influence upon our advantage which could not have been the death in this sense but the life and glory of Christ. But nothing can be more absurd than what Crellius would have to be the meaning of this place viz. that the Apostle doth not speak of the proper force of the death of Christ distinct from his life but that two things are opposed to each other for the effecting of one of which the death of Christ did intervene but it should not intervene for the other viz. it did intervene for our reconciliation but it should not for our life For did not the death of Christ equally intervene for our life as for our reconciliation was not our eternal deliverance the great thing designed by Christ and our reconciliation in order to that end what opposition then can be imagined that it should be necessary for the death of Christ to intervene in order to the one than in order to the other But he means that the death of Christ should not intervene any more what need that when it is acknowledged by themselves that Christ died only for this end before that he might have power to bestow eternal life on them that obey him But the main force of the Apostles argument lies in the comparison between the death of Christ having respect to us as enemies in order to reconciliation and the life of Christ to us considered as reconciled so that if he had so much kindness for enemies to die for their reconciliation we may much more presume that he now living in Heaven will accomplish the end of that reconciliation in the eternal salvation of them that obey him By which it is apparent that he speaks of the death of Christ in a notion proper to it self having influence upon our reconciliation and doth not consider it Metonymically as comprehending in it the consequents of it IX 2. Because the expiation of sins is attributed to Christ antecedently to the great consequents of his death viz. his sitting at the right hand of God Heb. 1.3 When he had by himself purged our sins sate down on the right hand of his Majesty on high Heb. 9.12 But by his own blood he entred in once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal redemption for us To these places Crellius gives a double answer 1. That indefinite particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned with Verbs of the preterperfect tense do not always require that the action expressed by them should precede that which is designed in the Verbs to which they are joyned but they have sometimes the force of particles of the present or imperfect tense which sometimes happens in particles of the preterperfect tense as Matth. 10.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and several other instances produced by him according to which manner of interpretation the sense he puts upon those words Heb. 9.12 is Christ by the shedding of his blood entred into the Holy of Holies and in so doing he found eternal redemption or the expiation of sins But not to dispute with Crellius concerning the importance of the Aorist being joyned with a Verb of the preterperfect tense which in all reason and common acceptation doth imply the action past by him who writes the words antecedent to his writing of it as is plain in the instances produced by Crellius but according to his sense of Christ's expiation of sin it was yet to come after Christ's entrance into Heaven and so it should have been more properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not I say to insist upon that the Apostle manifests that he had a respect to the death of Christ in the obtaining this eternal redemption by his following discourse for v. 14. he compares the blood of Christ in point of efficacy for expiation of sin with the blood of the Legal Sacrifices whereas if the expiation meant by him had been found by Christ's Oblation of himself in Heaven he would have compared Christ's entrance into Heaven in order to it with the entrance of the High-Priest into the Holy of Holies and his argument had run thus For if the High-Priest under the Law did expiate sins by entring into the Holy of Holies How much more shall the Son of God entring into Heaven expiate the sins of Mankind but we see the Apostle had no sooner mention'd the redemption obtained for us but he presently speaks of the efficacy of the blood of Christ in order to it and as plainly asserts the same v. 15. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which were called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Why doth the Apostle here speak of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the expiation of sins by the means of death if he had so lately asserted before that the redemption or expiation was found not by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and withal the Apostle here doth not speak of such a kind of expiation as wholly respects the future but of sins that were under the first Testament not barely such as could not be expiated by vertue of it but such as were committed during the time of it although the Levitical Law allowed no expiation for them And to confirm this sense the Apostle doth not go on to prove the necessity of Christ's entrance into Heaven but of his dying v. 16 17 18. But granting that he doth allude to the High Priest's entring into the Holy of Holies yet that was but the representation of a Sacrifice already offer'd and he could not be said to find expiation by his entrance but that was already found by the blood of the Sacrifice and his entrance was only to accomplish the end for which the blood was offer'd up in Sacrifice And the benefit which came to men is attributed to the Sacrifice and not to the sprinkling of blood before the Mercy-seat and whatever effect was consequent upon his entrance into the Sanctuary was by vertue of the blood which he carried in with him and was before shed at the Altar Neither can it with any reason be said that if the redemption were obtained by the blood of Christ there
