themselves Thus as it was the Custom of all Nations to solemnize their Covenants with one another by eating together so God in condescension to the manner of men and to confirm their Faith in his Promises did by the same Rite engage himself in Covenant with them And in the same manner the Sacrifice of our blessed Lord was a Seal and Ratification of the New Covenant upon which account it is called as the Iewish Sacrifices were the bloud of the Covenant Heb. 10.29 Heb. 13.20 For his Sacrifice upon the Cross was the meritorious Sin-offering in which he as the High-Priest the Head and Representative of his Church did solemnize the New Covenant between God and us and obtained of his Father an inviolable Ratification of his Promise of Grace and Eternal life For in that dreadful transaction God did solemnly engage himself to Christ in the behalf of his Church to perform to her what he had promised to the utmost upon the terms specified in the New Covenant And therefore Christ is said to have made reconciliation in his own body on the Cross and to have slain the enmity thereon Eph. 2.16 and to have made peace that is a Covenant of peace through the bloud of the Cross Col. 1.20 But then to this Sin-offering there follows a Peace-offering and that is the Lord's Supper in which the Church for her self by eating and drinking at this Table strikes Covenant with God and upon those holy signs of Christ's Body and Bloud gives to and receives from God assurance of mutual Amnesty and Friendship and hence 1 Cor. 10.16 20. this holy Supper is called The Communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ and drinking the Cup of the Lord and being partakers of the Table of the Lord. For when God in this Supper doth by the hand of his Priest present his Bread and Wine to us he doth thereby renew his Covenant with us and when we receive and eat and drink God's Viands we thereby renew our Covenant with him Thus God in great condescension to our desponding minds hath been pleased to ratifie his Covenant with us in our own way and manner not that this ratification doth render his Covenant surer in it self for nothing can be surer than his promise and yet for the confirmation of our diffident minds he is sometimes pleased to add his Oath to his Promise and for the same reason to his Promise and Oath he hath superadded these federal Ratifications which being the same with those legal Forms and Rituals by which men were wont to ratifie their Covenants and Agreements with one another are upon that account more apt to assure and confirm our minds And now what a mighty influence must this solemn confirmation of the New Covenant have upon us to excite and quicken our Piety and Vertue and render us actively zealous of good Works For when God hath not only owned all the promises of the New Covenant to be his by the many miraculous attestations he hath given them but hath also vouchsafed by all those federal Rites that were most sacred among men to oblige himself to perform them we have abundant reason to believe not only that it is he that hath promised all the good things of this Covenant but also that he is fully resolved to perform those promises to us if we perform the conditions of them since by the Bloud of his own Son he hath engaged himself to him in our behalf and by the Sacramental signs of the Body and Bloud of his Son he hath engaged himself to us in our own persons to perform what he hath promised to the utmost punctilio So that now our Faith in the Covenant stands upon a firm and immoveable foundation as having not only the Promise aâ—d the Oath but also the Seal of God to depend on and having all the good things of the Covenant thus solemnly consigned to us what abundant encouragement doth it give us to return to God and our Duty For now we are not only assured of his pardon and gracious reception but also of the assistance of his blessed Spirit to back and enforce our pious endeavours and to enable us to conquer all those resistances of flesh and bloud with which we are to contend and to encourage us to contend with all our might we have an immortal Crown of Glory proposed to us as the reward of our victory and are firmly assured that after we have spent a few moments here in the practice of Piety and Vertue we shall be removed from hence into that triumphant state of Immortality there to reign in unspeakable glory and delight among the blessed Conquerors above and sing Hallelujahs with them for ever For to all these blessed things we are entitled by the ratifications of the New Covenant Having therefore these great and precious Promises sealed to us by the bloud of Iesus Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord 2 Cor. 7.1 And thus you see how effectually the Death of Christ as it is a Sacrifice for sin contributes to our reformation But after all it must be acknowledged that it contributes only as a concurrent cause with our own endeavours it doth not work upon us as if we were dead Machines that have no vital principle of action in us nor yet as necessary Agents that have no free-will or principle of self-determination it draws us indeed but it is with the cords of a man i. e. with a powerful grace and perswasion but doth not drive or hale us with any violent or irresistible Agency For after all the powerful influence of his Death to reform and amend us we are still in our own disposal and so may resist and baffle the efficacy of his Death and in despite of it continue in our wickedness if we please But if we do it is at our own eternal peril and we must one day expect to answer not only for the bloud of our own souls which in despite of the most powerful method of saving them we have wilfully ruined and destroyed but also for the bloud of our Saviour which we have not only defeated but trampled on and if both these be brought to our account it had been better for us not only that we had never been born but that our Saviour himself had never been born since all that he hath done to save us will be brought in judgment against us as an horrid aggravation of our guilt to inflame the reckoning of our punishment So that unless we concur with this great design of Christ by endeavouring our own reformation to the utmost of our power his Death will not only be as insignificant to our happiness as it is to the redemption of Devils but even those vocal wounds of his which were made to plead for will accuse and condemn us and that eloquent Bloud which in its Native Language speaks better things for us than the
