to have it here the consequence must needs be sure and infallible Upon the whole matter it appears that no tolerable account can be given of Christs Sufferings unless Justice were satisfied and declared therein But to explicate this more distinctly I shall a little consider three things 1. God the great Rector who inflicted those Sufferings on Christ 2. Christ the Patient who bore them 3. The Sufferings in themselves and in their fruits 1. God the righteous Rector who inflicted them was one of infinite Mercy Mercy in men though but finite is sometimes a remora to punishment Joseph being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a just that is as the word there must be taken a merciful man would not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make Mary a publick spectacle of Justice Matth. 1.19 But though God were one of infinite Mercy and that not meerly resident in his Nature but as it were in motion triumphantly going forth in a most compassionate design towards mankind yet he would have Justice satisfied in the Sufferings of his Son To declare I say at this time his righteousness saith the Apostle Rom. 3.26 Observe it was at this time it was then a day of Salvation a Jubilee of Redemption to Mankind yet for all that Justice must have its due and be declared in the Sufferings of Christ But here the Socinians object That infinite Justice and infinite Mercy are opposites and cannot both be together in God or if they were God who cannot act contrary to any thing in his Nature could neither punish because of his Mercy nor yet pardon because of his Justice But I answer Mercy and Justice are not opposites in Man After the Idolatry of Israel in the Molten Calf Moses would in Justice have every one slay his Brother yet in an high excess of Mercy and Charity he would pray Forgive their sin if not blot me out of thy book Exod. 32.27 32. Neither are they opposites in God when he proclaims his Name in those stately Titles The Lord merciful gracious long-suffering abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin He yet adds in the close of all That he will by no means clear the guilty Exod. 34.6 7. Mercy and Justice in God have different objects the Penitents who partake of Mercy are not the objects of Justice the Impenitents who feel Justice are not the objects of Mercy Yet these Attributes are not contrary the one to the other being both Divine Perfections they can no more be contrary the one to the other than the Divine Essence which both of them are can be contrary to it self Cruelty not Justice is opposite to Mercy Injustice not Mercy is opposite to Justice Neither doth God in pardoning or punishing act contrary to any thing in his Nature In pardoning Penitents he acts not against his Justice for that was satisfied in their Sponsor Jesus Christ In punishing Impenitents he acts not against his Mercy for that as the Socinians themselves confess extends not to obstinate sinners neither are they at all capable of it These two Attributes do mutually illustrate one another the Mercy of God is the more Illustrious because when Justice was inexorable it sent his Son to suffer for us The Justice of God is the more glorious in Christs Sufferings because they were inflicted by one whose Mercy was infinite in his nature and in his design towards Men. 2. Christ the Patient who bore those Sufferings may be considered under divers respects each of which shew Justice to be Illustrious in his Sufferings Take him as Man Justice appears in that the penal Sufferings were in the same nature which had sinned The nature of Angels was not assumed the facrifice of Beasts would not serve the turn neither had the same nature with man but that Justice might be exact that the Sufferings might be in the same nature which had sinned the Son of God was made flesh and suffered in it as an expiatory Sacrifice for us Notable is that of the Prophet All their wickedness is in Gilgal there I hated them Hos 9.15 Sin was found in the humane Nature and there it must be punished Take him as the Son of God Justice appears in that so great so dear a person suffered for us David spared Joab because he was a great a potent man in the Army And Absolom because he was a dearly beloved Son In the former he said The Sons of Zerviah are too hard for me and in the latter Deal gently with the young man But though Jesus Christ was very great God and Gods Fellow one who thought it no robbery to be equal with God though he was very dear a Son and an only begotten the Fathers essential Image and eternal joy Yet for all this standing in the room of sinners he must not be spared It was a great Wrath in Henry the Second of France Thuan. l. 20.564 which made him by a passionate throw to smite though but occasionally his own Son then sitting at his feet But oh how great how wonderful was the Justice of God in Christs Sufferings when no greatness no dearness though infinite did obviate or turn away the stroke When he bruised and wounded to death his own Son and that intentionally and on purpose to vindicate the Honour of his Justice and Law In other punishments he falls but upon meer Creatures but here with Reverence be it spoken He falls upon himself the Son of God very God and a dearer or greater person there could not be was the sufferer Further take him as an holy Innocent One Justice which usually hath only to do with sinners will yet appear He was Holiness it self in his Divine Nature He was holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners in his Humane yet if he will stand as a Surety for mankind he cannot be excused It is observable in Scripture that penal Sufferings stay not meerly at the offenders door but run over upon those in conjunction with him Achan sinned in the accursed thing and his Sons and Daughters were stoned and buried with fire David sinned in numbring the people and no less than seventy thousand subjects fell by a Pestilence But the Holy Jesus is an instance above all others their Sufferings fell indeed upon Relations yet still upon sinners here they fell upon the Holy One. Justice is illustrious when sinners suffer in conjunction with sinners but how highly doth it act when Innocency it self suffers in conjunction with them I mean as a Sponsor on their behalf But here the Socinians cry out Nibil divinae justitiae magis contrarium est quà m insontem sontis loco puniri Volk de Sat. Quid hoe aliud est quam saevum tyrannum facere Sclicting cont Mels Insignis immanitas atque saevitia potius quà m liberalitas appellanda est Soc. de Servat pars 3. c. 2. That if God should punish the innocent for the guilty Christ for us Sinners he
a strong Motive to Repentance enough if duly considered to set all men a weeping over their iniquities What did the Creator suffer Was the Lord of Glory crucified Was the blessed One made a Curse Did the Son of God very God so dear so great a person sweat bleed cry out and expire upon a tormenting Cross and all this to take away sin What a spectacle is this Who can look upon it with dry eyes or an unmelting heart When the Son of God was broken should our hearts be untouched May we spare our tears when he parted with his blood To look upon his wounds and not mourn over our sins can be no less than unnatural hardness Oh! what a thing is sin how horrible how infinite an evil that it could not be expiated at an easier rate than the blood of God himself What Plea can be made or colour given for so vile a thing that it should have a Being in the world or so much as a residence in an humane Thought Should that be indulged which cost Jesus Christ so dear or that go free which nailed him to the Cross Canst thou love that which stabbed him at the heart or live in that for which he dyed May that be light which pressed him into an agony and bloody-sweat or that sweet which put so much Gall and Vinegar into his Cup Canst thou bless thy self in that which made him a Curse or follow after that which made him cry out of forsaking Think and again think if thy blind eyes and hard heart will let thee what and how dreadful a thing it is for thee to go on in thine iniquities In so doing thou dost not meerly run upon the Authority and Soveraignty of the Almighty but upon the wounds and blood of thy dear Saviour impiously trampling them under thy impure feet and how grievous a thing is this If thou art fearless and stoppest not here what hope canst thou have It becomes thee to sit down and lament that hellish impetus in thy own heart which moves swiftly towards Hell without admitting any remora A few words from God gave check to Abimelech Gen. 20. And shall not the wounds and blood of thy dear Lord do as much to thee The sword of an Angel put a stop to Balaam in his perverse way Numb 22. And wilt thou go on who hast seen the sword of God drawn against the Man his fellow for thine iniquities If the groans of the Creatures all round about sounding in thine ears did not startle thee yet shouldest thou be deaf and sensless to the Sufferings of thy Saviour bleeding and dying upon a Cross in comparison of which the dashing down of a world is a poor nothing If the breaches of the Sacred Law dearer to God than Heaven and Earth do not move thee yet wilt thou not be moved when thou seest that amazing sight God for our sins bruising and breaking his Son his essential Image in our assumed Nature If thou dost not blush at the blots and turpitudes which sin hath made in thy own soul yet methinks it should deeply affect thee that the Son of God was made sin and a Curse for thee Should God let thee down to Hell and after some scorches from the fire unquenchable take thee up again wouldest thou yet go on in sin no surely and why wilt thou do it now after thou hast seen such a spectacle of Justice in the Lord Jesus as more than countervails the Sufferings of a world When a Temptation approaches How is it that thou seest not the price of blood writ upon it Which way dost thou forget the nails and bloody Cross of thy Redeemer Thou seest plainly that God is ae just a righteous One and for a full proof of it he hath written Justice in red Letters in the Passion of his own Son if thou run on in thy sins how which way canst thou escape God spared not his own Son standing in our room and will he spare thee in thy impenitent sinning Wrath fell very severely upon the Holy Innocent meek Lamb of God and will it pass over thee wallowing in thy filthy lusts and corruptions What did God exact so great a Satisfaction for sin that it might be allowed Did he vindicate his broken Law at so high a rate that it might be more broken and that with Impunity 'T is utterly impossible those Sufferings of Christ which did witness Gods hatred of Sin could not open a gap to it the Surety did not sweat pray bleed and dye under Wrath that the impenitent sinner might be spared O how profane and blasphemous is such a thought which makes the great Redeemer a Patron of iniquity He came to save us from our sins not in them to redeem from iniquity not to encourage it What then where is thy hope O impenitent sinner Is it in Gods Mercy As infinite as it is it will not let out a drop to the impenitent neither indeed can it do so unless which is impossible one Attribute can cross another Mercy can reproach Holiness or Justice