be carnal sold under sin that is a Slave and Captive to it he may do those things which he allows not nay those things which he hates that is he may sin against the clearest convictions of Conscience and sense of duty he may neglect to do those things which he knows he ought to do and do those things which he knows he ought not to do he may find a Law in his members that when he would do good evil is present with him a Law in his members warring against the Law of his mind which brings him into Captivity to the Law of sin that is in his members for so they tell us that Saint Paul complains of all this in the Person of a regenerate man in Rom. 7. Now an unregenerate man does the very same and indeed cannot do much worse he sins against his Conscience is brought into Captivity to sin and is over-power'd by indwelling sin he finds a great many natural fears and terrours when he is tempted to sin which give some check to him and make him sin against his own will with some unwillingness and reluctancy he approves the Law of God as just and equal his Conscience assents to it but there is a strong byass upon his will which runs counter to all these holy commands and makes him a Slave and Captive to his lusts Now not to dispute at present which of these two the Apostle means in Rom. 7. I think it is hard to assign any difference between them the regenerate man according to this description is full as bad as the unregenerate man or if there be any difference the regenerate man is the worse of the two because in the regenerate man the Spirit is led into Captivity but in the unregenerate man only natural Conscience which is a much weaker principle and so is capable of a better excuse is led into Captivity but which of these two it is no man can tell and therefore a regenerate man hath great reason to fear that he may be unregenerate and an unregenerate man hath as much reason to hope that he may be regenerate and what becomes then of this evidence of sanctification to prove our Union to Christ when sanctification it self cannot be distinguisht from an unsanctified State Dr. Iacomb in his Discourse of the Law of Sin attempts to assign the difference between the Law of sin as it is in the regenerate and as it is in the unregenerate and hath given us such a Description of an unregenerate State that I think there is scarce such an unregenerate man in the World and yet if we must judge what a regenerate man is by inverting the Character of the unregenerate he is by odds much the worse man As first When the whole bent and tendency of the heart is towards sin when the propensities of the Soul thereto are entire and unmixt there it is the Law of sin and the Law of sin which is proper to the unregenerate but is every one a regenerate man then who hath some good inclinations and propensities in him who hath some wouldings and velleities to that which is good it is to be hoped then as many bad men as there are there are few unregenerate men in the World Secondly Which he tells us is the explication of the former as indeed I think it needs some explicatiâ—â— when all the several faculties of the Soul are altogether on sins side and wholly take its part then it is the Law of sin and that which is proper to the unregenerate where the understanding gives in its final and positive dictate that sin is good represents it as eligible to the will upon this closes with it embraces it cleaves to it the affections desire joy delight run out upon it where it is thus the case is determined Yea without controversie but where shall we find such a man it is so far from being true that there are such unregenerate men that I believe there never was such a man born there are too many who chuse evil though they know it to be evil for the seeming advantages of profit or pleasure it brings with it but to chuse evil as believing it to be good and to rejoice and delight in it as good and eligible for it self is such an unregenerate State as the Devil himself never yet arrived at for though he be a very wicked Spirit yet he is no Fool or Sot as those must be who mistake evil for good in such plain and palpable instances the Heathens themselves at this rate were all regenerate men for their Consciences accused them for doing evil Rom. 2. they knew good to be good and evil to be evil though they did not act agreeably to this knowledge there never was such a man as he describes when he tells us That sin comes to the Sinner and says art thou willing that I should rule Yes saith he with all my heart I like thy Commandments and Government I am thine and submit to thee to be at thy dispose I here swear fealty and allegiance to thee c. This Oath c. might very well have been spared for there is enough in all Conscience without it and yet if this be the principal difference between a regenerate and unregenerate man that the unregenerate man chuses sin as believing it to be good and the regenerate man chuses sin though he knows it to be evil it is plain that the regenerate man is much the worse because his sins have the greatest aggravation that any sins are capable of which the sins of an unregenerate man have not viz. that they are sins against knowledge and so according to our Saviours reasoning this regenerate man will be beaten with more stripes I doubt not but in this description he wrongs the unregenerate man very much but yet he makes the regenerate man ten times more the Child of wrath than the other But then Thirdly The Law of sin hath different workings in the people of God than in others this working of the Law of sin in the people of God let it be what working he will methinks is an ill thing and makes sanctification a very sorry evidence but let us hear how it is First Where sin is committed industriously and designedly there it is the Law of sin and which is peculiar to the Graceless so that unless men be very cunning at the trade of sin and lay projects and designs of sinning they are not under the Law of sin as it is peculiar to the Graceless Grace is very consistent with taking all fair opportunities of sinning so we do not design it before hand Secondly When the temptation easily prevails and there is little or no opposition made to sin then it is the Law of sin as it works in the unregenerate this is an argument indeed that a man is a willing slave but when a man is conquered by a temptation though he make some resistance it is an
argument that sin is his Master which rules and governs especially if this be often and such a man surely is none of Christs Freemen And therefore not to fail Thirdly When sin carries it in spight of all opposition then it is the Law of sin and the power of sin that is against all external discouragements all the threatnings of the Law of God the Scepter of the Gospel the love and mercy of God or his wrath and justice the Death Sufferings Agonies Wounds Blood of Iesus Christ the reproof of the Word Ministers Christians his own resolutions vows promises purposes c. So that it seems when sin carries it in despight of all external oppositions only it is the mark of an unregenerate man but when it carries it both against external and internal oppositions that is a sign of a regenerate man for a regenerate man has the same external oppositions to preserve him from sin that an unregenerate man hath and besides these he hath the internal oppositions the checks of his own Conscience c. which he says the unregenerate man has not And fourthly When it is sinning and no sense of sin no after repentance for it then it is the Law of sin now what bad man is there who does not at one time or other repent of his sins and complain of them and how many are there that repent of their sins and make large Confessions of them and yet return to them again so that there are no men but do at one time or other express some sorrow for their sins which he calls Repentance and there are a great many who pretend thus to be sorry for their sins who it is to be feared are never the better men for it and yet were there any such who sin without any sense of it they would be much better than these regenerate men who feel the gripings of their Consciences for sin and yet return to it The result is this That there is no great matter to chuse between the regenerate and the unregenerate man only as they order the matter the regenerate man hath the better name but is the worse man that if we come to external evidences the regenerate man hath all the reason in the World to fear that he is unregenerate and the unregenerate man hath some little reason to hope that he is regenerate and is not Sanctification an excellent mark now of our Union to Christ when a regenerate man may be full as bad or worse than the unregenerate Indeed it is wonderful to consider how little a matter will serve for an evidence of Grace after all their talk of Sanctification when they come to administer comfort to distressed Consciences Oh! saith the Soul I find sin prevail and how can I be comforted not by the mark of Sanctification sure Answ. I will subdue your iniquities and cast your sins into the midst of the Sea Obj. But the Devil will be busie with me where-ever I go Answ. God hath said it I will tread down Satan under your feet Obj. But I cannot go to God by prayer to fetch comfort Comfort what hast thou to do with comfort get quit of thy sins first and then it is time enough for comfort Answ. Though it be so yet believe and thou shalt have thy desire but I doubt the Soul that cannot pray cannot believe neither Obj. But I am afraid I shall fall away from God afraid of it thou art fallen away from God already if sin prevail so much for sin is the great Apostacy from God Answ. None can pluck thee out of Christs hands neither sin nor the Devil but how if they be not in Christs hands yet sin I doubt may keep them out and if God cut off barren branches from this spiritual Vine there is some danger that putrid and rotten branches will not escape And God hath said I have made an everlasting Covenant with thee that I will not turn away from thee to do thee good Obj. This is good news had I a right to the promise but alas I cannot believe and take a naked promise Answ. Dost thou desire to believe and to have Christ and say thus If it were possible Christ and Heaven should be separated I would rather desire Christ without Heaven than Heaven without Christ. Obj. But this is a hard matter and I cannot say I truly desire Christ on such terms as I should this saying is the best sign of Grace I have met with yet for it is an Argument he is an honest man who will not contradict the natural sense of his mind and say he can do that which is impossible to be done for it is a very odd proposal in order to comfort a poor Soul that he must be willing to be damned with Christ before he must take comfort in hopes of being saved by him Answ. But is it the grief of thy heart that thou canst not deny thy self and desirest thou rather than be separated from Christ to close with Christ upon any terms Obj. Alas I am so far from being grieved as I ought that I rather find a heart that will not grieve and mourn for sin c. certainly they are at cross purposes their Objections and Answers do so ill agree what is matter for mourning for sin man Canst thou desire to have Christ upon any terms though it be to be damned with him Answ. Hast thou any will to it mark the place and whosoever will let him take of the waters of life freely not that every one that will have Christ shall have him but art thou willing to part with thy sins But the poor Soul saith again I fear I shall never do this But art thou willing that Christ should make thee willing against thy will and pitch thee upon a promise and hold thee there for shame poor Soul refuse not this then comfort thy self thou hast a right to Gods promises Thus this evidence of Sanctification is dwindled away into a desire to be willing nay into a desire to be made willing and he is a strange man who cannot go so far But then fourthly I observe further That when they have a mind to take down the confidence of men who are apt to presume too soon that their condition is good they do so magnifie the attainments of Hypocrites who shall never go to Heaven that it is impossible for any sanctified man to do more than an Hypocrite may do so that notwithstanding any evidences of Sanctification which he can discover in himself for ought he or any body else can tell he may be a Hypocrite still which quite spoils the evidence of Sanctification because we cannot distinguish a sanctified man from a Hypocrite Thus for Example One may plead I have left my sins I once lived in and am now no Drunkard no Swearer no Lyar I answer Thou mayst be washed from the mire the pollution of the World and yet be a Swine in Gods account which