sacrificed body to the Father he did what the High Priest did when he sprinkled the bloud of his Sacrifice i. e. he interceded for us with God and indeed he interceded more prevalently by this significant action than if he had used all the Eloquence of Men and Angels For his wounds are vocal and his bloud speaks yea and not only speaks better things for us than the bloud of Abel spoke but also expresses what it speaks far more powerfully and emphatically than it is possible for any verbal Oratory to do So that by the presenting to his Father his wounded and bleeding body which carries with it an inexhaustible fountain of Rhetorique and Persuasion he makes the most moving and pathetical intercession for us the sense of which is this though the full force and Emphasis of it no Language can express O my Father behold this sacrificed body of mine which by thy consent and approbation hath been substituted to bear the punishment which was due to thee from Mankind and through the wounds of which I have chearfully poured out the precious bloud of God as a ransom for the sins of the World for the sake of this bloud therefore be thou so far propitious to those miserable sinners it was shed for as upon condition they shall repent to accept it in exchange for the lives of their Souls which are forfeited to thee to release them from the Obligation they are under to die eternally and upon their final perseverance in well-doing to crown them with eternal life and that this bloud which at thy command I have willingly shed for them may not through their inability to repent and persevere be utterly ineffectual to them O send thy Holy Spirit to assist their weak faculties to excite their endeavours and co-operate with them This is the Language of Christ's sacrificed body in Heaven and these are the better things which his bloud bespeaks for us For his bloud bespeaks those good things for us in Heaven for which he shed it upon Earth i. e. the remission of our sins and our eternal life of which blessings his bloud being the price that God had promised to accept his presenting it to him in Heaven not only speaks for but humbly demands them as carrying with it the unanswerable claim of an accepted Price to a stated Purchace So that this address which Christ makes for us to God in heaven is not performed by him after the manner of a prostrate Supplicant with bended knees up-lifted hands and lowly supplications but in such a manner as comports with the Kingly Majesty he is advanced to and so as at the same time to assert his own right of purchace in the blessings he addresses for and yet to acknowledge God to be the supreme fountain and disposer of them And this the Scripture tells us he performs by appearing in the presence of God for us and presenting his sacrificed body to him as a standing motive to prevail with him to be propitious to us and to crown us with all those graces and favours in consideration of which he laid down his life for us And accordingly he is said to offer himself to God for us in heaven Heb. 9.25 and to offer his one Sacrifice i. e. to God in heaven for sin for ever Heb. 10.12 By which offering or presenting his Sacrifice to God he doth at once claim for us by the right of his purchace all those good things for which he paid down the price of his bloud and also by a silent desire pray to God to bestow them upon us whereby he acknowledges him to be the sovereign disposer of them So that this significant action of Christ's presenting his sacrificed body to God is both a Claim and a Prayer or rather it is a Prayer backt and enforced with a rightful claim to the blessings he prays for For so for that particular blessing of the Spirit he himself tells us I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever John 14.16 not that he offers up any other Prayer to the Father but what his wounds and bloud continually make which with incessant importunity do move and solicite God in our behalf but his meaning is this by presenting that Sacrifice to my Father in Heaven which I am going to offer on the Cross and by which among other blessings I shall purchace of my Father his Holy Spirit for you I will pray him to send his Holy Spirit to you I will pray him by my wounds and bloud which are a thousand times more moving and eloquent than any vocal Prayer I can offer in your behalf for while they pray him to send his Spirit to you they lay an undeniable claim to what they pray for as being the dear and inestimable price by which I am purchasing his Spirit for you From all which it is evident that this address which Christ now makes for us to his Father in Heaven consists in the presenting his sacrificed body to him by which he both prays to him and claims what he prays for III. It is by the continued and perpetual oblation or presentment of this his sacrificed body to the Father that Christ continues and perpetuates this his address or intercession in our behalf For the fiâ—st presenting or