Believe it Salvation it self cannot save thee in thy sins Is it in Christ and his Merits He is the Saviour of the Body but thou art out of it He is the Author of eternal Salvation to them that obey him but thou art a Rebel May Christ be divided Canst thou have a part in his Priestly office who art in Arms daily against his Kingly Shall the Promises comfort thee who castest off the Righteous Commands It cannot be What Concord hath Christ with Belial How ill-suited are an hard heart and a bleeding Saviour How canst thou trust in that Jesus whom thou despisest and crucifiest afresh by thy Rebellions or depend on his Merits when thou livest in enmity against his Divine Spirit and Life These are meer inconsistencies Thy case while thou art in thy sins is very forlorn and desperate God will be a consuming fire to thee thy self must be as dry stubble before him every lust will be a never-dying worm thy soul will furiously reflect upon it self for its prodigious folly abused Mercy will turn into fury Christ the great Saviour will doom thee to perdition fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest will be rained down upon thee and that for ever If then thou hast any fear of God or love to thy self cast away thy transgressions and return to him that thou mayest escape the Wrath to come and enjoy the pure beatitudes which are in Heaven CHAP. V. Chap. 5 Gods Love and Mercy manifested in that he stood not upon the old terms as he might and in giving his Son for us The Socinian objection That if God loved us he was not angry answered The earliness and freeness of Gods Love in giving his Son The greatness of the Gift The manner how he was given The persons for whom The evils removed and the good procured by it The excellent Evangelical terms built upon it These are easie and sure The
can do it but Christ's Satisfaction The Quaere therefore is Whether that Satisfaction be our Righteousness in it self or only in its effects if in the effects only then something less than Christ's satisfaction viz. an effect is our Righteousness as to the Law and by consequence something less than that satisfies the Law I cannot imagine that one thing should satisfie the Law and another justifie against it one and the same satisfaction of Christ doth both There are but two sorts of Righteousness as to the Law the one a Righteousness in the idem a direct conformity to it the other a Righteousness in valor a full compensation or satissaction for the breaches of it a third cannot be found where there is neither such a conformity to the Law that all is done as it ought to be nor such a satisfaction to it that all that is done amiss is compensated there is no such thing as Righteousness a pardon or freedom from punishment there may be but a Righteousness there is not Because there is nothing done to the Law either by way of obedience or recompence and where nothing is done to the Law there cannot be a Righteousness Now a Sinner not being capable of a Righteousness of consormity his Righteousness must be that of a satisfaction or compensation not an effect of it but the thing it self no other thing can be a Sinners Righteousness It is observable in Scripture That Justification is so set forth that the Law is established in it Rom. 3.31 that its Righteousness is fulfilled Rom. 8.4 that it hath its end Rom. 10.4 And all this because in Christ's Satisfaction there is a full compensution made for sin such as comes in the room of a perfect conformity and supplies that defect of it which rises out of the suult committed This is done by the Satisfaction it self not by an effect of it Nothing less than it self could give the Law its end or establishment If that Satisfaction be our Righteousness not in it self but in its effects what is that effect Is it a Pardon that is God's act God's act may make or esteem us righteous but it is not the Righteousness it self it is a jus impunitatis that is not the Righteousness it self a Righteousness as to the Law must be either a perfect conformity or a satisfaction but a Jus impunitatis is neither of these as in Condemnation the Obligatio ad paenam is not the very culpa but a consequent of it So in Justification the Jus impunitatis is not the very Righteousness but a consequent of it A Jus impunitatis is opposite to the reatus paenae but a Satisfaction which is our true Righteousness is opposite to the reatus culpae as compensating the fault committed It remains therefore that Christ's Satisfaction is not in its effects but in it self our Righteousness which also further appears In that when we are to answer for our breaches of the Law our great Plea is to that no other than his Satisfaction Ostendo fide jussorem meum De Just hab 370. saith Bishop Davenant When the Law makes its demands against me I shew my Sponsor Christ who satisfied it Now if his Satisfaction be it self our Righteousness it must be made ours by Imputation for that which is not ours cannot be our Righteousness neither doth God who judgeth according to Truth esteem it such You will say Though it self be not ours yet it is that for which God doth justifie us To which I answer Though God justifie us for it yet unless it be ours it is no more our Righteousness than it is our Holiness when God sanctifies us for it no Man I think will call it our Holiness no more unless it be ours may we call it our Righteousness If it be ours by Imputation then it is more than a meritorious cause It is the very matter of our Justification neither can I tell how to think it less seeing a Sinner is capable of no other Righteousness as to the Law but a Satisfaction seeing so glorious a Satisfaction as that of Christ is is ushered into the World for that very end it is to me unimaginable that that Satisfaction should yet not be our Righteousness as to the Law but something less than it self should have the honour of it Thirdly Very momentous in this point is the collation of the two Adams Rom. 5. the first Adam was the Origen of Sin Christ the second Adam was the Origen of Righteousness and Life never were there in the World two such Heads as these uterque quod suumest cum suis communicat as the Learned Beza hath it Adam communicates Sin and Death to his Posterity Christs Righteousness and Life to his believing Seed in the parallel it is observable that Christ is as strong nay a stronger Head than Adam Adam was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Type of him that was to come and less then the Antitype who was more potent to rebuild the ruines of the fall than Adam was to make them Righteousness came as full from Christ as sin did from Adam nay more fully as the Apostle hints in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verse 15. and in the abundance and superabundance of Grace vers 17. 20. hence it appears that so far as Adam's sin was ours so far is Christ's Righteousness ours also Adam's sin was not ours in the full latitude as it was in him we did not eat the Fruit in our own persons we were not heads of Mankind we did not usher in Sin and Death upon the World no this was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by that one Adam neither was it ours in the effect only for then our innate pravity would be no sin as meerly proceeding from that first sin of Adam in which we participated not that in the Schools must needs be true peccatum habituale dicit essentialem ordinem ad praecedens actuale It s impossible that one should be a sinner habitually who in no sense was a sinner before hence that of St. Austin quoted by Dr. Ward Nulla foret hominis culpa st talis a Deo Creatus esset qualis nunc nascitur it remains therefore that Adam's sin it self is derived to each one of us pro ratione membri proportionably Christ's satisfaction is not ours in the full latitude as it was in him we satissied not God's Justice in our own Persons we were not Heads of the Church neither did we usher in Life and Righteousness into the World no it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by that one Christ neither is it ours in the effect only for then the effect a thing less than the satisfaction it self should justifie or make us righteous against the Law which cannot be It remains therefore that it is it self derived upon each one of us pro mensurâ membri Again Adam's sin did first in order of Nature make us sinners by it self imputed and then by the inherent pravity consequent in like
Christ's Righteousness be imputed to us then God sees no sin is in us Ans God sees not sin in us with a vindictive Eye but with an intuitive one he doth nay he cannot but do so as long as there is omniscience in him and sin in us Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us as it is a Satisfaction and that supposes us to have been Sinners else what need could there be of a Satisfaction though the Law were satisfied in point of Justification yet still it demands duty in point of Sanctification though that Satisfaction take away the imperfection of our duties and Graces as to the guilt yet not as to the very being Object 7. If Christ's Righteousness be imputed to us there needs no new Obedience in order to Salvation Ans The Socinians object this against Christ's Satisfaction in which notion I take it that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us * Cont. Meis Fol. 138. Si jà m Deo plenè persolutum est quod ei à nobis plenè debebatur quid adhuc nos pietate bonis operibus maceremus jam nec Deus nos jure punire not ab aeternâ vitâ jure excludere potest so Schlictingius But Christ's Satisfafaction may very well stand with our obedience Christ satisfied the Law so far as that his righteousness imputed justifies us against the Law but not so far as that it should be our very sanctity and holiness for then of imputed it should become such as they are inherent which is impossible in this respect therefore the Law asks obedience from us every Believer is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Under the Law to Christ as far under it as it is a rule to our life Nay Christ's righteousness is far from evacuating our obedience that it is the great foundation upon which the Holy Spirit the fountain of Holiness is communicated to us as it was under the Law in cleansing the Leper the holy Oyl was put upon the Atoning Blood Levit. 