but one Christian Society which is the One Body of Christ. Thus Brethren in Christ i. e. Christian Brethren 1 Colossians 2. Verse And if any man be in Christ he is a new Creature 2. Ep. to the Corinthians 5. Chapter 17. v. i. e. every sincere Christian is a new Creature or whoever professeth the Faith of Christ and lives in Society with the Christian Church hath obliged himself to live a new life but of this more in its proper place Thus variously is the name Christ used in the Writings of the Apostles which hath occasioned very great mistakes in some mens Divinity who are very zealous to advance Christs Person to the prejudice and reproach of his Religion Who instead of those substantial duties of the love of God and men and an universal holiness of life have introduced a fanciful application of Christ to our selves and Union to him set off with all those choice Phrases of closing with Christ and embracing Christ and getting into Christ and getting an interest in Christ and trusting and relying and rowling our Souls on Christ And instead of obedience to the Gospel and the Laws of Christ have advanced a kind of Amorous and Enthusiastick devotion which consists in a passionate love to the Person of Christ in admiring his Personal excellencies and perfections fulness beauty loveliness riches c. The Foundation of all which Riddles and Mysteries is that these men make the Person of Christ almost the sole object of the Christian Religion and whatever is spoken of Christ with respect to his Offices his Laws and his Religion they understand of his Person and personal excellencies And therefore the design of this discourse is to reconcile the Person of Christ with his Religion that men may not abuse themselves with a pretended devotion to our Saviour while they contemn his Laws and purposely defeat the great end of his coming into the World And to that end I shall discourse on these following Arguments First Of what use the consideration of Christs person is in the Christian Religion Secondly What the Knowledge of Christ is Thirdly Wherein our Union to Christ and Communion with him consists Fourthly Christs love to us and our love to Christ. CHAP. II. Of what use the consideration of Christs Person is in the Christian Religion THE first thing to be stated is of what use the consideration of Christs Person is in the Christian Religion For those men who talk so much of the Person and Personal excellencies of Christ frequently without any sense and generally without any just ground from Reason or Scripture are very clamorous and alarm the World with strange jealousies and fears as if there were a party of men started up who design to make Christ useless and to reduce Religion to its first Natural State which knew no Priest nor Sacrifice nor Mediator A design which I profess I am wholly a stranger to as I believe all those are who are so much charged with it The Foundation of my hope is that which is the Foundation of the Christian Religion the Sacrifice and Intercession of our Lord Iesus Christ. But I doubt not it will appear in the Sequel what the ground of these calumnies are viz. that we are charged with making Christ useless only because we dare not make his Laws and Religion so And to prevent such scandals for the future I shall lay the Foundation of all in this inquiry of what use the consideration of Christs Person is in the Christian Religion By the Person of Christ I mean what all men ought to mean who talk of Christs Person viz. Christ himself as every mans Person is himself and the only proper consideration here is the greatness of his Person who is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God man the Son of God in whom his Soul was well pleased who left the glories of an Eternal Throne to undertake the work of mans redemption and this suggests many useful considerations which have a great influence upon Religion As first This is a plain demonstration of Gods love to Mankind that he sent so great and so dear a Person as his only begotten Son into the World to save Sinners All Religion is founded on a belief of Gods Goodness He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Hebr. 11. 6. that is must believe his Being and his Providence that he loves and takes care of good men for no man will serve God who does not hope to be the better by it And therefore every Religion had its proper demonstrations of Gods Goodness Natural Religion was founded on those natural evidences of the Divine bounty and goodness in making and governing the World the Mosaick Religion on those miraculous deliverances God wrought for Israel and that particular providence which watched over them the Christian Religion on the Incarnation Death and Resurrection of the Son of God a work of such stupendious love that it is the wonder of Angels and the astonishment as well as praise of men No man can doubt of Gods good will to Sinners who sees the Son of God cloathed with our flesh and dying as a Sacrifice for our sins this gives relief to our guilty fears and does encourage us to retrieve our past follies by new obedience that we have so great an assurance of God's goodness for he had nothing greater to bestow on us than his Son And he that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things 8 Rom. 32. Secondly This gives great reverence and authority to the Gospel that it was preached by so great a Person as the Son of God Laws always partake of the fate and condition of the Law-giver the greater opinion we have of his Wisdom and Reverence for his Person the more sacred regard have we for his Laws and therefore Numa pretended that he received his Laws from the Goddess Aegeria to procure a greater veneration for them which was imitated by Lycurgus and other Law-givers thus God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son whom he appointed Heir of all things by whom also he made the Worlds 1 Hebr. 1. 2. And his greatness and Authority gives an inviolable sanction and just reverence to his Laws Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip for if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward how shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord 2. Hebr. 1. 2 3. To the same purpose is that Parable in Luke 20. 9. c. Thirdly The greatness of his Person gives
their obedience to their great Creator to restore them to the uprightness and integrity of their natures and thereby to a state of friendship with God This was the end of his holy Laws and precious Promises and exemplary Life and meritorious Death and glorious Resurrection and powerful Intercession for us to deliver us from the Power and Dominion of Sin to make us first holy as God is and then to receive us into that Blessed place where God dwells But now acquaintance with the Person of Christ makes just such a discovery of sin as it did of the naturalness of God's Justice to him i. e. that the desert and demerit of sin is such that it is impossible to make any atonement or satisfaction to the justice and wrath of God but only by the Death of Christ otherwise Christ had died in vain that is that God could not forgive it without full satisfaction which nothing but the Death of Christ could make Thus we learn our disability to answer the mind and will of God in all or any of the obedience he requireth that is that it is impossible for us to do any thing that is good but we must be acted like Machines by an external force by the irresistable power of the Grace and Spirit of God this I am sure is a new discovery we learn no such thing from the Gospel and I do not see how he proves it from an acquaintance with Christ. But still there is a more glorious discovery than this behind and that is the glorious end whereunto sin is appointed and ordained I suppose he means by God is discovered in Christ viz. for the demonstration of Gods vindictive justice in measuring out to it a meet recompence of reward and for the praise of God's glorious grace in the pardon and forgiveness of it That is it could not be known how just and severe God is but by punishing sin nor how good and gracious God is but by pardoning it and therefore lest his justice and mercy should never be known to the World he appoints and ordains sin to this end that is Decrees that men shall sin that he may make some of them the Vessels of his wrath and the examples of his fierce vengeance and displeasure and others the Vessels of his mercy to the praise and glory of his free Grace in Christ this indeed is such a discovery as nature and revelation could not make For nature would teach us that so infinitely a glorious Being as God is needs not sin and misery to recommend his glory and perfections and that so holy a God who so perfectly hates every thing that is wicked would not truckle and barter with Sin and the Devil for his glory And that so good a God had much rather be glorious in the happiness and perfection and obedience of his Creatures than in their sin and misery and Revelation tells us the same thing that as much as sin is for the glory of his vindictive justice yet God takes no pleasure in punishing delights not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that he should return and live that is he had rather there were no occasion for punishing than be made glorious by such acts of vengeance and therefore though God be so holy as to punish incorrigible Sinners and so merciful as to forgive all true Penitents through our Lord Jesus Christ yet he did not ordain and appoint and decree sin to this end for vindictive justice and pardoning mercy are but secondary Attributes of the Divine Nature and therefore God cannot primarily design the glorifying of them for that cannot be without primarily designing the sin and misery of his Creatures which would be inconsistent with the goodness and holiness of his Nature Thus Nature and Revelation teaches though these men pretend to have learn't otherwise from an acquaintance with Christ. Thus much for the knowledge of our selves with respect to sin which is hid only in the Lord Iesus But then we learn what our righteousness is wherewith we must appear before God from an acquaintance with Christ. We have already learnt how unable we are to make atonement for our sins without which they can never be forgiven and how unable we are to do any thing that is good and yet nothing can deliver us from the justice and wrath of God but a full satisfaction for our sins and nothing can give us a title to a reward but a perfect and unsinning righteousness what shall we do in this Case how shall we escape Hell or get to Heaven when we can neither expiate for our past sins nor do any good for the time to come why here we are relieved again by an acquaintance with Christ his Death expiates former iniquities and removes the whole guilt of sin but this is not enough that we are not guilty we must also be actually righteous not only all sin is to be answered for but all righteousness is to be fulfilled Now this righteousness we find only in Christ We are reconciled to God by his Death and saved by his life that actual obedience he yielded to the whole law of God is that righteousness whereby we are saved we are innocent by vertue of his Sacrifice and expiation and righteous with his righteousness Now this is a mighty comfortable discovery how we may be righteous without doing any thing that is good or righteous And I confess we could never have known this but by an acquaintance with his Person for his Gospel makes a different representation of it tells us expresly that he is righteous who doth righteousness that without holiness no man shall see God that the only way to obtain the pardon of our sins is to repent of them and forsake them and the only thing that gives a right to the promises of future glory is to obey the Laws and imitate the example of our Saviour and to be transformed into the nature and likeness of God and though our obedience be not in every thing exact and perfect if it be sincere we shall be accepted for the sake of Christ and by vertue of that Covenant of Grace which he hath sealed with his blood which admits of an Evangelical instead of a strict legal perfection such different discoveries doth an acquaintance with the Gospel and with the Person of Christ make The third part of our Wisdom is to walk with God and to that is required Agreement acquaintance a way strength boldness and aiming at the same end and all these with the Wisdom of them are hid in the Lord Iesus The sum of which in short is this that Christ having expiated our sins and fulfilled all righteousness for us though we have no personal righteousness of our own but are as contrary to God as darkness is to light and death to life and an universal pollution and defilement to an universal and glorious holiness and hatred to love yet the righteousness of Christ