oâ—lation of his sacrificed body in Heaven was the beginning and commencement of his intercession and the whole progress of his intercession is nothing but that same oblation continued and perpetuated For as the High Priest was interceding for the people all the time that he was presenting the bloud of the Sacrifice before the Lord so Christ is interceding for us all the while that he is presenting his sacrificed body in Heaven For it is by the presence of his sacrificed body that he intercedes and therefore so long as his body is present in Heaven so long he must be interceding by it in our behalf So that between the Iewish High Priest's Intercession and Christ's there is this vast difference that the former presented himself in the Holy of Holies with his Sacrifice and consequently interceded by it but once a year viz. on the great day of Expiation whereas the latter continually presents his Sacrifice in Heaven and so doth continually intercede by it and whereas the bloud which the High Priest presented was so mean and inconsiderable that the whole vertue of it was still spent in one Act of Intercession as not being available enough for him to intercede with it twice insomuch that in every new act of Intercession he was still fain to present new bloud the bloud of Christ was of that infinite moment and value as that though he makes a continued and perpetuated Intercession by it yet the vertue and efficacy the power and prevalency of it with God remains fresh and unimpaired so that he needs not sacrifice again that so he may have new bloud to present but with that
20.28 not that the Divine Essence can suffer or bleed but being united into one Person with the Humane Nature the Properties of this Nature and also the Actions and Passions thence proceeding may be truly attributed to it and therefore since in the Person of Christ God was united to Man whatsoever his Humanity suffered may be truly called the suffering of God and being so it was a suffering every way equivalent to the Eternal damnation of the whole world of sinners Lastly As he was to appear as our Advocate at the right hand of God it was very fit he should be Man that so as the Apostle discourses having an High Priest that was in all points tempted like as we are as having been placed in our Nature and Circumstances he might be the more affectionately touched with the feeling of our infirmities Heb. 4.15 i. e. that so our nature being a part of himself and that himself having experienced its weakness and infirmity he might be the more nearly concerned for it and be touched with a more tender compassion towards it consequently solicite its cause and interest at the right hand of God with greater zeal and importunity For so the same Author reasons Heb. 3.17 18. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the People for in that himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted And that he should be God as well as Man is no less requisite to create in us the greater confidence of the success of his Advocation For what Reason or Argument could be great enough to satisfie our guilty and therefore anxious minds that ever a meer man who had nothing beyond our selves to recommend him to God but only his Innocence and Vertue should be able to obtain such a prevailing interest in Heaven as not only to reconcile the Almighty Father of all things to a world of sinful men against whom he was so justly and so highly incensed but also to obtain of him to imbrace them with infinite Love and crown them with eternal Favours which is such a stupendous success as we could scarce have modestly hoped for from the most importunate intercession not only of the best man that ever was upon earth but of the highest Angel in Heaven For unless we could reasonably suppose God to be more pleased with one innocent man or Angel than he is displeased with a world of guilty sinners which is hardly supposable we could have no just ground to hope that the cries of the ones intercessions should be more prevalent with him than the cries of the others guilts But when we consider that he who hath undertaken our cause is the Son of God the Son of his natural Generation that from all Eternity was begotten of his Essence God of God Light of Light very God of very God what may we not expect from the Prayers of one so near and dear to the Eternal Father that is fit either for him to ask or for the Eternal Father to bestow For this we may be confident of that he can never be so highly displeased with us as he is pleased with his own Son who is the stamp of his very Essence and express Character of his Person and that therefore his pleasure in him will be far more prevalent than all his displeasure against us and while it is so we have all the security in the world that he will succeed in his Advocation and prevail in our behalf Thus that Christ should be God-man was in it self highly expedient to qualifie him for all the Parts and Offices of his Mediation and accordingly the holy Scripture expresly declares him to be so For first That he is God is as plainly asserted as any Proposition in the Bible For thus not to instance in the Old Testament where he is frequently stiled Iehovah the incommunicable name of God and the Mighty or Almighty God and Immanuel that is God with us In the New Testament he is not only called God Acts 20.28 where the Pastors are exhorted to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud which can be applied to none but Christ and Iohn 20.28 where Thomas calls him my Lord and my God which Confession of his our Saviour himself approves Verse 29. but moreover he is called the true God 1 John 5.20 And we are in him that is true even in his Son Iesus Christ he is the true God and eternal