14.17 So it is under the Gospel in purifying us First the Blood of Christ is sprinkled on us by imputation and then the holy Unction the Divine spirit is poured out upon us were there no Atoning blood shed the Holy Spirit would not so much as touch upon fallen man were that Blood not applied to us the Holy Spirit would never dwell in us as a principle of obedience Object 8. Christs righteousness cannot be both the meritorious and material cause of Justification for then it should be both an external and internal cause thereof Which cannot be Ans We must not here take our measures from reason it was well said by one In Logicis ratio facit fidem in Theologicis fides facit rationem Evangelical mysteries though above the line of humane reason must be owned in Faith though the mode of them be inexplicable by us Christ's righteousness may be considered under a double respect either as it is offered up to God or as it is applied to men In the first respect it is common for all so far as to render them justifiable on Gospel terms In the second it is peculiarized to Believers In the first it founds the promises of justification by Christ's blood in the second it executes them and which is as easily conceiveable as the other in the first it is a meritorious cause of justification in the second a material Having answered these Objections which I look upon as most material I shall conclude as I began that Christ's righteousness as it is a Satisfaction is so far imputed to his believing members as to be the matter of their justification The Law in that point can ask no more of them than that satisfaction there is enough in that to answer for all their sins Thus far I have treated touching our righteousness as to the Law I now come to speak of our righteousness as to the Gospel Christ's righteousness answers as to the Law of works Faith answers as to the terms of the Gospel Do this or die was satisfied by Christ's righteousness Believe and live is answered by Faith Christus est impletio Legis Spirious est impletio Evangelii Now here I shall first shew the necessity of this two-fold righteousness and then the connexion which is between them 1. There is a necessity of this two-fold righteousness God at first made man a holy righteous creature and upon the fall he set to his hand a second time to lift up man out of the Chains of Sin and wrath into a state of Grace and Life eternal God as Creator gave man a Law of perfect obedience suited to his primitive nature and as it were interwoven with the principles of it God as Redeemer gave us a Law of Grace in which there is as much abatement and condescention to our faln estate as could comport with his own Holiness and Majesty In the former God stood upon the highest terms of perfect sinless obedience in the latter he comes down to the lowest terms imaginable He will justifie and save every one who by true Faith yields and resigns himself up to the conditions of the Gospel where there are distinct Laws there must be distinct righteousnesses to answer them That which comes up to the condescending terms of the Gospel falls much short of the high terms of the Law That which satisfies the Law is a thing of incomparably greater excellency than that which answers to the terms of the Gospel There are two distinct charges or accusations to be supposed the one that we are Sinners such as have broken the Law The other that we are Unbelievers such as have rejected the Gospel Here therefore must be distinct Plea's To the First the Plea is Christ's Satisfaction to discharge us from the Law To the Second the Plea is Faith which is the condition of the Gospel To the charge of final unbelief it is no Plea to say that Christ hath satisfied to the charge of being a sinner the Plea doth not consist in Faith it self but in its object viz. Christ's Satisfaction The righteousnesses themselves are of different natures as to the Law our righteousness is without us in the glorious Satisfaction of Christ made ours by a gracious imputation as to the Gospel our righteousness is within us in that Faith which complies with the Evangelical terms as to the Law our righteousness is not the idem but a satisfaction made for the breaches of it as to the Gospel our Faith is the very idem which the Gospel condition calls for It is of great concern in Justification to place these two righteousnesses in their proper Orbes if either of them be carried out of their own Sphear Religion is subverted As to the Law Christ's Satisfaction is our only righteousness it is true Faith receives the Atonement but neither Faith nor any other inherent Grace can here be our righteousness All these have their spots of imperfection how faltring is our Faith how cold our charity how much is
all the creatures came out of nothing and between that and Being is a very vast gulf It was an infinite Power which filled it up and fetched over the creatures into Being it was an Almighty Word which made the creatures at an infinite distance hear and rise up out of nothing The old Axiom Ex nihilo nihil sit is Natures limit and a true measure of finite powers but when as in the Creation Nature overflows the banks when Nullity it self springs up and runs over into a World we are sure that the moving Power was an Infinite one And as infinite Power appears in the being of the creatures so doth infinite Wisdom in their orders and harmonies The curious Idea's and Congruities which before were latent in the divine breast are limned out upon outward and sensible things standing in delicate order and proportion before our eyes The World is a System of contraries made up into one body in which disagreeing natures conspire together for the common good each creature keeps its station and all the parts of Nature hang one upon another in a sweet confederacy Meer natural Agents operate towards their ends as if they were Masters of Reason and hit their proper mark as if they had a providence within them Such things as these teach us to conclude with Zeno that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reason is the Great Artist which made all and to break out with the Psalmist O Lord how manifold are thy works in wisdom hast thou made them all And as the two former Attributes shew forth themselves in the creatures so also doth infinite Goodness all the drops and measures of goodness in the creature lead us to that infinite Goodness which is the Fountain and Spring of all Pherecydes the Philosopher said That Jupiter first transformed himself into Love and then made the World he who is essential Love so framed it that Goodness appears every-where it shines in the Sun breathes in the Air flows in the Sea and springs in the Earth it is Reason in Men sense in Brutes life in Plants and more than meer Being in the least particles of matter The Manichees who would have had their Name from pouring out of Manna did brook their true name from Mania that is Madness in denying so excellent a World to be from the good God The light in their Eyes breath in their Nostrils bread in their Mouths and all the good creatures round about them were pregnant refutations of their sensless Heresy the prints of goodness everywhere extant in Nature shew the good hand which framed all In the making of Man in his original integrity there was yet a greater manifestation In other creatures there were the footsteps of God but in Man there was his Image a natural Image in the very make of his Soul in the essential faculties of Reason and Will upon which were derived more noble and divine prints of a Deity than upon all the World besides And in that natural Image there was seated a moral one standing in that perfect knowledg and righteousness in which more of the beauty and glory of God did shine forth than in the very essence of the Soul it self His Mind was a pure Lamp of Knowledg without any mists or dark shades about it his Will a mirrour of Sanctity and rectitude without any spot in it and as an accession to the two former images there was an image of Gods Soveraignty in him he was made Lord over the brutal World without the beasts were in perfect subjection to him and within the affections Now to such an excellent creature in his primitive glory with a Reason in its just 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full stature the World was a very rare Spectacle the stamps and signatures upon the creatures looked very fresh to his pure Paradisical eyes from within and from without he was filled with illustrious rays of a Deity he saw God everywhere within in the frame and divine furniture of his Soul and without in the creatures and the impresses of goodness on them he heard God every-where in his own breast in the voice of a clear unvailed Reason and abroad in the high language and dialect of Nature All was in splendor the World shone as an outward Temple and his heart was in lustre like an Oracle or inward Sanctuary every thing in both spake to Gods honour Such an excellent appearance as this was worthy of a Sabbath to celebrate the praises of the Creator in But alas Sin soon entred and cast a vail upon this Manifestation on the World there fell a curse which pressed it into groans and travelling pains of vanity the Earth had its Thistles the Heavens their spots and malignant influences all was out of tune and jarring into confusion In Man all the Images of God more or less suffered the orient Reason was miserably clouded the holy Rectitude utterly lost without the beasts turned rebels and within the affections Nevertheless God who is unwearied in Goodness would further manifest himself Promises of the Messiah and of grace in him brake forth unto lapsed man and as appendants thereof there came forth Sacrifices and other types to be figures of heavenly things and a kind of Astrolabe to the pious Jews that by earthly things they might ascend unto Celestial Also the Moral Law was given forth by God the spiritual Tables being broken material ones were made Holiness and Righteousness being by the fall driven out of their proper place the heart of man were set forth in letters and words in the Decalogue This was so glorious a manifestation that the Rabbins say that Mountains of sense hang upon every Iota of it The Psalmist in the 19th Psalm having set forth how the Sun and Heavens shew forth Gods glory raises up his discourse to the perfect Law which as it enlightens the inward man is a brighter luminary than the Sun which shines to sense and as it comprizes all duties within it self is a nobler circle in Morality than the Heavens which inviron all other bodies are in Nature The Commandment saith the Psalmist is exceeding broad Psalm 119.96 it is an Ocean of Sanctity and Equity such as humane Reason the soul and measure of civil Laws cannot search to the bottom Love to God and our Neighbour is the center of it and as many right lines as may be drawn thither so many are the duties of it Whatsoever it be that makes up the just posture of man towards his Maker or fellow-creatures is required therein Humane Laws are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 movable orders such as turn about with time but the Moral Law is by its intrinsecal rectitude so immortalized that as long as God is God and man man it cannot be altered After all these Manifestations God revealed himself to the World in and by Jesus Christ this is the last and greatest appearance of all In the inferiour creatures there is a footstep of God but not his Image