is a sufficient nay the only foundation of our agreement and upon that of our walking with God though St. Iohn tells us If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lye and do not the truth but if we walk in the light as God is in the light then have we fellowship one with another and then the blood of Iesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sins Iohn 1. Ch. 1. v. 6 7. And our only acquaintance with God and knowledge of him is hid in Christ which his word and works could not discover as you heard above And he is the only way wherein we must walk with God and we receive all our strength from him and he makes us bold and confident too having removed the guilt of sin that now we may look Justice in the face and whet our Knife at the Counter door all our Debts being discharged by Christ as these bold acquaintance and familiars of Christ use to speak And in Christ we design the same end that God doth which is the advancement of his own glory that is I suppose by trusting to the expiation and righteousness of Christ for Salvation without doing any thing our selves we take care that God shall not be robbed of the glory of his free Grace by a competition of any merits and deserts of our own These are those great Gospel Mysteries and Soul-saving truths which are learnt from an acquaintance with Christ's Person which his Gospel is so silent in or speaks so darkly and imperfectly of that it was impossible to understand them without being first acquainted with his Person And that you may the better understand the whole design and contrivance of it I shall put every thing into its just and natural order God then from the beginning designed to glorifie his justice and his mercy and because there had been no occasion either to punish or pardon unless man had sinned he appointed and ordained sin for the glory of his vindictive justice and pardoning Grace and accordingly since nothing can withstand the Decrees and appointments of God it pleaseth God that Man should sin but when he hath sinned he is extreamly displeased with it and now his Justice must be satisfied for it is impossible for God to forgive the the least sin without a compleat and perfect satisfaction this falls hard upon those miserable wretches whose ill fortune it was without any faults of theirs to be left out of the Roll of Election and who have no way to satisfie the Divine Justice but by their Eternal Torments by this it appears how rigorously just God is that he will never pardon the least sin when he can serve his own glory by the misery and confusion of Sinners But this is but one part of the glory of God to be just in punishing sin the other is to shew mercy in sparing and rewarding the Sinner now here was the great difficulty how God should be just and merciful too when Justice requires a full satisfaction and mercy excludes all desert For the demerit of sin being infinite no Creature can expiate sin but by enduring infinite that is endless Torments and those who must be always miserable can never be the subjects of God's mercy To unite these two extreams and reconcile such contradictions was a work of infinite Wisdom as well as goodness And it was effected thus God sends his only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ into the World to fulfil all righteousness in his life and to make a full satisfaction for sin by his Death For his blood being of infinite value as being the blood of the Son of God could expiate an infinite guilt and so make a compleat satisfaction to Justice which is more glorified by the Death of Christ than by the Eternal miseries of all the Sinners in the World because it discovers the naturalness of Justice to God which is the Position to be maintain'd that he could not pardon without full satisfaction that is that he is so just that he hath not one dram of goodness in him till his rage and vengeance be satisfied which is I confess a glorious kind of Justice But now the Iustice and vengeance of God having their actings assigned them to the full being glutted and satiated with the blood of Christ God may pardon as many and great sins as he pleases without fear of the least imputation of injustice and now a glorious and more comfortable Scene of mercy begins to appear now God embraces Sinners as a kind Father and accounts them perfectly innocent in vertue of that satisfaction Christ hath made for their sins but this is not enough the law of God must be fulfilled as well as his justice satisfied we must be righteous as well as innocent otherwise we may escape punishment but can expect no reward though I confess I should have thought that Christ had satisfied for sins of omission together with sins of Commission and as by his satisfaction for our doing what we ought not to do we are reputed by God as having never done any thing amiss so by his satisfaction for our neglecting what we ought to have done we might by the same reason be reputed by God perfectly righteous to have done all that we ought to have kept the whole Law but it seems this was not sufficient and therefore as the satisfaction of Christ is imputed to us for the forgiveness of sins so the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us to make us perfectly righteous and this makes the Grace of God perfectly free without any suspition of merit or desert in us And now God and Sinners may agree very well and walk comfortably together for though they have guilt enough and he Justice enough to destroy a World yet there is no danger since Christ hath satisfied Justice and though he be infinitely holy and pure perfect light and Sinners abominably filthy yet there is no fear he should loath and abhor them when they are Cloathed with the white and spotless Robes of Christs righteousness and they are so well acquainted now with the design of God to advance the glory of his free Grace in their Salvation that they are very secure that neither their past sins nor present habitual impurities can do them any hurt but they shall be saved with a notwithstanding their sins These are those fundamental Doctrines with which these men have blessed the World from a pretended acquaintance with Christ's Person which are so unlike the holy Religion of our Saviour that for distinction sake it ought to be called the Religion of Christ's Person in opposition to the Religion of his Gospel And since we have discovered the Principles of this new Religion of Christ's Person I cannot forbear inquiring briefly into the practical inferences from it that we may at once view the grand Mystery of this Religion both in its principles and practice Now the practice of this Religion consists in accepting of
Christ and coming to him and applying his merits and satisfaction and righteousness to our selves for pardon and justification and in those duties which are consequent upon such an Union and closure with Christ. For Christ having satisfied for our sins and fulfilled the righteousness of the law for us it is a plain and necessary consequence that we have nothing to do but to get an interest in the satisfaction and righteousness of Christ that they may be imputed to us for he is very ignorant of Christ who hopes that any thing else will avail him to Salvation Now that we may thus come to Christ and close with him it is absolutely necessary that we be sensible of our lost and undone condition out of Christ. How impossible it is for us to atone the wrath of God or to have any righteousness of our own which can bear the severe scrutiny of his justice and in a sence of this we must work our imagination and fancy into great terrours and agonies and a dismal fear of the unsupportable wrath of God and his natural and inexorable justice this is the spirit of bondage which we must lie under before we can attain to the Spirit of Adoption for we shall never value and prize Christ and go to him for Salvation till we are convinc't of our necessity of him and driven to him by the threatnings and terrours of the Law and the promise of ease and rest is made only to the weary and heavy laden and these only shall be satisfied who hunger and thirst after the imputed righteousness of Christ. And now being thus stung with sin it is time for us to look up to Christ as the Israelites did on the brazen Serpent that we may be healed now we must begin to see his fulness and perfection and suitableness to the wants and necessities of our Souls that he is our atonement and expiation our wisdom and righteousness all that we can desire or need And if it should so happen that the sense of our sins and unworthiness makes us afraid to come to Christ and apply him to our Souls we must then have recourse to our acquaintance with the Person of Christ to answer all our doubts and quiet our Consciences As for instance Dost thou object I am a great Sinner and will Christ save me the Answer is easie whom did Christ come to save whom doth God justifie but the ungodly did he take our flesh upon him and not our sins ballance all things together your sins and Christs merits together and the greatness of your sins should not so much discourage you from coming to Christ as the greatness of his merits should encourage you to come to him For where sin abounded Grace did much more abound Compare your distress and Christ's compassion together your wants and Christ's fulness together your unworthiness and Christ's freeness together your desires and Christ's invitations together your own weakness and Christ's strength together Satan's objections and Christ's answers together and now if Christ do not prevail above all thy fears thou art not worthy to be acquainted with him Nay further if thou objectest what have I to do with Christ why should he have to do with me who have such an unholy vile hard blind and most wicked heart the objection you see is full and home to the purpose but mark the answer O! for the Lord's sake dishonour not the Grace of Christ it is true thou canst not come to Christ till thou art laden humble and separated from thy sins yet remember for ever that no more sorrow for sin no more separation from sin is necessary to thy closing with Christ than so much as makes thee willing or rather not unwilling that the Lord should take it away and know if thou seekest for a greater measure of humiliation antecedent to thy closing with Christ than this thou showest the more pride therein who wilt rather go into thy self to make thy self holy and humble that thou maist be worthy of Christ than go out of thy self unto the Lord Iesus to take away thy sin In a word who thinkest Christ cannot love thee until thou makest thy self fair and when thou thinkest thy self so which is pride wilt thou think otherwise of Christ. And now the reason of all this is very plain from our acquaintance with Christ for he is our Physician and therefore we must not think of healing our selves but must go to him with all our Diseases and Sores about us that he alone may have the honour of healing us He is a Fountain set open for sin and for uncleanness and therefore we must go to him with all our filthiness to be cleansed and washed for if we be first clean there is no need of a Fountain He is all fulness and therefore it is not fit we should carry any thing to him as if he needed any thing from us He is our Righteousness and therefore if we have any we must leave all our righteousness behind us when we go to him He is all beauty and loveliness and therefore we must not carry any beauty to him but receive it all from him So that all we have to do in this great work is to go to Christ weary and sick and filthy and naked stript of every thing but our sins and impurities to receive ease and health and fulness and beauty from him Christ is the gift of God and therefore we must only receive him by the hand of Faith and apply him to our Souls and then what a blessed change and Metamorphosis is there presently made in us for though we continue as we were yet we have all in Christ. We are now united to him and made his Members and Spouse and so have an interest in all his merits and fulness Christ saith to a believer with my body yea with my blood I endowe thee and a Believer saith to Christ with my Soul I thee worship as if Christ and a Believer were marryed by the Liturgy And now a Sinner may with the greatest confidence look Justice in the face as being out of its reach A Soul in Christ is actually united to him and One with him and being so no sentence of condemnation can fall on him but the same must light upon Christ himself and who would desire to be more secure than Christ is as a Woman in marriage though she owe never so many debts yet the arrest doth not light upon her but upon her Husband O blessed priviledge and who would be afraid of running into debt with God when he hath such a Husband to discharge all And then how vile and impure soever men are here is their comfort when they are marryed to Christ this is their glorious priviledge Christ's beauty and loveliness shall be put upon them his lilly whiteness shall be put upon the Saints And to Crown all when they are once thus engrafted into Christ and made his Spouse and Members
in for a share at least in being the Fountain of Grace though the Dr. is pleased to take no notice of him But how excellent is the Grace of Christs Person above the Grace of the Gospel For that is a bounded and limited thing it is a strait gate and narrow way that leadeth unto life there is no such boundless mercy as all the sins in the World cannot equal its dimensions as will save the greatest the oldest and the stubbornest transgressors Thus the Love of Christ is an eternal Love because his Divine Nature is eternal and it is an unchangeable Love because his Divine Nature is unchangeable and his love is fruitful for it being the love of God it must be effectual and fruitful in producing all the things which he willeth unto his Beloved he loves Life Grace Holiness into us he loves us into Covenant loves us into Heaven This is an excellent Love indeed which doth all for us and leaves nothing for us to do we owe this discovery see you to an Acquaintance with Christs Person or rather with his Divine Nature for the Gospel is very silent in this matter All that the Gospel tells us is that Christ loved sinners so as to dye for them and that he loves good men who believe and obey his Gospel so as to save them and that he continues to love them while they continue to be good but hates them when they return to their old vices and therefore I see there is great reason for sinners to fetch their comforts not from the Gospel but from the Person of Christ which as far excels the Gospel as the Gospel excels the Law But methinks this is a very odd way of arguing from the Divine Nature for if the love of Christ as God be so infinite eternal unchangeable fruitful I would willingly understand how sin and death and misery came into the World For if this Love be so eternal and unchangeable c. because the Divine Nature is so then it was always so for God always was what he is and that which is eternal could never be other than it is now and why could not this eternal and unchangeable and fruitful love as well preserve us from falling into sin and misery and death as Love Life and Holiness into us for it is a little odd first to love us into sin and death that then he may love us into Life and Holiness which indeed could not be if this Love of God were always so unchangeable and fruitful as this Author perswades us it is now for if this Love had always loved Life and Holiness into us I cannot conceive how it should happen that we should sin and dye Not that I deny that the Love of God is