life and God over all blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 and accordingly the Father himself is brought in thus bespeaking him Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Heb. 1.8 where his design is to shew the excellency of Christ above the Angels for saith he in Verse 7. Of the Angels he saith who maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flame of fire but unto the Son he saith Thy Throne O God c. which stile O God here must necessarily import something greater than was ever attributed to Angels and consequently something greater than a Nominal or Titular Deity which our Adversaries in this Article allow was frequently given to the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament If therefore that Angel of the Lord were a meer created Angel as they affirm he had as much attributed to him as our Saviour unless we suppose this stile O God to import real and essential Deity and not meerly nominal So also Iohn 1.1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. For the clearing of which noble Text which our Adversaries with a world of Art have indeavoured to perplex and intangle it is to be considered that this Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word was a term of Art by which in that very Age when this Gospel was written and long before and after it both the Iewish and Heathen Writers were wont to express and signifie a divine Person by whom the Ancient Jews understood the Messias who is that very Person the Apostle here treats of Since therefore by this Phrase the Word both Jews and Gentiles when S. Iohn wrote this Gospel understood a divine Person and since by this divine Person the Jews understood the Messias there is no reason to imagine that S. Iohn here meant it in any other signification since in so doing he could not but foresee he should impose upon the World and take an effectual course to make us believe he meant what he never intended For he is so far from explaining this Phrase into any different sence from that of the Jewish and Gentile Writers that he all along explains himself in the very same Now it is hardly to be imagined by any one whose mind is not deeply tinctured with Heretical Pravity but that had the Apostle
the Kingly which later remained in Moses after he by the command of God had devolved the Priesthood which was originally in himself upon his Brother Aaron and so according to divine institution the Priesthood was to continue in the Family of Aaron separate from the Regal Power till the coming of our Saviour who reunited those Offices in himself and became a Royal Priest after the ancient Order of Melchisedeck For upon the separation of these Offices none could be a Priest of the Aaronical Order but such as were descended from the Family of Aaron and therefore Christ could not be a Priest of that Order because he descended from the Family of Iudah and being of the Royal Lineage he resumed the Priestly Office from the House of Aaron and joyned it to the Kingly Office again with which it was originally united by which he abrogated the Priesthood of the Aaronical Order and in its room restored the ancient Melchisedecan or Royal Priesthood And hence the Author to the Hebrews observes that Christ pertaineth to another Tribe of which no man gave attendance at the Altar for it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Iudah of which Tribe Moses spake nothing concerning the Priesthood Heb. 7.13 14. and therefore by being a Priest of a different Tribe from that to which the Aaronical Order was confined he disannulled that Order and erected another in the room of it viz. the ancient Order of Melchisedeck which was before the Aaronical Hence S. Ambrose in Loc. quomodo translatum est Sacerdotium Ex tribu ad tribum de Sacerdotali ad Regalem ut eadem ipsa sit Regalis Sacerdotalis intuere mysterium primum fuit Regale Sacerdotium Melchisedâ—ch secundum consequentiam hujus sermonis secundum etiam fuit Sacerdotale in Aaron tertium in Christo fuit iterum Regale i. e. How was the Priesthood translated Why from one Tribe to another viz. from the Sacerdotal to the Regal that so it might be both Regal and Sacerdotal and this is the Mystery the first Priesthood of Melchisedeck was Regal the second was Sacerdotal in Aaron the third was Regal again in Christ. For that which distinguished the Melchisedecan from the Aaronical Priesthood was not as some imagine the difference of their Sacrifice viz. that Melchisedeck sacrificed only inanimate things whereas Aaron sacrificed Animals also for that Melchisedeck sacrificed there is no doubt because he was Priest of the most high God but that he sacrificed inanimate things only such as Bread and Wine there is not the least intimation in Scripture only it is said that when he met Abraham he brought forth Bread and Wine Gen. 14.18 that is to refresh Abraham's Soldiers after their Battel with Chedorlaomer as the manner was in those Countries Vide Deut. 23.4 and Iudg. 8.15 and 6.15 And what is all this to his Sacrificing But that he sacrificed Animate as well as Inanimate things is evident not only because animal Sacrifices were generally used before the institution of the Aaronical Priesthood and it is very improbable that he who was so eminently the Priest of the most High God should never offer the accustomed Sacrifices but also because Christ's Sacrifice was an animate one who was a Priest after Melchisedeck's Order and not of the Order of Aaron Heb. 7.11 so that if the difference between these two Orders consisted in this difference of their Sacrifice Christ must be rather a Priest of the Aaronick than the Melchisedecan Order And how could the Acts of the Priesthood of Aaron be Typical of our Saviour's which is Melchisedecan