in man there is his Image but a finite a created one but Jesus Christ is the infinite increated Image of God The nearer any creature doth in its perfections approach to God the more it reveals him life shews forth more of him than meer being sense than life Reason than all the rest but oh what a spectacle hath Faith when an humane nature shall be taken into the Person of God when the fulness of the Godhead shall dwell in a creature Hypostatically Here the Eternal Word which framed the World was made flesh the infinite Wisdom which lighted up Reason in man assumed an Humanity never was God so in man never was man so united to God as in this wonderful Dispensation more glory breaks forth from hence than from all the Creation We have here the Center of the Promises the substance of the types and shadows the Complement of the Moral Law and Holiness and Righteousness not in letters and syllables but living breathing walking practically exemplified in the Humane nature of Jesus Christ CHAP. II. Chap. 2 Christ considered as a Prophet and a speculum The Divine Attributes shine in him particularly Wisdom The obstacles of Redemption to be removed The Son of God fit for the work many admirable conjunctions of God and Man of Justice and Mercy of Punishment and Obedience in Christs sufferings of Satisfaction and a kind of execution of the Law of Satisfaction and Merit of Merit and Example all tending to our Salvation The rare conquest of Sin Satan the World Death Humility of mind necessary The desperate issue of the pride of humane Reason need of Humility from the threefold state of Reason in Integrity after the Fall after Faith JESUS CHRIST as he is the eternal Son of God is the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his person Heb. 1.3 But because our weakness could not bear so excellent a Glory without being swallowed up by it he veiled himself in our flesh that he who was light of light in the eternal Generation might become the light of the World in an admirable Incarnation and such he was under a double notion He may be considered either as revealing the Gospel and thus he is the great Prophet who from his Fathers bosom brought down so many pretious truths and mysteries to the World or else as set forth in the Gospel in his conception birth life death resurrection and exaltation at Gods right hand and thus he is speculum Theologiae a pure glass of Divinity Hence the Apostle tells us that the light of the knowledg of the glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 This latter Notion is that which this discourse aims at to contemplate those many Truths which are either lively expressed in the Incarnate Word or may be reasonably drawn from that incomparable Dispensation God that he might help our weakness and attract our faith to himself hath been pleased to come as it were out of his unapproachable light and manifest himself in Attributes such as Wisdom Holiness Justice Grace Mercy Power with the like These Rays of the divine Perfection are let down on purpose that we might sanctifie him in our hearts that our souls might be in a posture of holy humility faith fear love joy and obedience suitable to those Excellencies in him My first work therefore must be to shew how these Attributes are displayed in Jesus Christ We all with open face behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 3.18 Jesus Christ is that pure Glass wherein the glory of God that is the divine Attributes so eminently shine forth to us that we may contemplate them with open face To begin first with the Attribute of Wisdom this is the great Disposer which in all things places the Center and draws the lines fixes the end and harmonizes the means thereunto There is a fair impress of it in the work of Creation much more in that of Redemption a Nobler end there cannot be than Gods glory in the Salvation of lost man nor a more admirable means than God manifest in the flesh This is the Wisdom of God in a Mystery 1 Cor. 2.7 a thing more sublime than all the secrets in the Creation Humane reason may by its own innate light go into the outward Temple of Nature but into the Sanctuary of Evangelical mysteries it cannot unless supernaturally illuminated ever enter and when it is there it is capable but of a little portion thereof nay the very Angels who stoop down to pry into it are not able to search it to the bottom nor to tell over the treasures of Wisdom which are in it This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manifold wisdom of God Ephes 3.10 Never was such a constellation of Attributes as there is here that Power Wisdom and Goodness which appeared in Creation are here in greater lustre and over and above Holiness Justice and Mercy shine forth in their orient Excellencies never did the glory of God so break forth as it doth in this wonderful Dispensation That we may the better view it it will be requisite to consider first the obstacles in the way and then how admirably the divine Wisdom did pass through them and accomplish the great Work The Obstacles were such as these 1. Man turning apostate from his God and primitive Integrity justly sunk himself into an horrible gulf of sin and misery Sin lay upon him and wrath for sin the broken Law pronounced Death an eternal curse against him divine Justice appeared through the threatning like devouring fire ready to catch hold on him as fit fuel for eternal flames unless Satisfaction were made he must have gone into Hell the proper place for irremediable sinners in this forlorn estate what may he can he do Shall he melt himself into repentant tears or consecrate himself unto perpetual Holiness Alas depraved Nature cannot elevate it self unto these nor will Grace dispense them to an unatoned sinner nay could they be had they would be as finite nothings in comparison of that infinite Satisfaction which Justice calls for Sin is an infinite evil objectively infinite a kind of deicidium a striking at the Majesty Holiness Justice nay the very Life and Being of God and without another deicidium a crucifying the Lord of glory which is a Sacrifice of infinite value not to be expiated Which consideration also tells us that all the Angels in Heaven though creatures without spot could not have been able to have satisfied for the sin of man all that they have is but finite the burden of Gods wrath was much too heavy for them one sin sunk their fellow-Angels into chains of darkness and how could they stand under a world of iniquity The titles of Saviour and Redeemer which equal if not exceed that of Creator were too high for them and how could they who knew their own station and were confirmed therein attempt or so much as
cast an aspiring glance after them Upon the whole matter we see this first Obstacle is such as no creature in Heaven and Earth was able to remove out of the way 2. Ex parte creaturae the impossibility is apparent may we look up to Heaven There seems to be a division above a kind of variance among the divine Attributes On the one hand Mercy that tender indulgent Attribute seems to melt and cry out over fallen man What! shall man made after the divine Image a poor seduced creature shall he nay his whole race Eternally perish shall I have never a Monument among the sons of men nay nor in the whole Creation shall nothing of the humane nature serve God or enjoy him On the other Justice pleaded That every one must have his due the wages of sin is death the Majesty of Heaven must not be offended nor his sacred Law violated without a just recompence Holiness which cannot but abhor sin could do no less than stand on the same side Truth remembred that that threatning moriendo morieris Thou shalt surely die was too sacred a thing to be made nothing of some way or other it ought to be satisfied Thus the Attributes themselves seem to be at a distance 3. Could a Ransom be found out to the content of Justice how should man depraved polluted man be made capable of receiving such a benefit who should unscale his eyes that he might look upon such a mystery who should break his iron-sinewed will that he might yield to such terms as Salvation was to be given upon It is certain that blind impenitent creatures cannot enter into Heaven before they can arrive thither their eyes must be opened upon the great Offer their hearts must be dissolved into the divine Will and how this shall come to pass is another difficulty Now after the difficulties let us see the admirable solution of them when all finite understandings were posed and nonplust at the case of fal'n man when neither men nor Angels could so much as start a thought touching a remedy infinite Wisdom found out a way of Salvation for us The incomparable contrivance was thus A creature a finite person could not satisfie Justice but an infinite one shall do it There are three persons in the sacred Trinity but the Son of God shall do it He shall assume an humane nature in it He shall obey and die upon a Cross and thereby he shall satisfie divine Justice and purchase Grace and Eternal life for us That the Son should do it rather than any other person was very congruous many ways Gods beloved One was fit to reconcile us his essential Image was fit to repair the gracious one none could be more meet to usher in Adoption than Gods natural Son nor to enlighten the World than the brightness of his glory the Eternal Word Incarnate must needs be an excellent Prophet the middle person in the sacred Trinity a most congruous Mediator The blessed Father shewed forth himself in a former work in Creation the holy Spirit appears in a subsequent work in Sanctification it was therefore very meet that the Son the second person in the Trinity should manifest himself in the middle work in Redemption But that we may look a little further into this admirable Design it will not be amiss to fix our eyes upon those rare Conjunctions which the divine Wisdom hath framed in order to our Salvation 1. There is a Conjunction of Natures God and Man in one person Jesus Christ who was consubstantial with the Father as to his Divinity was made consubstantial with us as to his Humanity Heaven and Earth were united together in an ineffable manner the distance between God and man was as it were filled up in this wonderful Incarnation supremum insimi did attingere infimum supremi the creature came as near God as possibly could be Admirable are the tendencies of this Union He was Man that he might be capable of suffering and that by suffering he might satisfie in the same Nature which had sinned He was God that he might stamp such an infinite value upon his sufferings that those though but the sufferings of one might answer for a World and though but temporal sufferings might counterpoise Eternal He was Man that in condescension to our weakness he might speak to us through a vail of flesh He was God that he might speak to our hearts in divine illuminations in words of life and power He was Man that he might be touch'd with a feeling of our infirmities and melt into tender compassions towards us He was God that he might break all the powers of darkness and erect an holy Throne in our hearts This was the first fundamental Conjunction a thing worthy to attract from us a much higher admiration than what is due to the Wonders in Nature 2. There is a Conjunction of Justice and Mercy These in men do usually like the Sun and Moon reign by turns but in this wonderful Dispensation these are in exercise and glory both at once Justice appears in that Jesus Christ our Sponsor was smitten and wounded to death and that an accursed one for our sins Mercy shines forth in that Sinners repenting and believing are spared nay and advanced to glory Justice did not spare the Surety but exacted all Mercy doth not exact ought from the believer but forgive all The sufferings of Christ respect both Attributes they satisfied the Law and founded the Gospel Justice had a full compensation and Mercy sprung up in promises of Grace and Life 3. Holiness in God which hates sin is the fundamental root of that Justice which punisheth it Punishment issues out of Justice Justice springs out of Holiness Now that Holiness may be contented and so Justice satisfied not only in it self but in its very foundation there was in Christs Sufferings a Conjunction of punishment and obedience It 's true the Socinians think these two altogether inconsistent Si Christi passiones rationem obedientia habent rationem poenae habere non possunt obedientia enim virtus est poena autem propter inobedientiam infligitur Schlict contr Meisn 128. because obedience is a Virtue but punishment is inflicted for disobedience But in Scripture the thing is clear there was a virtuous action in his Passion a signal obedience in his Sufferings he poured out his soul he was obedient unto death Pure entire obedience run through his whole life to the last gasp upon the Cross it was not at all broken or interrupted by the bloody Agony nor lost or forsaken in that night of desertion when he cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me His Sufferings were very penal in themselves and inflicted by Justice yet freely undertaken and obedientially undergone Here therefore was an admirable work of Wisdom his Sufferings as penal satisfied Justice and as obediential gratified Holiness 4. The Truth of God was concerned in that first Threatning Thou shalt surely