eternal unchangeable fruitful that is that God was always good and always continues good and manifesteth his love and goodness in such ways as are suitable to his Nature which is the fruitfulness of it but then the unchangeableness of Gods love doth not consist in being always determined to the same object but in that he always loves for the same reason that is that he always loves true vertue and goodness where-ever he sees it and never ceases to love any person till he ceases to be good and then the immutability of his Love is the reason why he loves no longer for should he love a wicked man the reason and nature of his Love would change And the fruitfulness of God's Love with respect to the Methods of his Grace and Providence doth not consist in producing what he loves by an omnipotent and irresistible power for then sin and death could never have entred into the World but he governs and doth good to his Creatures in such ways as are most suitable to their natures He governs reasonable Creatures by Principles of Reason as he doth the material World by the necessary Laws of Matter and bruit Creatures by the Instincts and Propensities of Nature From hence he proceeds to shew how desirable Christ is in his Humanity by reason of his freedom from all sin both Original and Actual and his fulness of Grace that all Grace was in him for the kinds thereof and all degrees of Grace for its perfection This indeed doth represent him as a very excellent Person a spotless Sacrifice and a great Example to the World but these personal perfections cannot pass out of his Person to become ours But then Thirdly you must consider That all these perfections of the Divine and Humane Nature are united in one Person and this made him fit to suffer and able to bear whaetever was due unto us which no Creature could do for if the weight of our sins had been laid upon a meer innocent Creature how would they have overwhelmed him and buried him for ever out of the presence of God No doubt the Sacrifice of Christ who was God-Man was of greater value than the Sacrifice of any meer Creature could be but I know not what this is to his purpose and do as little admire his Philosophy But his being God and Man made him an endless bottomless Fountain of Grace to all that believe This he was as God as we were told before and his Grace was never the more bottomless for becoming Man The design you see of all this is to make the Person of Christ the Fountain of all Grace from whence we must drink pardon and mercy as long as we need any and such mercy too as his Gospel is unacquainted with he hath a fulness of all Grace in himself and from thence we must receive the communications of it And this brings me to the second sort of the Personal Graces and Excellencies of Christ his fulness to save from the Grace of Communion or the free consequences of the Grace of Union As for this Grace of Communion as he is pleased to call it though it sounds a little harsh to be a Personal Grace and yet communicated whereby Christ communicates his fulness to Believers I shall reserve it for its proper place and shall at present only consider what this Personal fulness in Christ is which he calls all the furniture he received from the Father by the Unction of the Spirit for the work of our Salvation and near of kin to this is his third Personal Grace his Excellency to endear from his compleat suitableness to all the wants of the souls of men There is no man whatever this sounds like universal Redemption that hath any want in reference to the things of God but Christ will be unto him that which he wanteth is he dead Christ is life is he weak Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God hath he the sense of guilt upon him Christ is compleat Righteousness the Lord our Righteousness many poor Creatures are sensible of their wants but know not where their remedy lies Indeed whether it be life or light power or joy all is wrapt up in him Now
was all the Righteousness he had while he was a Pharisee and this he accounts dung and loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Iesus Christ our Lord i. e. for the sake of the Gospel which is the knowledge of Christ as you hear'd above which contains a more excellent and perfect Righteousness than the Law did and that he might win Christ i. e. that he might attain to an Evangelical Righteousness such as Christ was the Preacher and example of and that he might be found in him not having his own Righteousness which is of the law that at the last day he might appear to be a sound and sincere Christian whose righteousness does not consist only in some external observances or an external Conformity to Gods Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith i. e. that inward and vital principle of holiness that new nature which the Gospel of Christ requires of us and which this Christian Faith will work in us which is a Righteousness of Gods own chusing which he commands and which he will reward To confirm all this we must observe a double Antithesis in the words the Righteousness of the law is opposed to the Righteousness which is by the Faith of Christ and my own Righteousness opposed to the Righteousness of God now the surest way to understand the meaning of this is to consider how these phrases are used in Scripture The Righteousness of the law as you have already hear'd is an external Righteousness which consists in washings and purifications and Sacrifices or an external Conformity to the moral Law the Righteousness which is by the Faith of Christ is an Internal Righteousness which consists in the renovation of our minds and Spirits in the government of our thoughts and passions which is therefore called being born again and becoming new Creatures and rising again with Christ and putting off the old man and being renewed in the spirit of our minds and putting on the new man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness The meaning of all which phrases is that that Righteousness which God requires of us under the Gospel must be an inward principle of love and obedience which changes our natures and transforms us into the image of God as much as if we were born again and made new Creatures Hence St. Paul tells us that the reason why God sent Christ into the World in our nature to die as a Sacrifice for our sins and to confirm and seal the new Covenant with his blood was that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Rom. 8. 3 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the righteousness of the law that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom expounds it that which the law was designed to work in them but was found too weak to effect it by reason of the greater power and prevalency of sin i. e. the inward holiness and purity of mind which was represented and signified by those external Ceremonies of Circumcision washing purifications and Sacrifices this was the design of the Gospel to work in us that internal holiness and purity which is the perfection and accomplishment of the Typical and Figurative Righteousness of the Law I know very well that this place is expounded of the imputation of Christs Righteousness that we fulfil the Righteousness of the Law not personally but imputatively but what reason can there be assigned for this besides that they will expound Scripture so which no man can help for is there any mention here of the Righteousness of Christ that he fulfilled all Righteousness for us and that his Righteousness is imputed to us and so we fulfil the Righteousness of the law in him And we ought to consider how consistent such an interpretation is with the Apostles design which is to show the great vertue and efficacy of the Gospel in delivering us from the power of sin which the law could not effect The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Iesus that divine and spiritual law which Christ hath given us which governs our minds and spirits and is the principal of a new spiritual life makes us free from the law of sin and death from the power and dominion of sin which is called a law and the law in our members warring against the law of our minds Rom. 7. 21 23. for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh what the law could not do i. e. govern our minds and passions deliver us from the law of sin and death from the Power and Dominion of our lusts this God effected by sending Christ into the World to publish the Gospel to us and to confirm all those great promises and threatnings contained in it with his own blood That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit how can imputation come in here What pretty sense would this make of the Apostles Argument The Law was too weak to make men throughly good to conquer their love to sin and to reform their hearts and lives and therefore God sent his Son into the World What for To give them better laws and more excellent promises and more powerful assistances to do good No by no means but to fulfil all righteousness for them that they may fulfil the righteousness of the law not by doing any thing themselves but by having all done for them by having this perfect Righteousness of Christ imputed to them there was no reason surely to abrogate the law of Moses for this end it might have continued in full force still and have been as available to Salvation as the Gospel is with the supplemental Righteousness of Christ But the weakness of the law which the Apostle complains of was not the want of an imputed Righteousness which might have been had as well under the Law as under the Gospel if God had pleased but a want of strength and power to subdue the sinful appetites of men it was weak through the flesh by reason of the greater prevalency of sensual lusts which the law could not conquer and therefore the Gospel of our Saviour must supply this defect not by an imputed Righteousness but by an addition of greater power to enable men to do that which is good to fulfil the external righteousness of the law by a sincere and spiritual obedience Much to the same purpose the Apostle discourses in Rom. 7. Ver. 4 5 6. Wherefore my Brethren you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ who put an end to that imperfect dispensation by his death that you should be marryed to another even to him who is raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God for when we were in the flesh under that carnal and fleshly dispensation of the
Law of Moses the motions of sin which were by the Law which grew more boisterous and unruly by the prohibitions of the law v. 8. did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death i. e. did betray us to those wicked actions which end in Death but now we are delivered from the law that being dead in which we were held that we should serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter So that the reason why the Law of Moses was abrogated was because it could not make men good It nursed them up in a ritual and external Religion taught them to serve God in the letter by Circumcision and Sacrifices or an external Conformity to the letter of the law But the Gospel of Christ alone teacheth us to worship God with the Spirit to offer a reasonable Sacrifice to him to fulfil the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that internal Righteousness of which those legal Ceremonies were the Signs and Sacraments This is the plain meaning of the Apostle which can never be reconciled with an imputed Righteousness which would make his argument foolish and absurd and therefore in other places he tells us what little reason we have to be so zealous for the law of Moses since we have the perfection of it in the Gospel what need is there of the Circumcision of the flesh which the law required when in the Gospel we have that Circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the Circumcision of Christ which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfection of that fleshly Circumcision What need is there of legal washings and purifications when they are all eminently fulfilled in the washing of Regeneration in the Gospel Baptism Thus we are compleat in Christ who hath perfectly instructed us in the will of God and instituted such a Religion as is the perfection of all external Ceremonies Col. 2. Ver. 10 11 12. We must now offer a nobler Sacrifice than the law of Moses commanded not the Sacrifices of dead Beasts but of a living and active Soul Rom. 12. 1. Hence Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end of the law i. e. the perfection and accomplishment of the law as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies for righteousness to them that believe Rom. 10. 4. That is the Gospel of Christ requires that righteousness of us which the law did only typifie and represent that holiness and purity of mind which is the perfection of all legal righteousness for that Christ should be made the end of the law for righteousness by the imputation of his righteousness to us hath no foundation in the Text. The Apostle explains what he means by this in the following Verses where he gives us a description of the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of Faith The righteousness of the law is an external Conformity to the letter of the Law The man that doth them shall live in them i. e. shall enjoy all those temporal blessings of the Land of Canaan which were promised to the observance of the Law but the righteousness of Faith is a firm and stedfast belief of the Divine Authority of Christ that he is the Lord and more particularly a belief of his Resurrection from the dead as the last and great confirmation which God gave to the Divinity of Christs Person and Doctrine This is that Faith that overcomes the World and purifies the heart and transforms us into the likeness of God which is the perfection of all the ritual righteousness of the Law Upon this account Christ is said to be made unto us righteousness 1 Cor. 1. 