as the Scripture all along makes them if they were of a different nature from those of Melchisedeck How could Aaron's bloudy Sacrifices be Typical of our Saviour's Priesthood which was after the Order of Melchisedeck if Melchisedeck's Priesthood admitted no bloudy Sacrifice As to the Acts of their Priesthood therefore for any thing that appears to the contrary these two Orders were the same but in this they apparently differed that whereas the Regal Power was united to Melchisedeck's Priesthood it was wholly separated from Aaron's who in all probability was the first High Priest in the World that was not a King as well as a Priest. The Priestly acts therefore of these two different Orders being the same we shall better understand the nature of our Saviour's Priesthood though it be of the Order of Melchisedeck by the account we have of the Aaronical than by that of the Melchisedecan Order because the former is far more distinct and particular than the later For of the Acts and Functions of Melchisedeck's Priesthood there is very little mention in Scripture whereas those of Aaron's are described at large in all their particular Rites and Circumstances The Priestly Office therefore in general consists in officiating for sinful men with God in order to the reconciling of God to them and obtaining for them his Favour and Benediction To which end there are two Offices necessary to be performed First to offer Sacrifice for them and thereby to make some fitting reparation to God for their past sins and provocations Secondly To present that Sacrifice to God and in the Vertue and Merit of it to interceed with God in their behalf in order to the Restoring them to his Grace and Favour And accordingly we read of the Iewish High Priest who of all their other Priests was the most perfect Type and Representative of Christ in his Priestly Office and this more especially in Celebrating the Mysteries of the great day of Expiation that on this day he was appointed to bring the Beast to the door of the Tabernacle which was set apart to die for the Sins of the People and to kill it there with his own hands by which action he did as the Peoples Representative offer a life to God as a reparation for those manifold sins by which they had justly forfeited their own lives to him after which he was to take the Bloud of it and present it before the Lord in the Holy of Holies sprinkling it seven times with his finger upon and before the Mercy-Seat by which action he interceded with God to accept that Bloud in lieu of the forfeited lives of the People and accordingly the whole performance is called making an Atonement for the Children of Israel for all their sins once a year Lev. 16 34. But for the fuller explication of the Priestly Office it is necessary we should briefly explain these two essential Acts of it viz. of sacrificing and presenting the Sacrifice to God by way of Intercession for the People As for the first of these the Apostle tells us that every High Priest is ordained to offer gifts and Sacrifices Heb. 8.3 And that he is ordained for men in things pertaining unto God that he may offer both Gifts and Sacrifices for sins Heb. 5.1 It is true indeed to sacrifice in a strict sence i. e. to kill the Sacrifice seems not to have been
so peculiar to the Priestly Office as to present the bloud of the Sacrifice before the Lord by way of Intercession the later of which was so appropriate to the Priesthood as that it was never allowed upon any occasion whatsoever for any but a Priest to perform it but as for killing the Sacrifice it seems that not only the Priests but sometimes the Levites vid. 2 Chron. 30.17 yea and sometimes the People themselves were allowed to perform it vid. Lev. 4.24 29 33. though it is probable that the Levites were allowed it only in cases of necessity and the People only in private and particular sacrifice but in the publick and general Expiation wherein Christ's dying for the sins of the World was more eminently expressed and represented not only the presenting the bloud of the Sacrifice but the killing it too was peculiarly appropriated to the Priesthood So that though in private and particular Expiations the People had a right to sacrifice or kill the Victim yet in all publick ones such as our Saviour's was that right was incommunicably inherent in the Priesthood Now the killing of those sacrifices which were designed for expiations of sin was a transferring of punishment from the People to the Victim for you must know the Iews had two sorts of Laws viz. Civil and Ritual their Civil Laws were enforced according to their strictest sanction with the Penalty of death which Penalty in many cases allowed by God admitted of this mitigation that the life of a Beast should be accepted in exchange for the forfeited life of the Offender Their Ritual Laws were inforced with the Penalty of legal uncleanness and being separated upon that account from the Congregation and Publick Worship which Penalty also was thus far relaxed that if they offered the life of a Beast in Sacrifice their uncleanness should be thereby purged and themselves restored to the benefit of the publick Worship In both which cases the Sacrifice was evidently substituted to suffer for the Offender and in the first case he was substituted to suffer that very punishment which the Offender had incurred And therefore you find that the greater Crimes were no otherwise to be expiated but by the bloud of the Offender himself whereas for lesser ones the bloud of a Beast was accepted which is a plain Argument that that punishment which in greater sins was exacted of the Criminal himself was in the case of smaller sins transferred from the Criminal to the Sacrifice and that the punishment of