a bloudy Passion These things at the first blush look as if they could not be congruously done But I answer The corrupt Reason of Man which would shape all things according to its own model and Idea hath under colour of avoiding indecencies and inconveniencies made very strange work about this Mysterie In the Pagan Sophi it looked upon a crucified God as meer folly and indecency In the unbelieving Jews it reproached Christ as a Talui a poor hanged man altogether incapable to be a Messiah or Saviour In the Hereticks of the Church it tore and mangled his sacred Person all to pieces and that under pretence of avoiding one inconvenience or other Arius that he might not fall into that Gentile-vanity a plurality of Gods took away Christs Deity Apollinaris spared his Deity but took away his humane Soul the room of that being better supplied by the Deity Saturninus and Basilides took away his body leaving only a Phantasm a meer Vmbra in the room of it or if there must be a real Body Apelles thought fit that it should be a Sydereal one which in his passage from Heaven he assumed and after his Resurrection restored again Nestorius Noli gloriari Judaee non crucifixistl Deum So Nestorias lest the impassible Deity should suffer would have two Christs one the Son of man who suffered another the Son of God who dwelt in the other as in his Temple Eutyches supposing that there could not be two Natures in Christ without two Persons thought it convenient that after the Union there should be but one Nature in Christ the humane Nature being swallowed up in the Divine And the reason of all this is because as an Ancient hath it touching the Eutychians In hanc insipientiam cadunt qui cum ad cognoscendam veritatem aliquo impediuntur obscuro non ad propheticas voces non ad Apostolicas literas non ad Evangelicas authoritates sed ad semetipsos recurrunt ideo magistri erroris existunt quia veritatis discipuli non suere Leo primus Epist 10. they look not so much to the Sacred Scriptures as to themselves being willing that their own Reason should be Umpire in sacred Mysteries they become Masters of Errour who would not be Disciples of Truth By this heap of Experiments we may plainly see that the decorum of this Mysterie is too great a thing to be judged by humane Reason if we will know any thing of it we must address our selves to the divine Oracle Jesus Christ the infinite increated Wisdom of God who never had so much as an indecorous thought delighted in the sons of men Prov. 8.31 in the prospect of a future Incarnation It was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing becoming him to fulsil all righteousness Matth. 3.15 when yet it could not have become him in an unbocoming Nature There was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a must upon his Death and Sufferings Mutth 16.21 when yet it was utterly impossible that my necessity should press him into an indecency There was therefore an excellent congruity in this Mysterie God indeed was made flesh but how Non mutando quod erat sed assumendo quod non erat not by changing his Deity but by assuming his Humanity Majesty was humbled not in it self but in the assumed flesh which was as a Veil over all the Glory The change and death was not in the Divine but Humane nature which was taken into his Sacred Person in the Incarnition and suffered death in his Passion upon the Gross There was a just decorum in all Nay in this very Mysterie at which humane Reason cries out of indecency God hath hid such an Abyss of Wisdom as no created Understanding is able to fathom a glimpse of which appears in the next particular 2. That part of Holiness by which God doth all things for himself for his own Glory eminently appears in Jesus Christ In general it appears that God is the great Center the ultimate end of all and all creatures none excepted are as so many Lines and Mediums tending thereunto The Humane nature of Christ a Creature above all creatures lifted up above the highest pitch of Angels elevated into an Union with an insinite Person was not yet a Center to it self It had no subsistence of its own neither did it operate for it self I seek not mine own glory saith Christ Joh. 8.50 Nay He adds If I honour my self my honour is nothing as much as to say a creature referred to it self is an unprofitable Nullity In all his Doings and Sufferings he did but minister to the Will and Glory of God in the end he will deliver up the Kingdom to the Father that God may be all in all 1 Cor. 15.24 28. Hence it is demonstratively evident that no Creature no not the highest is or can be an End or Center to it self all of them are but as Medium's to the glory of God all must circulate into their first Fontal-principle that it in all things may be glorified In particutar the Glory of God breaks forth in this Dispensation Jesus Christ who in respect of the eternal genetation is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the splendor or glorious effulgence of his Fathers glory is in the Incarnation the Glass or bright Evidence of the Divine Excellencies Never was there such a Constellation of Attributes as here Wisdom in the deep of its unsearchable Counsels laid the great plot of our Salvation Justice was paid to the full in Sufferings infinitely valuable such as did more than ballance the sufferings of a World Holiness was abundantly gratified in the pure and spotless obedience of our Saviour which was as a Gloss and living Commentary upon the whole Law Mercy and Love opened a bosom of infinite sweetness to receive penitent souls into favour and a blessed Immortality Power raised up an humane Nature in an extraordinary way and then shewed forth it self therein in the glory of innumerable Miracles Truth triumphed in that He who is the complement of the Law the substance of the Shadows and the Center of the Promises was come into the World Never did the brightness of Glory so excellently manifest it self as upon the Theatre of Christs humane Nature Hence Heaven and Earth ring with the high Praises of it At his Nativity an Host of Angels cry out Glory to God in the Highest Luke 2.14 In the Church there is glory to him by Jesus Christ throughout all Ages world without end Ephes 3.21 Saints and Angels must now fall upon their faces and say Blessing Glory and Wisdom and Thanksgiving and Honour and Power and Might be unto our God for ever and ever Amen Revel 7.12 Eternity it self will be little enough to spend in the praises of this incomparable Mysterie 3. Holiness as it imports an hatred of sin signally demonstrates it self in this Dispensation God hath many ways manifested his hatred of sin It appears in the Threatning in which he speaks as
would be unjust a cruel Tyrant one like Hannibal who looked upon a ditch full of Humane blood as a fair spectacle Unto which I answer the Scripture is very pregnant our sins were laid upon him they were condemned in his flesh he bore them in his body he was wounded and bruised for them and that even unto death and that not a meer simple death but one that had a penal curse in it And if these phrases express not punishment no words can do it Yet for all this corrupt Reason is so desperate that rather than subscribe to the Sacred Oracles it will blaspheme and call God Tyrant Indeed an innocent cannot be punished for the guilty compulsorily but Christ suffered by consent Lo I come to do thy will O God Heb. 10.7 The Law of Redemption was in his heart he gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice Eph. 5.2 And what is freer than Gift or what colour of Injustice can there be in such a Suffering The Reason and Justice of all Nations agree in this that one may by his own consent be punished for another It 's true he cannot justly consent to suffer in that which he hath not a just power over Men have not such a power over their lives as they have over their estates The only blemish in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of old who engaged life for life was this That they had not a just power over their lives to give them as a Compensation for others but Christ might justly consent he had power over his own life I have power saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 authority to lay down my life and authority to take it up again Joh. 10.18 Hence it appears that his consent to suffer punishment for us was a very just valid one it being in that which he had authority over and where there is such a just consent there an innocent one may suffer for the guilty It 's true an innocent one meerly as such cannot be punished neither did our Saviour suffer as such but as one in conjunction with us as our Goel and Sponsor who undertook to bear the punishment of our sins It could not be unjust for him to undertake it and after undertaking it could not but be just for him to perform it especially seeing his person could not sink under his Sufferings and his Sufferings could not be in vain or to no purpose He rose as a glorious Victor and out of his Penal Evils sprung that great Good the Redemption of a World 3. The Sufferings of Christ are to be considered in themselves and in their fruits Take them in themselves Justice appears in the proportionableness of them in punishing Justice holds the Ballance it weighs and measures out Penal Evils for Moral Judgments on Sinners are called the portion of their measures Jer. 13.25 as being inflicted in a due proportion Now the Sufferings of Christ were proportionable in divers respects 1. There was a proportion between the seats of Suffering in Christ and the seats of Sin in us Man sinned in his body Sin was organically and instrumentally there proportionably Christ suffered in his body no part of it but was racked upon a tormenting Cross because our Corporeal Parts had been weapons of Iniquity Justice made his the subjects of Misery Man sinned in his Soul there was the prime and chief seat of Sin proportionably Christ suffered in his