20. But of him are you in Christ who of God is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption i. e. he is the Author of all this to us He is our Wisdom as he is our great Prophet and Teacher who instructs us in true Wisdom Our Righteousness as we are justified by Faith in him by a sincere belief of his Gospel which is the only Righteousness acceptable to God Our Sanctification because the law of the spirit of life in Christ Iesus makes us free from the law of sin and death that Divine and Spiritual law of Faith conquers the Power and Dominion of sin which the law of Moses could not do and our Redemption as by these means he hath deliver'd us from the bondage and pedagogie of the Jewish Law from the Idolatrous Customs of the Heathens and the Tyranny of wicked Spirits and from the wrath of God which is the just merit and desert of sin Thus you see how the Apostle opposes the righteousness of the law to the righteousness of Faith not as an Inherent and Personal to an Imputed Righteousness but as an External and Ritual to an Inherent real and substantial Righteousness this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of all other mistakes in this matter that by the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of works most men understand an internal holiness the Conformity of our hearts and lives to all moral Precepts and Rules of a good life and then conclude that if this Righteousness will not please God nothing but an Imputed Righteousness can though I should rather have concluded that nothing can but the truth is the Righteousness of the Law and of Works in the New Testament signifies only an external Righteousness which cannot please God and that internal holiness which they call the righteousness of the Law is that very Righteousness of Faith which the Gospel commands and which God approves and rewards and this Imputed Righteousness is no where to be found that I know of but in their own fancies Let us now consider in what sense the Apostle opposes his own Righteousness to the Righteousness of God not having mine own Righteousness but the Righteousness which is of God by Faith and there is no great difficulty in this for the Apostle himself tells us that by his own righteousness he means the righteousness of the law and by the Righteousness of God the Righteousness of Faith And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith and what that is you have already heard thus in Rom. 10. 3. For they being ignorant of Gods Righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the Righteousness of God where their own righteousness which the Jews so obstinately adhered to was the righteousness of the law and the Righteousness of God which they were ignorant of and would not submit to was the Righteousness of Faith for this was the great controversie between the Jews and Apostles which is the subject of this Epistle whether men were to be justified by the law of Moses or by the Gospel of Christ by a legal or Evangelical Righteousness as
appears from Rom. 9. 30. Israel which followed after righteousness hath not attained to the law of righteousness wherefore because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the works of the law that is the Israelites who pursued so earnestly after Righteousness are excluded from righteousness or forgiveness of sins and are under a Curse because they did not look for Righteousness and Justification in the way which God prescribed which is by Faith in Christ or by Christianity but by the observance of the law of Moses Now the most obvious Reason why this righteousness of the law is called their own righteousness and the Righteousness of Faith Gods Righteousness is because this legal righteousness was a way of justification not of Gods appointment but their own chusing God never designed that any man should be justified to eternal life by observing the law of Moses but yet they confidently expected justification by that Law and for that reason rejected the Gospel of Christ But the righteousness of Faith is a righteousness of Gods chusing this he approves and accepts of for the justification of a Sinner by this the Elders obtained a good report by this Enoch and Noah and Abraham were justified before God and therefore this may well be called the Righteousness of God because this he appointed and this he will owne and reward Thus you see that there is no foundation in Scripture for all this talk of a Personal Righteousness of Christ inherent in him and imputed to us but the righteousness of which the Scripture speaks is not the righteousness of Christs Person but of his Gospel that is that way of Righteousness and Justification which Christ hath revealed in his Gospel I have now considered all the Personal Graces of Christ as these men call them and upon inquiry it appears that what they appropriate to his Person belongs to his Gospel and is intended to describe the perfection and excellency of his Religion as being the most perfect Revelation of the will of God the most powerful method of his wisdom for the reforming the World the only way to life and immortality and which prescribes the only Righteousness which is acceptable to God There is indeed one metaphorical expression still behind which exercises mens wits and fancies viz the riches of Christ Eph. 3. 8. Which must needs be a personal Grace too or Personal Estate or what you will call it unto me who am the least of all Saints is this Grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Where by the unsearchable riches of Christ is meant the Gospel which St. Paul preached to the Gentiles as being ordained by Christ to be the Apostle of the Gentiles and he calls it unsearchable riches because the Grace of the Gospel is not a narrow and stinted thing is not confined to a particular Nation as the law was but is offer'd to all Mankind whether Jews or Gentiles bond or free the Gospel of Christ contains those glorious discoveries of Gods goodness to all Mankind as may well be called the riches of his Grace Eph. 1. 7. for riches signifie only an abundance And is it not a great violation of the Majesty of Scripture to sport and toy with words and metaphors as some men do with this riches of Christ that he is rich because he hath a rich dowry having all the World given to him as his proper Inheritance that he keeps open House and maintains all the Creation at his own charge and that he hath done this above 6000 years which would have broke him long since had he not been very rich and that he doth not only inrich all the Saints but all of the Saints their understandings with glorious light their Consciences with quickness pureness c. and that after all this vast expence he is never the poorer that he is not a penny the poorer for all that he hath laid out for the relief of those that have their dependance on him And that Iesus Christ is generally rich rich in Houses and Lands though he had not a place whereon to lay his head in gold in silver in Cattel in all temporals as well as spirituals and that he hath a great Tribute and Rent due to him that he is the great Landlord and Owner of all that Angels and men possess above and below These are fine things to perswade young Women to accept of Christ for their Husband since they can never expect so rich and advantageous a match any where else but I have something else to do than to pursue such follies and extravagancies as are so palpable that there is no need to expose them SECT III. Concerning the nature of our Union to Christ whereby we are intitled to all his fulness Righteousness c. HAving showed you what kind of Person these men make of Christ how they have fitted him to all the wants and necessities of a Sinner let us now consider wherein this Union they talk of between the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers does consist Now the Union betwixt Christ and Christians is represented in Scripture by various metaphors which I have explained at large but these men instead of explaining these metaphors turn all Religion into an Allegory As for example Christ is called an Husband and the Church his Spouse and now all the invitations of the Gospel are Christs wooing and making love to his Spouse and what other men call believing the Gospel of Christ whereby we devote our selves to his service these men call that consent and contract which makes up the marriage betwixt Christ and Believers Christ takes us for his Spouse and we take Christ for our Husband and that with all the solemnities of marriage except the Ring which is left out as an Antichristian Ceremony Christ saying thus This is that we will consent unto that I will be for thee and thou shalt be for me and not for another Christ gives himself to the Soul with all his excellencies righteousness preciousness graces and eminencies to be its Saviour Head and Husband to dwell with it in this holy Relation and the Soul likes Christ for his excellencies Graces suitableness far above all other Beloveds whatever and accepts of Christ by the will for its Husband Lord and Saviour and thus the Marriage is compleated and this is the day of Christs Espousals of the gladness of his heart and now follow all mutual conjugal affections which on Christs part consist in delight valuation pity or compassion and bounty on the Saints part in delight valuation Chastity duty which is much like Mr. Hobs his Description of his Artificial Man the Common-wealth But I have already corrected this fooling with Scripture-Metaphors and Phrases and my business at present is to consider wherein they place the nature of this Union betwixt Christ and Believers namely in this that it is such an Union as makes all Christ ours
and us Christs when a man is united to Christ he hath a propriety and interest in all his Personal Graces and Eminencies He is lovely with Christs loveliness Righteous with Christs Righteousness the Wisdom and Power and fulness of Christ are his whatever Christ hath done or suffer'd is all his as much as if he had done and suffer'd the same things himself Now this Union of Persons betwixt Christ and Believers which gives them such a propriety in all the Personal Graces of Christ is commonly explained by a conjugal relation and legal Union that mutual Relation which is betwixt Husband and Wife and that Union which is betwixt the Surety and Debtor First They explain this Union by a conjugal Relation Christ is a Spiritual Husband and every Believer is his Spouse now this marriage Union consists in a mutual resignation or making over their Persons one to another Christ gives himself to the Soul with all his Excellencies Righteousness Graces and Eminencies to be its Saviour Head and Husband for ever to dwell with it in this holy Relation now as you know the Wife by vertue of her Marriage-Union is entitled to her Husbands Estate thus are Saints by their marriage to Christ entitled to all his Personal fulness beauty righteousness and as a Wife under covert is not lyable to an arrest or action at law but all must fall upon her Husband so you being married to Christ this Supersedes the Process of the Law against you if it be not fully satisfied it must seek its reparation at the hand of your Spiritual Husband Christ himself as for any condemnatory charge it cannot fall upon you This is the sum of all the Reason they alledge to prove that we have a right and title to whatever Christ hath done or suffer'd by vertue of our marriage to him because a Wife hath an Interest in her Husbands Estate and is secur'd from all Arrests at Law and if these be not weighty reasons let any man that can give better To consider this briefly they say that a Wife hath an Interest in her Husbands Estate and is secured from all Arrests at Law and therefore Christ being our Husband all his Personal excellencies righteousness c. are ours and the Law cannot take hold of us but our Husband must be responsible for our faults a very hard Law truly and I think a Husband is in a very ill Case when he has a bad Wife Now suppose this were the Case in some earthly marriages it were worth while to consider whether this be essential to marriage or whether it depends upon private contracts or publick Laws and Customs which are arbitrary and mutable for if this be not essential to marriage how can we be secure that this is the law of our spiritual marriage unless our spiritual Husband had told us so especially considering that this spiritual marriage betwixt Christ and his Church is of a different nature from earthly marriages and if they differ in any thing we cannot be sure but that they differ in this unless we have some better proof of it than this Analogy and resemblance between earthly and spiritual marriages nay and better proof too than Dr. Owen gives us of it Cant. 1. 15. Behold thou art fair my Companion behold thou art fair thou hast Doves Eyes and Cant. 3. 14 O my Dove that art in the clefts of the Rocks and in the secret places of the stairs let me hear thy voice let me see thy countenance for sweet is thy voice and thy countenance is comely or Cant. 4. 8. Come with me from Lebanon my Spouse look from the top of Amana from the top of Shenir and Hermon from the Lions Dens and the Mountain of the Leopards or Isai. 4. 