the Beast was instead of the punishment of the Man. And this is most evident in the case of the Scape-Goat who upon the High Priest's laying his hands upon his head had the sins of the People transferred on him and was thereby so polluted that he defiled the man that led him into the Wilderness who was therefore obliged before he returned to the Camp to lustrate himself by washing his Cloaths and bathing his flesh in water Lev. 16.26 And so also those expiatory Sacrifices whose bloud was carried into the Holy place and their bodies burnt without the Camp had the sins of the People so imputed to them and were so defiled by that Imputation that they were ordered to be carried without the Camp immediately lest they should defile the whole Congregation and those who carried them out and burnt them were so far actually defiled by them that it was unlawful for them to return to the Camp till they were legally purified which is a plain argument that in these Sacrificial Expiations the sin and guilt of the People was still transferred upon the Sacrifice and consequently that the death of these Sacrifices was instead of the death of those Criminals and accordingly Lev. 17.11 we are told that it is the bloud i. e. of the Sacrifice that maketh an atonement for the Soul. And indeed this was the sence which all Nations had of Expiatory Sacrifices viz. that their death was instead of the Punishment due to the Offenders that offered them For thus the Iews by making Expiation generally understand suffering Punishment for another in order to his being released from suffering it himself For thus whereever it is said by them Ecce me in Expiationem the meaning is En me in ejus locum ut portâ—m iniquitates ejus i. e. I stand in such a ones place that I may bear his Iniquities and so Ecce me in expiationem R. Chijae filiorum ejus i. e. castigationes quae obveniunt mihi sint in expiationem R. Chijae filiorum ejus Behold I am for an expiation of R. Chijah and his Sons i. e. Let the afflictions that happen to me be for an expiation of R. Chijah and his Sons So when all the People were to say to the High Priest Simus nos expiatio tua the meaning was In nobis fiat expiatio tua nosque subeamus tuo loco quicquid tibi evenire debet Let us be thy Expiation that is let thy Expiation be made upon us and let us undergo in thy stead whatsoever evil thou hast deserved of which see more Buxt Lexic Chald. p. 1078. And accordingly in the Form of Prayer they used at the killing the Sacrifice they plainly expressed the substitution of it in the room of their own forfeited lives Obsecro Domine peccavi rebellis fui c. O Lord I obsecrate I have sinned I have been rebellious I have acted perversly I have done this and that evil of which I now heartily repent let this be my Expiation and let those evils which might justly fall upon my head fall upon the head of my Sacrifice Outram de sacrif p. 273. And so also for the Gentiles Eusebius Demonst. l. 1. tells us that they looked upon their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or expiations as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that their lives were a commutation for the lives of those that offered them as who should say a life for a life and accordingly Porphyry tells us that the first original of the sacrifice of Animals was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Certain occasions requiring that a life should be offered for a life Abstin l. 4. and hence they were wont to curse the Sacrifice and solemnly to imprâ—cate all those evils on it which themselves had deserved vid. Herod Euterp Serv. in Aeneid 3. From all which it is abundantly evident that this Priestly Act of sacrificing or killing the expiatory Sacrifice was nothing else but a translating the punishment that was due to the Offerer from his person to his Victim or Sacrifice But then Secondly Besides this another Sacerdotal Act was presâ—nting the bloud of the Sacrifice to God by way of Intercession for the People For when the Sacrifice was slain the Priest was to take the bloud and sprinkle some of it round about the Altar of burnt Offerings and the rest of it say the Jews was poured out by the Priest on the Southside Floor of the Altar where there were two
holes through which it ran into a Channel that conveyed it into the Valley of Kidron but in the Sin-Offerings for the High Priest and the Congregation he was to carry the bloud within the Sanctuary and to sprinkle of it seven times before the Vail of the Sanctuary and to put some of it upon the Horns of the Altar of Incense after which the Remainder of the bloud was to be disposed of as was said before on the Altar of Burnt Offerings And at the great day of Expiation the High Priest himself having slain the Sacrifice was to carry the bloud of it into the Holy of Holies and there with his finger to sprinkle the bloud of it seven times before the Mercy-Seat Now this sprinkling of the bloud was nothing else but a solemn presenting of the life of the sacrificed Animal to God as an exchange or price of Redemption for the forfeited life of the Offender For whatsoever was offered upon the Altar was always looked upon as religiously presented to God so that by sprinkling the bloud on the Altar which is the Vehicle of life and therefore is sometimes called the Life vide Gen. 9.4 the Life was solemnly tendered and presented to God as to the supreme Lord of life and death and the meaning of this tendry was to move God by way of Intercession to accept of that life instead of the Offenders which was forfeited into his hands For since as a Learned Author of our own hath observed all Divine Worship whether natural or instituted was either to implore or to commemorate God's grace and favour this