use of the Concession of Crellius That God hath prefixed some ends to himself in the Government of mankind which being supposed it is necessary that impenitent sinners should be punished What these ends of God are he before tells us when he enquires into the ends of Divine punishments which he makes to be security for the future by mens avoiding sins and a kind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or pleasure which God takes in the destruction of his implacable enemies and the asserting and vindicating his own right by punishing and shewing men thereby with what care and fear they ought to serve him and so attains the ends of punishment proposed by Lactantius and manifestation of the Divine Honour and Majesty which hath been violated by the sins of men All these we accept of with this caution That the delight which God takes in the punishing his implacable enemies be not understood of any pleasure in their misery as such by way of meer revenge but as it tends to the vindication of his Right and Honour and Majesty which is an end suitable to the Divine Nature but the other cannot in it self have the notion of an end for an end doth suppose something desirable for it self which surely the miseries of others cannot have to us much less to the Divine Nature And that place which Crellius insists on to prove the contrary Deut. 28.63 The Lord will rejoyce over you to destroy you imports no more than the satisfaction God takes in the execution of his Justice when it makes most for his honour as certainly it doth in the punishment of his greatest enemies And this is to be understood in a sense agreeable to those other places where God is said not to delight in the death of sinners which doth not as Crellius would have it meerly express God's benignity and mercy but such an agreeableness of the exercise of those attributes to God's nature that he neither doth nor can delight in the miseries of his creatures in themselves but as they are subservient to the ends of his Government and yet such is his kindness in that respect too that he useth all means agreeable thereto to make them avoid being miserable to advance his own glory And I cannot but wonder that Grotius who had asserted the contrary in his Book of Satisfaction should in his Books De Iure belli ac pacis assert That when God punisheth wicked men he doth it for no other end but that he might punish them For which he makes use of no other arguments than those which Crellius had objected against him viz. The delight God takes in punishing and the judgments of the life to come when no amendment can be expected the former hath been already answered the latter is objected by Crellius against him when he makes the ends of punishment merely to respect the community which cannot be asserted of the punishments of another Life which must chiefly respect the vindication of God's glory in the punishment of unreclaimable sinners And this we do not deny to be a just punishment since our Adversaries themselves as well as we make it necessary But we are not to understand that the end of Divine punishments doth so respect the community as though God himself were to be excluded out of it for we are so to understand it as made up of God as the Governour and mankind as the persons governed whatever then tends to the vindication of the rights of God's Honour and Sovereignty tends to the good of the whole because the manifestation of that end is so great an end of the whole XII But withal though we assert in the life to come the ends of punishment not to be the reclaiming of sinners who had never undergone them unless they had been unreclaimable yet a vast difference must be made between the ends of punishments in that and in this present state For the other is the Reserve when nothing else will do and therefore was not primarily intended but the proper ends of punishment as a part of Government are to be taken from the design of them in this life And here we assert that God's end in punishing is the advancing his Honour not by the meer miseries of his creatures but that men by beholding his severity against sin should break off the practice of it that they may escape the punishments of the future state So that the ends of punishment here are quite of another kind from those of another life for those are inflicted because persons have been unreclaimable by either the mercies or punishments of this life but these are intended that men should so far take notice of this severity of God as to avoid the sins which will expose them to the wrath to come And from hence it follows That whatsoever sufferings do answer all these ends of Divine punishments and are inflicted on the account of sin have the proper notion of punishments in them and God may accept of the undergoing them as a full satisfaction to his Law if they be such as tend to break men off from sin and assert God's right and vindicate his Honour to the world which are the ends assigned by Crellius and will be of great consequence to us in the following Discourse CHAP. II. I. The particular state of the Controversie concerning the sufferings of Christ. The Concessions of our Adversaries II. The debate reduced to two heads The first concerning Christâ—s sufferings being a punishment for sin entred upon In what sense Crellius acknowledgeth the sins of men to have been the impulsive cause of the death of Christ. III. The sufferings of Christ proved to be a punishment from Scripture The importance of the phrase of bearing sins IV. Of the Scape-Goats bearing the sins of the people into the Wilderness V. Grotius his sense of 1 Pet. 2.24 vindicated against Crellius and himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never used for the taking away a thing by the destruction of it VI. Crellius his sense examined VII Isa. 53.11 vindicated The argument from Matt. 8.17 answered Grotius constant to himself in his notes on that place VIII Isa. 53.5 6 7. cleared IX Whether Christ's death be a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether that doth imply that it was a punishment of sin How far the punishments of Children for their Fathers faults are exemplary among men The distinction of calamities and punishments holds not here X. That God's hatred of sin could not be seen in the sufferings of Christ unless they were a punishment of sin proved against Crellius XI Grotius his Arguments from Christ being made sin and a curse for us defended The liberty our Adversaries take in changing the sense of Words XII The particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned to sins and relating to sufferings do imply those sufferings to be a punishment for sin According to their way of interpreting Scripture it had been impossible for our doctrine to