2. The branch of the Lord is beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth is excellent and comely to them that are escaped of Israel which are all the proofs he can find for if he had any better he did ill to conceal them for Christs giving himself to the Soul with all his Excellencies Righteousness Preciousness Graces Eminencies c. Now how any such consequence as this can be drawn either from Doves Eyes or from the Clefts of the Rocks or from Lebanon or from the top of Amana Shenir or Hermon or from the Lions Dens or Mountain of Leopards is past my understanding to make out But let the Laws of Kingdoms and Nations be as they will there can be no Law made to alter the nature of things there never was any Law that the Personal vertues and qualities and perfections of the Husband should be setled upon his Wife for a jointure though the Husband be never so fair and comely wise and vertuous his Wife may be ugly and deformed a Fool or a Harlot for Personal and Inherent perfections cannot pass out of the Person nor be made over to any other as money and lands are and therefore whatever other priviledges we may enjoy by our marriage to Christ his Personal excellencies cannot be ours though his Person were And we know that in marriage there are private contracts too and the Wives interest in her Husbands Estate may be limited to such conditions as they agree upon and the truth is Christ hath not made such an absolute settlement of himself upon us as these men dream he has for the Gospel contains the Articles of this Marriage to speak in these mens dialect and there we must learn to what purposes and upon what conditions Christ gives himself to us and must challenge no more from Christ by vertue of our marriage to him than what the Gospel the marriage Covenant promises and we find nothing there of his Personal Righteousness to be made ours As for what they tell us that a Woman under covert is not liable to an Arrest or action at the law but all must fall upon her Husband it is true as to matter of Debt but does not extend to Crimes if a Woman kill her Child or rob upon the High-way I doubt her being under covert will not secure her from the Gallows was it never known that a Woman was hang'd either with or without her Husband The Keeper of Newgate could have better informed them in this nice point of Divinity and how secure soever any man may fancy himself of his marriage to Christ I would not advise him to venture too much upon it for if he be guilty of any gross wilful sin there is some danger that the law or Gospel may condemn him unless he timely repent and reform his Vices So that this conjugal Relation to Christ does not make him so absolutely ours as these men pretend who by their loose discourses and inconsequent reasonings seem neither to understand Divine nor Humane Laws when the Scripture calls Christ our Husband and the Church his Spouse it means no more but that Christ is our Head and Governour who rules his Church with as great
as Mediator could not be imputed to us as though we had done it though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fruits of it are because we were never designed to be Mediators and the Righteousness of a Mediator is as improper to be imputed to those who are not Mediators as it is to impute the Righteousness of a Prince to a Beggar The righteousness of every man consists in the discharge of those duties and offices which belong to his state condition and relatious of life not in doing those things which he is not concerned to do and therefore that the Righteousness of Christ might be fit to be imputed to us as our Righteousness he was forced to consider him not as Mediator but as a private person made subject to the Law who did whatever was required of us by vertue of any Law though this too was impossible for he could not at the same time act so many different and opposite parts as there are relations and conditions of men in the World and yet when he thought on 't again he found that it was not the Righteousness of a private person that would avail us though it were never so perfect because we have no way to come at it to make it ours but only the Righteousness of a Mediator who did whatever he did for us and in our stead and so he wheels about again and tells us that though what Christ did as a man subject to the Law did not belong to the Law of his Mediation yet he did it as Mediator because he was a Mediator who did it and thus he is caught in the Net and Labyrinth of his own making and the more he turns and windes himself the faster it holds him A Mediator who acts as a Mediator in a private capacity as a man subject to the Law I shall certainly believe as they say some Country-people do that Logick is Conjuring if it can reconcile such palpable contradictions It is very ominous thus to stumble at the threshold but though Mediator and not a Mediator be contradictory terms which Learned men say cannot be reconciled yet let us forgive him that slip and see how he proves that whatever Christ did is reckoned to us as done in our stead and all the reason I can find in his Discourse may be reduced to three Heads first that Christ was under no obligation to do it himself secondly that there r can be no other reason assigned why he did it at all but that he did it for us and thirdly that this was absolutely necessary it should be so First That Christ was under no obligation to obey these Laws himself and to make this appear he discourses particularly both of the Law of our Creation and the Ceremonial Law given to the Iews As for the first the Law of Creation that comprehends those eternal Laws which result from the essential differences of good and evil which all Mankind are bound to observe by the very frame and constitution of their natures now he dares not deny that Christ was bound to obey this Law for himself but then his obedience he says was voluntary and what of that for so the obedience of every good man is for by voluntary he tells us he doth not mean that it was meerly arbitrary and at his choice whether he would yield obedience to it or not but on supposition of his undertaking to be a Mediator it was necessary it should be so but he voluntarily and willingly submitted unto it and so became really subject to the commands of it and is it not very plain now that Christ was not obliged to obey these Laws because he willingly submitted to them But certainly he means something more by this voluntary than he could tell how to express and all that I can guess is that whereas we are bound to obey these Laws antecedentally to our own choice it was not so with him for his obligation was only consequential upon his being born and becoming Man which was his own choice and yet even then as he tells us as he was Mediator God and Man he was not by the Institution of that Law obliged to it being as it were exempted and lifted above that Law by the Hypostatical Union Now this is very profound reasoning for the meaning of it is this that Christ had not been bound to live like a man unless he had become man and yet I can grant something more that it was impossible he should have lived like a man discharged all the duties of a man without being man but when he chose to be a man there was no need to chuse any more for then he was bound by the Laws of his Nature to discharge all the duties of a man for himself But how could he be exempted from this Law though it be but as it were and raised above it by being Mediator God and Man when the Doctor himself acknowledges two lines after that upon supposition of his being Mediator it was necessary it should be so that is that he should yield obedience to the Law now not to be obliged by the Institution of the Law as Mediator and that it should be necessary for him to obey the Law as Mediator are at so great a distance that it may serve for another tryal of skill to reconcile them But Secondly Though we suppose that Christ as Man was bound to yield obedience to the Laws of the Creation yet the Doctor observes that this is the only Law he could be liable to as a Man for an innocent man in a Covenant of works as he was needed no other Law nor did God ever give any other Law to such persons the Law of Creation is the only Law that an innocent Creature is liable to with what Symbols of the Law God is pleased to add But now Iesus Christ yielded perfect obedience to all those Laws which came upon us by the occasion of sin as the Ceremonial Law yea those very Institutions that signified the washing away of sin and repentance from sin as the Baptism of John which he had no need of himself this therefore must needs be for us This now looks something like though I fear it will prove like all the rest that is to no purpose for though the Doctor takes it for granted yet I would willingly have had some proof of it that an innocent man can be bound by no other Law than the Law of Creation especially since he acknowledges which is a great favour that God might add what Symbols he pleased to that Law for I suppose he remembred the Tree of Life and the Tree of knowledge of good and evil now I know not what these Symbols are but positive Laws and such the Ceremonial Laws were and if God may require the obedience of an innocent man to one positive Law I see no reason why he may not if he please enjoyn twenty such Laws by the same Authority But they are
such Laws as came upon us by occasion of sin and therefore an innocent man cannot be obliged by them but why not Though they were at first commanded upon occasion of sin an innocent man may observe them to good and wise purposes as publick and solemn Acts of Worship as external and visible expressions of devotion as a publick profession of Righteousness and a vertuous life to which purposes among others the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law and the Baptism of Iohn served And if there were no other reason this were sufficient that it becomes an innocent man to set an example of reverence to all Divine Institutions that every conceited Religionist who may be far enough from being innocent may not presently conceit himself above all Forms and external Worship as the Doctor knows who are too apt to do But this is not worth contending about for the Righteousness of the Ceremonial Law could never justifie any man and therefore if Christ had fulfilled this Law for us it could have availed us nothing Nor can I understand why the Doctor should suppose that Christ fulfilled the Ceremonial Law for all Believers when the greatest part of them the Gentiles were never under the obligation of it His second Argument to prove that what Christ did as Mediator that is the actual obedience of his life he did for us and in our stead is this that there can be no other reason assigned of Christs obedience to the Law of God but only this that he did it in our stead Now this Argument would be good were it true and were there not a great many things done which we cannot assign the reason of and yet done for great and weighty reasons but it appears from what I have already discoursed that there was sufficient reason why Christ should obey the Laws of God viz. because he was as much bound to it as any other man is But to wave this let us consider how he manages this Argument he takes it for granted as he is very apt to do things which he cannot prove that if Christ were not bound to obey these Laws upon his own account it must be either for us or to fit him for his death and oblation but it was not to fit him for his death and oblation therefore it was for us for he tells us That he answered all Types and was every way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fit to be made an Offering for sin by his Union and habitual Grace so that if the obedience Christ performed be not reckoned to us and done upon our account there is no just cause to be assigned why he should live here in the World so long as he did in perfect obedience to all the Laws of God had he dyed before there had been perfect innocence and perfect holiness by his habitual Grace and infinite vertue and worth from the dignity of his Person and surely he yielded not that long course of all manner of obedience but for some great and special purposes in reference to our Salvation yes truly it was for some great and special purpose in reference to our Salvation that Christ lived so long in the World and consequently yielded such a long course of all manner of obedience to God but must this needs be his actual fulfilling all Righteousness for us What do you think of his preaching the Gospel throughout all Iudaea which required that he should be a man before he did it and would take up some time in doing it What do you think of those many Miracles which he wrought for the confirmation of his Doctrine What do you think of training up his Apostles to succeed him in his Ministry as eye and ear witnesses of his Miracles and Doctrine Nay what do you think of the holy example of his life which was no less necessary than his Laws These were all great and special purposes in reference to our Salvation though we should suppose him fit to have been a Sacrifice as Herod designed he should have been as soon as he was born though by the way I think he could not have answered the Types and Predictions of him had he died so soon notwithstanding his perfect innocence and perfect holiness His third reason to prove that Christ performed all Righteousness for us is from the absolute necessity of it for this is the term of the Covenant do this and live life is not to be obtained unless all be done that the Law requires that is still true if thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments they must be kept by us or by our Surety so that we being unable to yield that compleat and perfect obedience which the Law requires as the condition of life and happiness it is necessary that Christ our Mediator and Surety should fulfil the Law for us Now the best that can be made of this argument is that it proves it ought to be so but it does not prove that it is so just like the Papists alledging the necessity of an infallible judge to prove that the Pope or Church of Rome is infallible but such arguments prove nothing but the arrogance and presumption of the disputant who will undertake to prescribe methods to God and to prove that he ought to have done so when it does not appear that he has done so the sum of this argument is that there never was nor ever can be a Covenant of Grace that God still exacts the rigorous perfection of the Law from us and that we must not appear before him without a compleat and perfect righteousness of our own or of another now this is the thing in Question whether we must be made Righteous with the perfect Righteousness of Christ imputed to us or whether God will for the sake of Christ dispense with the rigour of the Law and accept of a sincere and Evangelical obedience instead of a perfect and unsinning Righteousness so that he only confidently affirms what was in dispute and this goes for an argument Thus you see how weak their reason is let us now examine their Scripture evidence and the Dr. makes a great flourish with some Scripture phrases that there is almost nothing that Christ hath done but we are said to do it with him we are Crucified with him we are dead with him and buried with him and quickned together with him c. In the acting s of Christ there is by vertue of the compact between him as Mediator and the Father such an assured foundation laid of the Communication of the fruit of these actings unto those in whose stead he performed them that they are said in the participation of these fruits to have done the same things with him But he is quite out in the reason of these expressions which is not that we are accounted to do the same things which Christ did for the things here mentioned belong to the peculiar Office of his Mediation which he told us before