solemn sprinkling of the bloud in expiatory Sacrifices must necessarily respect the imploring of God's Pardon of those sins for which the Expiation was designed So that in performing this Rite the Priest was a silent Intercessor with God in the behalf of the People and his action was a solemn Deprecation of which this was the natural language and meaning O Lord I beseech thee be merciful to these guilty Supplicants in lieu of whose bloud which I acknowledge is justly forfeited to thee I here present thee the life of this sacrificed Animal whose bloud I am sprinkling on thy Altar humbly imploring thee to accept it as a ransom for their lives and in consideration of it to release them from that mortal penalty in which they stand bound to thy Iustice. Upon which Intercession of his God's high displeasure was atoned and the Priest thereupon Authorized to bless the People i. e to declare that God was appeased and reconciled to them And thus you see what the Office of Priesthood is and in what acts it consists in sum therefore it consists in sacrificing to God for the sins of the People and interceding with him in the vertue of the Sacrifice to be propitious and merciful to them I proceed now in the second place to shew that both these Acts of the Priestly Office among the Iews were designed and intended by God for Types and Shadows of the Priesthood of our Saviour For as for the first viz. Sacrificing the Scripture plainly tells us that it was instituted for a Typical representation of the death of our Saviour For so the Author to the Hebrews makes the Sacrificed body of our Saviour to answer to and succeed in the room of the whole body of the Iewish Sacrifices as the true Antitype of those Types and Shadows Heb. 10.5 6 c. Wherefore when he cometh into the World speaking of Christ he saith Sacrifice and Offering thou wouldest not but a body hast thou prepared me that is a body to be sacrificed in the room of that former Sacrifice and Offering In burnt Offerings and Sacrifices thou hast had no pleasure Then said he verse 9. Lo I come to do thy will O God that is to die a Sacrifice for the sins of the world and hereby saith he he taketh away the first that is those Typical Sacrifices that he may establish the second that is that great Sacrifice of Christ's body for so it follows verse 10. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Iesus Christ once for all in which words he plainly makes all the Jewish Sacrifices in general to be Types and Figures of the great Sacrifice of our Saviour's Death And indeed as those Sacrifices were all of them to be slain and to be all sound and immaculate they were so far forth at least express Types of our Saviour both as to his death and unspotted innocence and purity But then as for those Sacrifices whose bodies were burnt without the Camp they were more peculiarly Types than any of the rest of our Saviour's Sacrifice because they had not only all those things appertaining to them by which the other Sacrifices represented it but besides that they were Expiations for sin as well as the Sacrifice of our Saviour and by their being burnt without the Camp did more eminently prefigure our Saviour's being Crucified without the City Hence the Apostle Heb. 13.10 11 12. We have an Altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the Tabernacle for the Bodies of those Beasts whose bloud is brought into the Sanctuary by the High Priest for sin are burnt without the Camp lest they should pollute the Congregation as being defiled and cursed upon the account of the Peoples guilts which were transferred upon them Wherefore Iesus also that he might sanctifie the People with his own bloud suffered without the Gate that is as an Expiatory Sacrifice that took upon him the guilts of Mankind and thereby became polluted and accursed in which words the death of our Saviour is plainly represented as the true Antitype of the Expiatory Sacrifices of the Iews and accordingly as all Types have much less in them of that which they prefigure than their Antitypes so those Expiatory Sacrifices had something of real Expiation in them though much less than the Sacrifice of our Saviour For so Heb. 9.13 14. For if the bloud of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifie to the purifying of the flesh by which it is evident that there was a real Expiation made by those Sacrifices so far as concerned the purifying mens flesh i. e. releasing them from corporal punishments and legal uncleannesses How much more saith he shall the bloud of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your Consciences from dead works where the same expiation in kind that was made by those Legal Sacrifices is expresly attributed though in a much higher degree to the Sacrifice of our Saviour which plainly argues the former to be a Type and Shadow of the later And then as for the second Act of the Jewish Priesthood viz. his presenting the bloud of the Sacrifice to God by way of Intercession for the People this was also instituted for a Typical representation of our Saviour's presenting the bloud of his sacrificed body to