Soul nay there was the prime and chief seat of Suffering because the main residence and venom of sin was in our Souls the greatest pressure and bitterness of wrath was upon his He was exceeding sorrowful even to death He was sore amazed and as it were fainted away yea for very anguish he sweat drops of blood and upon the Cross cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me All this befel him who was fortitude and constancy it self Under the Law Justice had eye for eye tooth for tooth wound for wound stripe for stripe in Jesus Christ it had a Suffering body and soul as a Compensation for the sinning bodies and souls of Men. 2. There was a proportion between the Penal Sufferings in Christ and those in the threatning of the Law Christ suffered not the very Idem neither indeed could he do so because there was a change of person and in strictness Si alius solvit alind solvitur but his Sufferings came as near to those in the Law as could possibly stand with a just decorum to his Sacred Person as little was abated as might be This will appear by the many steps of his Humiliation He the Son of God very God assumed our frail Nature But might this infinite and wonderful Condescension satisfie Justice for the sin of the world no He must be under the Law and fulfil all Righteousness Well that being done might that obedience wherein so high an Honour was reflected upon the Law as that it was obeyed perfectly in all things and that by its Maker satisfie for sin No that alone was not enough there must be shedding of blood or no Remission But if there must be blood might not a few drops of his blood the same being of an infinite value do the work No the Law calls for Death without that he could not be an expiatory Sacrifice for us But if a Death must be might not a simple one being of so great a person serve the turn No the Law pronounces a Curse and that he was made the marks and tokens of Wrath were upon him and why all this but that God would have his Sufferings comply and come as near the terms of the Law as might be It 's true he did not bear the accidentals of punishment his Sufferings were not eternal but in the Law punishment is eternal only as it relates to a finite Creature which can never satisfie but not as it relates to a mighty Sponsor who could pay down all at once and swallow up death in Victory He suffered not the worm of Conscience or Desperation But the first of these is from Sin inherent and putrifying in Conscience and the second from the Imbecillity of of the Creature sinking under its burden neither of which could be in him He bore not the accidentals of punishment but as great a person as he was the essentials could not be abated There was in his Sufferings Paena sensûs when the fire of wrath melted him into a bloody sweat and paena damni when the Eclipse of favour made him cry out of forsaking Though God in his Soveraignty would relax the Law and introduce his own Son as a Sponsor to satisfie for us yet his Son standing in that capacity He would in Justice have him suffer as near the penalty in the Law as could be 3. There was a proportion between the Sufferings of Christ and the Sin of a World Sin is an infinite evil and his Sufferings to compensate it were of an infinite value Sufferings are not to be estimated
he would strip himself of his Orient pearl that he would give his Son his eternal Joy out of his bosom to assume an humane Nature and in it to bear the horrible stroke of Justice which was due to us for our iniquities In giving Laws and Promises God gives but a created Image of his Sanctity and Grace but in giving his Son he gave his essential increated Image to suffer in the flesh for us that his holy Image broken in the fall might be repaired again in us When we were off from God the Center of Souls and wandring in the foul ways of sin God out of his immense Love sent no less person than his only begotten Son to seek us and bring us back unto himself that we might be for ever happy in the fruition of him The greatness of this Love will yet further appear if we consider the manner how the Son of God was given for us The lower a man stoops and condescends to do another good the higher and more eminent is his Love the steps wherein the Son of God came down and humbled himself for us evidently declare the infinite height of that Love which made him stoop so low to compass our Salvation The first step was his Incarnation the word was made flesh he who was in the form of God took on him an humane Nature In the Creation infinite produced finite but here infinite assumed finite there Eternal brought forth Temporal but here Eternal took Temporal into it self and what a wonderful Condescension was this It 's true Reason in the Socinian laughs at it but Faith in the Christian must needs admire it Had the greatest Monarch on Earth confined himself to the poorest Cottage there it would have been nothing to God Tabernacling in the flesh Should the highest Angel in Heaven have put off his Perfections and come down into an humane Nature and from thence have passed into a brutal bestial one and so on into a tree or stone and at last into nullity it would not have been a Condescension comparable to that of the Son of God coming in the flesh His Sacred Person was infinitely more above humane Nature than an Angel is above matter or nullity it self and what unparallel'd Love was here The Creator became a Creature the Son of God assumed our nature and that after it was in us tainted with sin Dr. Bates of the Attributes fol. 171. The natural distance saith that excellent Man between God and the Creature is infinite the Moral between God and the sinful Creature if possible is more than infinite Yet the mercy of our Redeemer overcame this distance What an extasie of Love transported the Son of God so far as to espouse our nature after it was defiled and debased with sin He was essential Innocence and Purity yet he came in the similitude of sinful flesh which to outward view was not different from what was really sinful Thus he St. Austin calls Love junctura duo copulans a coupling of two together That after man had rent off himself from God by his Apostacy God should assume an humane Nature into himself to make up the breach and reduce Man into an Union with himself again Miror Deum in utero Virginis miror omnipotentem in cunabulis miror quemodo verbo Dei caro adhaeserit Cypr. de Nat. Christi must needs be Love in a transcendent excess infinite This made St. Cyprian overlook the wonders in Nature that he might ravish himself in the admirations of an Incarnate God The Condescension was here so great that God seems to neglect his own Majesty that he may comply with our necessities yet infinite Love would have the Son of God stoop a little lower and do honour to that Sacred Law which we had violated His humane Nature being an inmate in his infinite Person could not but have a right to Heaven and might have been immediately rapt up thither but Love set him another task He the great Lawgiver was made under the Law He who knew the Father in an infinity of light now knew him in a finite Reason He who embraced the Father in an infinity of Love now loved him in a finite Will He who was Lord of all was subject to Parents and Magistrates He who upholds the world went up and down as a man doing of good he stooped as low as the Ceremonial Law His pure flesh was circumcised he kept the Passeover and so obedientially stood under his own shadow This is a Condescension much greater than if all the Angels in Heaven had put themselves under the Laws of the lowest matter yet infinite Love would have the Son of God go down a little lower We have him hungry thirsty weary weeping suffering the contradiction of Sinners enduring the temptations of Satan all his life-through a man of sorrows at last we have him bleeding on a Cross hanging there as a spectacle of shame his hands and his feet were pierced his body was racked and tortured to death in a stinking Golgotha But which was the greatest of all he bore the Wrath of God and what was that Wrath which was due to the sin of a World or what those Sufferings which satisfied Justice for it What a great thing was the Passion of God and how much beyond the dissolution of a World Words cannot utter it thoughts cannot measure it That Love must be no less than immense which made the Son of God stoop so low to take us up out of the ruins of the Fall The Love of God will yet more appear if we take notice of the persons for whom Christ was given it was for man poor impotent man a creature worth nothing a bankrupt in Spirituals one void of all those Primitive Excellencies which at first Crowned the humane Nature for him it was that God was at so vast an expence as that of his own blood Spond Annal. Anno 431. 'T was great Charity in Paulinus Bishop of Nola that he would give himself in pawn to the Vandals for a poor Child but it was transcendent superlative Love in God to give his Son one worth Millions of Worlds and as rich in Excellencies as a Deity could make him to be emptied and humbled to death for poor worthless worms such as we are Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 8.9 The Riches of a God were laid out to set up broken man again But further it was for Sinners for Enemies such as were in Arms against God such as had broken his Laws despised his Authority cast off his Soveraignty and as much as in them lay stained his Glory These were the persons upon whose Salvation infinite Love set so high a rate that rather than fail the Life of God should be paid down for it The Apostle notably sets forth this