God to damn him that he shall contentedly submit himself to God to be damned or saved as he pleases and now the Soul being thus empty and hollow is fit to receive Christ into it and being grown careless of its Salvation and indifferent whether it be saved or damned for it is impossible thus to submit to God without being indifferent in some measure which God shall chuse it is a fit object for mercy certainly it is a very hard thing to bring any man in his wits to this and I find by this Author that God is very hard put to it thus to humble the Soul for he is forc'd to irritate and stir up original corruption to stir the dunghill a very unfit office for a holy Being that so men finding themselves sensibly grow worse and worse every day may despair of growing better and leave off such vain attempts and set down humble under God nay the Lord loads and tires and wearies the Soul by its own endeavours till it can stir no more that is when the Soul labours with all its might to repent and reform the Spirit of God which should encourage and assist all such pious endeavours withdraws it self because it knows the Soul would rest therein without Christ now I confess I know not who suffers most by this the Sinner who is thus humbled and broken or God who thus humbles him for it must needs be as contrary to the holy and merciful Nature of God to use such methods of humiliation as it is to the proud heart of man to be thus humbled Thus you see that Humiliation hath nothing to do with repentance and reformation of our lives for one great end of humiliation is to cure men of such carnal conceits as to think to please God by repenting and reforming our sins and this is the next immediate disposition towards our receiving Christ and closing with him For now when the Soul is thus humbled it is time it should go to Christ though the truth is such Souls are so wounded and humbled now that they lye dead at Gods feet and are as unable to believe as they were to humble themselves and therefore now the Lord takes them up in his Arms that they may lean and rest upon the bosom of their beloved by Faith Now the form and essence of Faith this uniting Grace consists in this that it is the coming of the whole Soul out of it self to Christ Faith does nothing for life for that is the Law of Works it only receives him who hath done all for it it comes out of all it hath or doth unto Christ for life The Soul by sin is averted from God and turns his back upon God the turning and coming of the Soul not unto duties of Holiness for that is obedience properly but unto God in Christ again is properly and formally Faith So to come to Christ as to drink in of Christs fulness is believing in Christ. But then Faith is the coming of the whole Soul to Christ and that is when the eye of the Soul so sees Christ and the heart so embraceth and relyeth upon Christ as that it resteth in Christ as in its portion and all-sufficient good This is the Faith which unites us to Christ and this Faith you see hath nothing at all to do with obedience in uniting us to Christ but it perfects this Union between Christ and Believers while they are as ugly and deformed and vicious as may be very unfit persons methinks to become the Members of so holy an Head This is enough to convince any considering man how false this notion is of our Union to Christ according to which wicked men who live in sin may be united to Christ for the Scripture places the formal nature of our Union to Christ in a subjection to his Authority and Obedience to his Laws as I have already made it appear and therefore an holy life must not only follow our Union to Christ as an effect of it but must at least in order of Nature go before it because by this we are united to Christ. A visible profession of an holy life is necessary to our admission into the Christian Church which is the Body of Christ but though this makes us visible Members of Christs Body and give us a right to an external Communion yet we are not real and living Members of Christ till we sincerely obey him till our minds are transformed into his Image our Union to Christ is more or less perfect according to our attainments in true piety and vertue The first and lowest degree of our Union with Christ is a belief of his Gospel which in order of Nature must go before obedience to it but yet it includes a purpose and resolution of obeying it and in this sense we must be united to Christ before we can be holy because this belief of his Gospel is the great Principle of Obedience as our Saviour tells his Disciples Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bring forth fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except you abide in me Ioh. 15. 4. But then our Union is not perfected without actual obedience this makes us the true Disciples of Christ when we are fruitful in good works as he adds in Vers. 8. Herein is my Father glorified that you bring forth much fruit so shall you be my Disciples A belief of the Gospel of Christ and a purpose to live in obedience to it is all that can be expected from beginners but this doth not give us an actual title to all the promises of the Gospel unless we actually obey it but when in the strength of this Faith we conquer all the temptations of the World and the Flesh and improve all the opportunities of doing good this makes us the Disciples of Christ indeed and Heirs of Glory Christ receives bad men as soon as they believe his Gospel and resolve to be good but their reward is suspended upon the performance of these vows and this is no reproach to his Holiness but nothing can be a greater dishonour to our Saviour nor a greater contradiction to his Gospel than to affirm that wicked men while they continue such are actually united to Christ and thereby have an actual right to pardon and righteousness and eternal life St. Iohn I am sure understood not this Doctrine when he told us That God is light and in him is no darkness at all if we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness live in any sin we lye and do not the truth but if we walk in the light as God is in the light then have we fellowship one with another 1 Joh. 1. 5 6 7. This Doctrine doth not only take away the necessity of holiness in order to our Union with Christ but destroys the necessary obligations to holiness and obedience for the future and so thrusts holiness quite
he proves from 2 Pet. 2. 20. where the Apostle tells them That if they have escaped the pollutions of the World through the knowledge of Christ and are again intangled therein and overcome if they return to their old vices then their latter end is worse than the beginning which is point blank contrary to what he affirms That those who have escaped these pollutions and are not yet intangled again in them may notwithstanding that be Swine in Gods account for so he adds Thou mayst live a blameless innocent honest smooth life and yet be a miserable Creature But I pray says such a man and that often so thou mayst and yet never be saved Isa. 1. 11. To what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices To great purpose sure when they are offered by men of blameless innocent honest smooth lives the want of which made those Sacrifices abominable to God But I fast sometimes so did the Scribes und Pharisees twice a week but it was to devour Widows houses which was not the fast of an honest innocent man but I hear the Word of God and like the best Preachers So did the stony ground who heared the Word with joy and for a season believed and this had been well and a good sign of Grace if it had continued I read the Scripture often so did the Pharisees who were so perfect in the Bible that Christ needed but say It hath been said of old times for they knew the Text without intimation Men of prodigious memories certainly better than any Concordance but though Knaves may read the Scripture and be never the better for it yet good men may read it to good purpose and therefore I hope reading the Scripture is no argument that a man is a Hypocrite because the Pharisees were But I am grieved and am sorrowful and repent of my sins so did Judas but he hanged himself and that indeed is no repentance to life But I love good men and their company so did the foolish Virgins but they slept and suffered their lamps to go out which I hope all that love good men do not But God hath given me much knowledge That thou mayst have and never be saved yes and twenty good things more but if a blameless honest man have the keeping of this knowledge it is never the worse for him But I keep the Lords day strictly so did the Iews whom yet Christ condemned Had he been as well acquainted with the Scriptures as the Pharisees were he would not have said that the Jews kept the Lords day however this is one good thing which doth well in the company of more though it will not justifie a man when it is alone But I have many good desires and endeavours to get to Heaven these thou and thousands may have and miss of Heaven and yet when he was in a more gentle humour he told the poor doubting Soul that desire nay that a desire only to desire at two or three removes was enough But many do duties without life or zeal I am zealous so was Iehu to destroy the Worship of Baal and to retain Ieroboams Calves and so was Paul while a Pharisee in persecuting the Christian Church and therefore an universal and religious and well-governed zeal for God can be no sign of Grace But I am constant and persevere in godly courses so did the young man all these things have I kept from my youth only he left Christ for the sake of his riches and so did not persevere But some men are conscious to themselves of their own hypocrisie but I do all with a good heart for God So thou mayst think of thy self and be deceived and if this be an objection let a man have what marks he will the objection will still be good and so all evidences signifie nothing for after all it may be objected That a man may be deceived in it and think he hath these marks when he hath them not There is a way that seemeth right to a man but the end thereof is death thou mayst live so as to deceive thy self and others and yet prove an Hypocrite as if because some men may think themselves good who are in a bad way no man could ever be sure that he is in the right and thus farewel all evidences But after all this it would be worth the while to know how to distinguish a regenerate from an unregenerate man and that he tells us may be done thus An unregenerate man let him go never so far do never so much yet he lives in some one sin or other this now is very strange What go never so far and do never so much and yet live in some one sin or other What live a blameless innocent honest smooth life and yet live in some one sin or other and yet suppose he did a regenerate man may be in captivity to the law of sin and pray what 's the difference but then an unregenerate man cannot be poor in spirit and so carried out of all duties to Christ That is if an unregenerate man do good he is conscious to himself that he doth it if he have a good heart he feels a good heart in himself and in all he doth and therefore feels not a want of all good which is true poverty of spirit So that according to this discourse the surest mark of a regenerate man is either to have no good in himself or if he have any to be mistaken and think he hath none either of which I think is a very odd sign of Grace But then an unregenerate man comes unto Christ but he never gets into Christ never takes up his eternal rest and lodging in Iesus Christ only I thought coming had been believing and that believing would have done the business and if so God forbid that any man should be damned for want of that other Metaphor of taking up his eternal rest and lodging in Christ men in distress of Conscience that is all unregenerate men under such distress if they have comfort from Christ they are contented if they have Salvation from Hell by Christ they are contented and I think they have some reason then to be contented but Christ himself that is without comfort and without Salvation contents them not Now to be contented with Christ without comfort and without Salvation is so far from being the mark of an unregenerate man that I am not yet satisfied that it is the mark of an unreasonable man Now are not these men do you think great friends to sanctification who make all the parts of sanctification the reformation of our lives an innocent blameless Conversation Fasting Prayer hearing reading conversing with good men zeal for God perseverance in well doing honest and sincere intentions in all we do no more than the marks of Hypocrites and give no better marks of a regenerate man than to be sensible of no good in himself and then he must either have none or