and general account of it in Scripture where we are only told that they shall awake to everlasting shame and contempt Dan. 12.2 and that they shall come forth to the Resurrection of Damnation John 5.28 and that upon their Resurrection they shall be judged according to their works and cast into the Lake of fire Rev. 20.13.15 from whence it is apparent that they shall be raised for no other end but to be punished to endure that vengeance which shall then be rendered to them even the vengeance of eternal fire for that will be their doom Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Since therefore their Resurrection will be only in order to their being fetched from Prison to Iudgment and sent from Iudgment to Execution to be sure their bodies will be raised in full capacity to suffer the fearful execution of their doom that is with an exquisite sense to feel and an invincible strength to sustain the torment of eternal fire For since they must suffer for ever they must be raised both passive and immortal with a sense as quick as lightening to perceive their misery and yet as durable as Anvil to undergo the stroaks of it which to all eternity will be repeated upon them without any pause or intermission Thus shall they be raised with a most vivacious and everlasting sense of pain that so they may ever feel the pangs of death without ever dying so St. Cyril Catech. illum 4. p. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. wicked men shall be cloathed with eternal bodies that in them they may suffer the eternal punishment of their sins and so they shall have strength to suffer as long as vengeance hath will to inflict and therefore since it is the will of divine vengeance that they should suffer eternal fire the divine power will furnish them with such bodies as shall be able to endure everlasting scorching in that fire without being ever consumed by it for at their Resurrection their wretched Ghosts shall be fetched out of those invisible Prisons wherein they are now reserved in chains against the Judgment of the great Day to suffer in that body wherein they sinned and that therein they may be capable of lingring out an eternity of torment they shall be reunited to it in such a fatal and indissoluble bond as neither Death nor Hell shall ever be able to unloose And this is all the account we have from Scripture concerning the change that shall be made by the Resurrection in the bodies of wicked men viz. that from weak and corruptible bodies they shall be changed into vigorous and incorruptible ones and be endued with a quick and everlasting sense of all that everlasting punishment which they are raised to endure Thus having given an account at large of this second Regal Act which our blessed Saviour is yet to perform viz. Raising the dead I proceed to the III. And last viz. his judging the World. In treating of which great and fundamental Article of our Faith I shall endeavour First To prove the truth of the thing that our blessed Saviour shall judge the World. Secondly To give an account of the signs and forerunners of his coming to judge it Thirdly To shew the manner of his coming Fourthly To explain the whole process of his judgment I. I shall endeavour to prove the truth of the thing viz. that our Saviour shall judge the World than which there is no one Proposition more frequently and plainly asserted in holy Scripture Thus Acts 17.31 we are told that God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained and that this man is Jesus Christ we are assured Acts 10.42 And he commanded us to preach unto the People and to testifie that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Iudge of quick and dead So also 2 Tim. 4.1 I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom And accordingly we are told that we shall all stand before the Iudgment seat of Christ Rom. 14.10 And all appear before the Iudgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 And to the same purpose our Saviour himself tells us that the Father judgeth no man that is immediately but hath given all judgment to his Son and afterward he gives the reason of it because he is the Son of man Iohn 5.22.27 that is because he dutifully complied with his Fathers Will in chearfully condescending to cloath himself in Humane Nature and therein to offer up himself a willing Victim for the sins of the World for so Rev. 5.9.12 Worthy is he alone to receive the Book of judgment and to open the Seals thereof because he was slain and hath redeemed us to God by his blood worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive the power and honour the glory and blessing appendent to his high Office of judging the World. From all which it abundantly appears that this great action of judging the World is to be performed by Christ. I proceed therefore to the Second general Head I proposed to treat of which was to give an account of the signs and forerunners of his coming to judgment For before he actually appears he will give the secure World a fearful warning of his coming by hanging out to its publick view a great many horrible signs and spectacles for thus the Prophet Ioel Ioel 1.30 31. I will shew wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth blood and fire and pillars of smoke the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord which Prophesie of his is particularly exemplified by our Saviour Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the Sun be darkened and the Moon shall not give her light and the Stars of Heaven shall fall and the Powers of the Heavens shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven Matt. 24 29 30. and more particularly Luke 21.11.25 Great Earthquakes shall be in divers places and Famines and Pestilences and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from Heaven and there shall be signs in the Sun and in the Moon and in the Stars and upon the Earth distress of Nations with great perplexity the Sea and the Waves roaring and then it follows then shall they see the Son of man coming It is true this Prophesie of our Saviour immediately respects the destruction of Ierusalem and was in part accomplished in it several of these very signs being a little before the Calamity of that City actually exhibited to the publick view of the World as both Iosephus and Tacitus assure us and several others of them were exhibited immediately after