Christ The Jewish Rabbins distinguish of a twofold Work of God they call his ordinary Works of Nature opus Bereshith from the first words of Genesis and his miraculous works opus Merchebha from Ezekiels Chariot A miracle is a work lifted up above the Order and Power of Nature it is a specimen of Creation something is made out of nothing What second causes cannot reach that is done by the first no Man no Angel can do such a work These are but parts of Nature and therefore cannot in their Operations exceed Nature Quod est totaliter sub ordine constitutum non potest ultra istius naturae ordinem agere it is only Gods Prerogative to work Miracles He that set the order of Nature can work above it he can lift Nature off the hinges and set it on again and when he doth it he doth it as becomes his infinite Wisdom upon very great and weighty Reasons When he brought his People out of Egypt then his wonders appeared when he delivered his Law on Sinai his wonders appeared again In those great dispensations he shewed himself not in the ordinary dress of Nature but in Royal State and Majesty much more did he do so when his Son very God was manifested in the flesh Then the water was turned into Wine the Wind and the Seas did obeysance to their incarnate Creator the blind received their sight the lame did walk the Lepers were cleansed the deaf did hear the dead were raised the devils were cast out of Men. Here the right hand of the Lord was glorious in Power Nature did as it were leap and triumph in miraculous elevations above it self at the coming down of its Creator to redeem the world a mighty train of wonders attended on that greatest wonder of all God incarnate a life of Miracles ensued upon his miraculous Conception Now touching the Miracles of Christ there are three or four things to be taken notice of 1. The Miracles of Christ were true and that upon a double account The one is this They were true in the History of them they were really done we have them upon Record in the Sacred Volume of Scripture they were not done in a corner or before a few but openly and before multitudes there were thousands of eye-witnesses from whom the truth of them hath been handed down in all ages of the Church There is no colour at all to imagine that those first reporters did utter an untruth or go about to put a cheat upon the world their own integrity would not suffer it neither was the thing it self indeed practicable How should so many thousands for the most part unknown to and distant from each other ever agree and conspire together in the very same story Or if they could what should they propose to themselves or which way could they think that a Relation of things to have been done openly if false should ever pass in a contradicting World They knew very well that there were innumerable prying malicious Enemies round about them who would persecute them for that Relation though true and brand them as lyars for it if false Christianity was then a poor persecuted thing and it would have been strange folly and madness in them to have ventured their lives and estates meerly to broach a lye unto the world especially seeing it must have been such an one as would have been surely discovered to be such and severely punished upon the Authors In all reason therefore what the first Witnesses spake was true and what after-ages heard was but the Eccho of their report The Miracles wrought by our Saviour were so great that none of the Adversaries ever durst deny that they were done The Jews did not deny it P. Gal. de Arc. l. 8. c. 5. their ancient Rabbins take those words of the Prophet Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped the lame shall leap as the hart and the tongue of the dumb shall sing Isa 35.5 6. to be spoken of the Messiah Their own Josephus speaks of Jesus as one more than a man and a worker of great Miracles only the Jews out of their desperate malice against our Saviour defamed his Miracles as done by Magick and as Dr. Lightfoot tells us Harm fol. 30. it is said in Talm. Bab. that Ben Sarda which is a blasphemous name they give to Jesus of Nazareth did bring inchantments out of Egypt in incision in his flesh But there cannot be a vainer thought than to imagine that Satan should contribute wonders to confirm that Doctrine which he knew would utterly ruin his Kingdom When the Pharisees said that Christ did cast out Devils by Beelzebub He answered two things First that Satans Kingdom if divided could not stand Matth. 12.26 And then that they in saying so did maliciously oppose their light and run into the unpardonable sin vers 31 32. But when the Jews saw that this pretence would not serve their turn they betook themselves to a contrary shift and said That the Messiah when he came should do no Miracles at all The Pagans did not deny Christs Miracles In Pilates Letter to the Emperor Tiberius there is an enumeration made of his Miracles In the Epistle of Lentulus to Tiberius he is stiled Magd. Hist Cent. 1. l. 1. c. 10. Homo magnae virtutis The Pagans conscious to themselves that the thing was not to be denied Aug. de Consensu Evang. l. 1. c. 9. cryed up Aesculapius and Apollonins in opposition to Christ and withal framed an impudent lye that our Saviour had Magical Books according to which he did his Miracles Such devices as these were I suppose first started by Julian the Apostate and by him instilled into others The Mahometans fairer than the other confess Christs Miracles to have been done and that from God Morn de Ver. Christ Relig. c. 33. Their Alcoran saith That Gods Spirit was a help and witness to Jesus that the Soul of God was given to him Thus it appears on all hands that the matter of Fact touching our Saviours Miracles cannot be denied The other is this They were true for the nature of Miracles they were not as the Devils wonders are meer Spectrum's or Apparitions but real Miracles things which are above the order of Nature and lye within the line of Omnipotence only the matter mode and end signally declare them to be such Some Miracles of Christ such as raising the dead were such for the matter of them that no conatus of nature no concurrence or conjunction of created Powers could ever have effected them no not in Millions of Ages some of them such as Curing the sick Nature might have done but in a tract of time and with the help of second Causes But our Saviour dispatched them out of hand instantly immediately with a word or a touch To operate after this sort is only proper to God who is excellent in
and wall him up that he shall not find his paths On the other hand it is certain that God is only a permissor of the anomy or ataxy it is not from him as a cause the creature being defectible in it self and under a law distinct from it self may fail and fall short of the rule but God who hath no other law but his perfection and can no more decline from his rectitude than his being is a meer permissor 2. The entity in a sinful action though coexistent with the anomy is to be distinguished from it besides the anomy there is aliquid naturae somewhat of positive being This I think is clear though an act as it respects the law and is in linea morali may be sinful yet as it is an act and considered in lineâ physicâ it cannot be such for so it is but the meer complement of a natural faculty and that complement cannot in it self be sinful because the God of nature cannot be the author of sin The anomy or sinfulness dwells not alone but in alieno fundo in some natural good Original sinfulness is an inmate in the natural faculties actual sinfulness is an inmate in some action or motion The action is inordinate but it is not the inordination the inordination is a privation but the act is not so the act is a positive thing but the inordination is not so the act is the subject of the inordination therefore it is not the very inordination it self Now there being such a distinction in sinful actions between the entity and the anomy the entity or motion must be from God the first being and mover Arminius himself would have it Vt totus actus rite Providentiae subjiciatur quâ actus efficienti quâ peccatum permittenti Providentiae As to the malice Providence permits but as to the action or motion it operates no particle of being can be produced without it such persons as are by illegitimate generation are doubtless Gods creatures and that because the generating act as it is an act is from God 3. The order is considerable In sinful actions all is not meer ataxy God hath an holy Line in the midst of the disorder In Monsters there are aberrations of particular natures yet Providence is not mistaken In sins which are moral monstrosities the sinning-creature is inordinate yet Providence is not without an order touching the same And here we may take notice of a double order the one looks backwards and that is the Order of Penalty The other looks forward and that is the Order of Conducibility I shall a little touch upon each of these 1. The Order of Penalty is considerable and that under a double notion the one is this A sinful action is poena sibiipsi a punishment to it self Jussisti Domine sic est Aust Cons l. 1. cap. 12. Lib. 2. Dist 37. ut poena sibi sit omnis inordinatus animus An inordinate mind is a punishment to it self Sin saith the subtil Scotus as it is fluent from the will is sin but as it is resident in the will it is punishment Or thus As it fights and wars against the Law it is sin but as it debases and deturpates the soul in its beauty and serenity it is punishment A man cannot sin against God but he wrongs his soul Prov. 8.36 Jerusalem cannot make Idols against God but she doth it against her self too Ezek. 22.3 in respect of this penalty God doth not suffer dedecus peccati esse sine decore justitiae no not for a moment The other is this One sin is a punishment to another precedent In general St. Austin tells us That between the first sin of Apostacy and the last punishment of eternal fire the middle things are sins and punishments Sometimes the sin of one person is a punishment to the precedent sin of another Davids Adultery was punished with Absoloms Incest Solomons Idolatry with Rehoboams Folly Sometimes the subsequent sin of a person is a punishment to his precedent sin The Gentiles were idolatrous and God gave them up to vile affections Rom. 1.26 Men love not the truth and God sends them strong delusions 2 Thess 2.11 In all which instances Peccatum non Dei est sed judicium The sin is man's the judgment God's 2. There is an Order of Conducibility to be observed Enchir. c. 100. God permits not a sin irrationally Non sineret bonus fieri male saith Austin nisi Omnipotens etiam de Malo facere posset bene The Good God would not suffer evil to be done unless he could by his Omnipotency bring good out of it De Causa Dei c. 34. Nullum est malnus in mundo saith Bradwardine quod non est propter aliquod magnum bonum forsitan propter aliquod majus bonum There is no evil in the world which is not for some great good and perhaps for some greater good Adam by his fall broke in pieces a beautiful image of Holiness and the dust of it made a glass of Creature-defectibility The stock of Grace laid up in Adam was lost and an unloseable Treasury is laid up in Christs human nature Joseph's brethren sell him but God sent him into Egypt to preserve life Gen. 45.5 Persecutors scatter the Church and by this means God scatters the Gospel Acts 8.4 Thus he orders the very sins of men to excellent purposes There being as hath been said such a double Order it is most apparent that both these Orders are from his Providence who is the God of order The Order of Penalty is from him who is Justice it self The Order of Conducibility is from him who is Wisdom it self Providence is either justly punishing or wisely disposing of things The sins of men are evil in themselves but the Order hath a goodness and beauty in it These things being laid down in general I come now to answer this Objection in that instance which is above all other The Sufferings of our Saviour The blackest iniquity that ever the Sun saw was the crucifying of him who was God manifested in the flesh and yet here Providence did not stand off or at a distance but ordered his sufferings to bring forth the great work of Redemption On mans part there was malice blood and unparallel'd wickedness yet on Gods there was justice righteousness and a design of incomparable love to save the world Hence it is said That Herod and Pilate and the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together to do whatsoever Gods hand and Gods counsel determined before to be done Acts 4.27 28. Never was there so horrible a sin never so signal a Providence as here Some Divines do here distinguish thus The passion of Christ was decreed but the crucifiers action was not Others will not admit this distinction Beza against Castellio says That common sense is against it Chamier thinks that natural light is against it I confess that I cannot satisfie my self with it Are the