faith and to be justified by the Faith of Christ and to be justified by Christ and to be justified through Faith in his Blood and to be justified and saved by Grace nay by believing that Christ is the Son of God Ioh. 20. 31. and that God raised him from the dead Rom. 10. 3. All which signifie the same thing that we are justified by believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ for Faith or Faith in Christ signifies such a firm and stedfast belief of the Gospel as brings forth all the fruits of obedience and the Grace of God is the Gospel of Christ expresly so called in Tit. 2. 11. as being the effect of the free grace and goodness of God to Mankind and Faith in the Blood of Christ is a belief of the Gospel which was confirmed by his death and believing that Christ is the Son of God that is that Messias and Prophet whom God sent into the World to reveal his will to us includes a general belief of the Gospel which he preached and believing that God raised him from the dead doth the same because his Resurrection from the dead was the last and great confirmation which God gave to the truth of his Gospel and Religion And hence it is also that the Apostles attribute such things to the Blood of Christ as are the proper and immediate effects of the Gospel-Covenant because they consider the Blood of Christ as the Blood of the Covenant and therefore all the blessings of the Gospel are owing to the Blood of Christ because the Gospel Covenant it self was procured and confirmed by the Blood of Christ. Thus the Gentiles who were sometime afar off are said to be made nigh by the Blood of Christ and the Gentiles and Jews were reconciled unto God in one body by the Cross Eph. 2. 14 15 16. That is the Gentiles were received into the fellowship of Gods Church and the Jews and Gentiles united in one Body or Society now this Union of Iews and Gentiles is owing to the Gospel which takes away all marks of distinction and separation and gives them both an equal right to the blessings of the new Covenant The Mosaical Covenant did belong only to the Children of Israel but this new Covenant belongs to all Mankind to Gentiles as well as Jews there is now no distinction of persons neither Iew nor Greek Barbarian Scythian Bond nor Free but Christ is all and in all That is there is no respect of persons or Nations under the Gospel no man is ever the more or less acceptable to God because he is a Jew or a Greek but the only thing of any value now is Faith in Christ or a belief of the Gospel which is indifferently offered to all Now this is attributed to the Blood of Christ and to his death upon the Cross because thereby Christ put an end to the Mosaical Covenant and sealed this new Covenant of Grace with Mankind as the Apostle explains himself in the following Verses 17 18 c. that Christ having abolished the Law of Commandments by his death he came and preached peace that is the Gospel of Peace to them who were afar off to the Gentile World and to them who were nigh to the Jews who were Gods peculiar people that is he abrogated the Mosaical Law that Law of Commandments contained in Ordinances which was peculiar to the Jews and separated them from the rest of the World and he broke down the middle Wall of Partition which kept the uncircumcised Gentiles though Proselytes at a distance from God as confining their worship to the outward Court of the Temple which the Apostle seems to refer to in that phrase them that were afar off and now by the Gospel he admits the Gentiles to as near an approach to God as the Jews as he adds for through him we both have an access by one spirit to the Father Ver. 18. Thus the Jews are said to be redeemed from the Curse of the Law by the accursed Death of Christ upon the Cross Gal. 3. 13. Because the Death of Christ put an end to that legal dispensation and sealed a new and better Covenant between God and Man and the Gentiles were redeemed from their vain Conversation received by tradition from their Fathers that is from those idolatrous and impure practices they were guilty of not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot 1. Pet. 1. 18 19. Now the Gentiles were delivered from Idolatry by the preaching of the Gospel which is called their being redeemed by the blood of Christ because we owe this unspeakable blessing to his Death who having abolished in his flesh by his Death the enmity even the Law of Commandments c. came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh Now as the Death of Christ upon the Cross and his Ascension into Heaven and presenting his blood to God in that true holy place did answer to the first sprinkling of the blood under the Law which confirmed the Mosaical Covenant as the Apostle discourses in Hebr. 9. So his continual Intercession for us in vertue of his blood once shed and once offered to God answers to those frequent expiations by Sacrifice under the Law especially to that general Sacrifice on the great day of expiation when the High Priest entred into the holy of holies with the the blood of Beasts The reason why the legal Sacrifices were so often repeated was because they were imperfect and typical but a shadow of good things to come and so could not take away sin but Christ by one offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Hebr. 10. 14. He hath made a perfect expiation for our sins by dying once and hath sealed the promises of pardon and forgiveness to them who are sanctified and where remission is there is no more offering for sin Ver. 18 Such a Sacrifice as once for all Seals the Covenant of Pardon and Forgiveness makes all other Offerings and Sacrifices needless and then the High Priest who entred into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the Sacrifice did continue there to intercede for the people but came out of that holy place and could not return thither again without a new Sacrifice but this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for ever sat down at the right hand of God Hebr. 10. 12. and because he continueth for ever he hath an unchangeable Priesthood wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make Intercession for them Hebr. 7. 24 25. So that Christ by his Death expiated our sins and confirmed an everlasting Covenant and being ascended up into Heaven he there appears in the presence of God for us and perpetually intercedes in vertue of his blood once offered which is of infinite more value
than the repeated Sacrifices of the Law he procures the pardon of our sins by his Death and dispenses this pardon to us by his Intercession he sealed that Covenant of Grace by his blood and intercedes for us in vertue of his blood but still according to the terms and conditions of that Covenant and this is all we must expect from him as our Mediator From what I have now discourst it appears how injurious those men are to the blood of Christ how much soever they pretend to magnifie it who attribute no more to it than a non-imputation of sin that by his Death Christ bearing and undergoing the punishment that was due to us paying the ransom that was due for us delivered us from this condition the wrath and Curse and whole displeasure of God and thus by the Death of Christ all cause of quarrel and rejection is taken away but then this will not compleat our acceptation the old quarrel may be laid aside and yet no new friendship begun we may be not Sinners and yet not so far righteous as to have a right to the Kingdom of Heaven So that the blood of Christ only makes us innocent delivers us from guilt and punishment but if we will take the Doctors word for it it can give us no title to glory this is owing to the imputation of Christs Righteousness to us to the obedience of his life but you see the Scripture gives a quite different account of it we are said to be justified and redeemed by the blood of Christ nay we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Iesus Hebr. 10. 19. which is an allusion to the High Priests entring into the Holy of Holies which was a Type of Heaven with the blood of the Sacrifice thus by the blood of Christ we have admission into Heaven it self though the Dr. says that the blood of Christ makes us Innocent but cannot give us a right to the Kingdom of Heaven The Scripture takes no notice of their artificial method that the guilt of sin is taken away by the Death of Christ and that we are made righteous by his Righteousness but the blood of Christ is said to justifie us and to give us admission into the holiest of all into Heaven it self nay we are made righteous by the Death of Christ too 2 Cor. 5. 21. For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God by him that is though Christ was a very holy Person yet he died as a Sacrifice for our sins the just for the unjust that we might be reconciled to God So that our Righteousness as well as innocence is owing to the Death of Christ to that Sacrifice he offered for our sins his blood had a great vertue and efficacy in it to make us righteous to purge our Consciences from dead works that we might serve the living God and our Righteousness and acceptance with God is wholly owing to that Covenant which he purchast and sealed with his blood But though the pardon of our sins and our justification be attributed to the blood of Christ yet I could never perswade my self that this wholly excludes the perfect obedience and Righteousness of his life for the Apostle tells us that we are accepted in the beloved Eph. 1. 6. So that whatever rendred Christ beloved of God did contribute something to our acceptance for because he was beloved we are accepted for his sake and I think no man will deny that God was very highly pleased with the perfect obedience of our Saviours life We know how many blessings God bestowed upon the Children of Israel for the sake of their Fathers Abraham Isaac and Iacob who were great Examples of Faith and Obedience which made them very dear to God and there is no doubt but God was more pleased with the obedience of Christ than with the Faith of Abraham and therefore we ought not to think that we receive no benefit by the Righteousness of Christ when Abrahams posterity was so blessed for his sake but then the Righteousness of Christs life and the Sacrifice of his death do not serve two such different ends as these men fancy that the death of Christ removes the guilt of sin and his Righteousness is imputed to us to make us righteous but they both serve the same end to establish and confirm the Gospel-Covenant God was so well pleased with what Christ did and suffered with the obedience of his life and death that for his sake he entred into a Covenant of Grace with Mankind as Abrahams Faith was not imputed to his posterity as their act but for Abrahams sake God entred into Covenant with them and chose them for his peculiar people The Obedience and Righteousness of Christs life was one thing which made his Sacrifice so meritorious which was the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot And this is the most that can be made of Rom. 5. 18 19. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to Condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life for as by one mans disobedience many were made Sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous there is no necessity indeed of expounding this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obedience of the Righteousness of Christs life or his active obedience for it may very well signifie no more than the obedience of his Death notwithstanding the Doctors distinction that doing is one thing and suffering is another for the Apostle tells us that he became obedient unto death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2. 8. and his offering himself in Sacrifice is called doing the will of God Hebr. 10. 9 10. and whether this be properly said or not I will leave the Doctor to dispute it with the Apostle it is plain that in this Chapter there is no express mention made of any other act of Obedience and Righteousness whereby we are reconciled to God but only his dying for us in Ver. 8. The Apostle tells us that Christ died for us while we were Sinners in Ver. 9. that we are justified by his blood in the 10. that we are reconciled to God by the Death of his Son which makes it more than probable that by his Righteousness and obedience here the Apostle understands his Death and Sufferings because this was the subject of his discourse but yet these expressions his Righteousness and Obedience seem to take in the whole compass of his obedience in doing and suffering the will of God and the meaning of the words is this that as God was so highly displeased with Adams Sin that he entailed a great many evils and miseries and death it self upon his Posterity for his sake so God was so well pleased with the Righteousness and Obedience of Christs Life and Death that he