judicia tua The other is Maximilian who in the time of Pope Julius the second expressed his thoughts touching Providence thus Deus aeterne nisi vigilares quà m malè esset mundo quom regimus nos ego miser venator ebriosus ille ac sceleratus Julius There being a Divine Providence such as spreads it self over all things what acknowledgments and adorations should be paid to it it upholds and directs all things it stoops down to worms and hairs it governs the great things of the Church and the World it ascertains the most casual events it rules over the freest agents nay it reduces sin it self the most horrible of ataxies into order it brings light out of darkness order out of confusion good out of evil it leaves nihil inordinatum in universo nothing simply totally inordinate in all the World O how should we hang and depend upon it our purposes should all have that pious condition If the Lord will we will do this or that Jam. 4.15 Our motto should be nihil sine Deo nothing without Providence In all our ways we should look up and wait for the good hand of God to direct and prosper us without which vanity takes us and all comes to nothing In our converses with men we should look above them to him who sits at the stern and rules Do they do us good let us remember the fountain is above man is but the channel not the least good drops from them but what was distilled out of them by Providence Jacob saith That he saw Esaus face as the face of God Gen 33.10 Little of God was to be found in Esau yet in his kindness Jacob spied out a beam of the Divine Goodness and favour Do they deal ill with us let us consider no more of their malice or wrath can issue forth upon us than Providence will suffer the remainder shall be restrained and kept back in their verbal reproaches and obloquies let us say with David the Lord hath bid him curse In their real injuries and oppressions let us say with Job the Lord hath taken away still our eyes should be lifted up above instruments to that wise Providence which orders all In all the great affairs of the Church and the World let us still hold to this the Lord reigneth Psal 93.1 Providence governs the World and all in it heresies and bloody persecutions may break out as a flood yet Truth shall stand and the Church built upon it In a word seeing God is universal Governour we should fear him in every place eye him in every work submit to him in every event depend upon him in every estate and glorifie him in all his administrations This is indeed to confess his Kingdom which ruleth over all and practically to own his Providence which sweetly and strongly disposes all things to his own Praise and Glory CHAP. IX Chap. 9 The Doctrine of Original sin the great moment of it Adam's sin imputed to us The proof of it from Scripture Adam's capacity Adam's righteousness Objections answered Our inherent pravity The proof of it from Scripture The experience of our hearts The actual sins in the world The doctrine of Original sin manifested from Christs extraordinary Conception His Headship opposed to Adam's from the institution of Baptism The wickedness of the Jews in crucifying of Christ The purchase of Regeneration and Salvation made by Christ A short improvement of this Doctrine IN the next place I shall proceed to consider Original sin the Doctrine of which is very momentous The Psalmist in the fourteenth Psalm notably sets forth the corrupt estate of man by nature and again he sets it forth in the 53. Psal almost in the same words pointing out to us the great necessity and utility of this Doctrine Moll Com. in Psal 53. which admirably tends to undeceive and deliver us from that fascinating opinion of our own righteousness and worthiness which too much charms the hearts of all men and withal to prepare and make us ready to accept a cure from Christ and his regenerating Grace This is a most necessary fundamental Doctrine De peccat Or. lib. 2. cap. 24. St. Austin speaking of Adam and Christ saith In horum duorum hominum causa proprie fides Christiana consistit the Christian faith stands in the knowledg of those two men the one the spring of sin and death the other the spring of grace and life And speaking of the Pelagians as denying Original sin he charges them Epist 90 94. fundamenta Christianae fidei evertere to overturn the foundations of the Christian faith Without the knowledg of this sin that excellent rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 know thy self becomes altogether unpracticable a man though near to his own soul is a stranger to it though he hath a reflecting faculty yet he cannot make a true inspection into his heart he sees only his outside within there is a deadly wound yet he feels it not a sink a chaos of corruptions yet he perceives it not that holy image which was the beauty and pure rectitude of his nature is departed and gone yet he is not concerned at it He is as Nazianzen speaks totus lapsus all fallen all out of order yet it seems to him as if all were well and in a due posture he is miserable and poor and blind and naked and yet insensible in all these according to that false or rather no-judgment that he hath of himself he is happy in his misery rich in his poverty seeing in his blindness beautiful in his shame and spiritual nakedness in the midst of straits and necessities he finds no need of Christ or regenerating grace the necessity and excellency of these appears in such proportion as the depth and breadth of that sin is apprehended to be Hence it is observable on the one hand Those who own Adam to be a fountain of sin and death do withal own Christ to be a fountain of righteousness and life Those who see the horrible ataxy and pravity in our nature see also the necessity and excellency of Grace in the repairing of it On the other hand the Pelagians and Socinians who deny Original sin are enemies to Grace it is in the power and will of man vel nitere flore virtutum vel sentibus horrere vitiorum Aust de Grat. Christ c. 18. to make himself beautiful with the flowers of virtue or horrid with the brambles of vice So Pelagius In nostra potestate situm est ut Deo obtemperemus Cap. 10. it is in our power to obey God So the Racovian Catechist And what room is there for Grace Aust ad Bonis lib. 1. cap. 21. when the power and free-will of man may do the work The Pelagians affirmed that before the Law men were saved by Nature afterwards by the Law Socin de Serv. pars 3. cap. 2. afterwards by Christ The Socinians say that under the Old Testament good men were
glory of God vers 23. If the description did not reach all men his conclusions drawn from thence would not hold the description might extend to some yet others at least little Infants might not be sinners or guilty and consequently might be justified by the Law as having nothing against them The Apostle therefore here by the actual sins of some proves original sin in all and upon that account proves all to be guilty under sin and unjustifiable by the Law because all have that inherent pravity which is the root of actual sins St. James tells us That every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed Jam. 1.14 Lust or original concupiscence is the great tempter it doth not only entice as an object but by a kind of impetus and importunity it draws us away from God the infinite goodness to one creature-vanity or other by its motions and titillations it wooes for a consent and afterwards it brings forth the outward act of sin The world tempts outwardly but this is domesticus hostis a traitor within in our own bosom it tempts not objectively only but effectively really inclining us to sin it is a perpetual tempter Resist the Devil and he will fly from you Jam. 4.7 but make never so great a resistence against this lust it will not in this life fly from you neither can you fly from it This is that which conceives and brings forth all the actual sins in the world Nay it is that which distils sinfulness into the best actions of Saints all the crying abominations in the world and all the defects in the Church are the progeny of it This is the root of all bitterness the fomes peccati the nest and womb of all actual sins It may be thought perhaps that all this discourse is besides the intended scope original sin was not exemplified in Christ But I answer It was not indeed exemplified in him but the Doctrine of it may be undeniably drawn from him To this end I shall offer these particulars 1. The conception of Christ is very considerable He was conceived in the Virgins womb not in the ordinary way of nature not by the conjunction of man and woman but in a Divine and extraordinary manner in a way above all the power and law of nature Hence the Angel tells the Virgin Mary The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee Luk. 1.35 Hence it is said that she was found with child of the Holy Ghost Matt. 1.18 That is the body of Christ was formed by the infinite power and virtue though not out of the substance of the Holy Spirit The substance of Christs flesh was taken out of the Virgin and like unto ours but the structure and manner of framing of it was infinitely surmounting that of ours Hence his flesh is said to be a tabernacle not made with hands not of this building Heb. 9.11 It was not set up in the natural way of generation but in a miraculous supernatural manner and why was it thus but that his humane nature might as St. Luke speaks be an holy thing pure from the least tincture of sin All men who come from Adam in a natural way contract guilt and pravity in their original but his flesh was formed out of the substance of a Virgin in a miraculous and extraordinary manner that so he though like to us in all things might not be like to us in sin that he might partake of our flesh and blood in a pure and unspotted way here we see purity was his prerogative the common lot of our nature is corruption It 's true the Pelagians are not afraid to assert That Christ was free from all contagion of sin Aust ad Bon. l. 4. c. 2. Non excellentia propria gratia singulari sed communione naturae quae omnibus inest infantibus Not by any proper excellency and singular grace but by a communion of that nature which is in all Infants But this is in effect to say that the coming of the Holy Ghost upon the Virgin the overshadowing her by the power of the Highest were superfluous and vain all might have been as well in an ordinary way this is to rob Christ of his prerogative to bring down the Saviour to the common level of the saved which can never indeed come to pass There is a great difference between Christ and us in this point our bodies are formed in the ordinary course of nature but his was formed in an extraordinary supernatural way We were in Adam secundum rationem seminalem We descended from the seminal vertue in him But he was in Adam only secundum substantiam corporalem He took the materials of a body from the Virgin but the modus conceptionis the manner of framing of it was supernatural We come forth into the world by that common benediction Increase and multiply but he came into the flesh by that singular promise The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head We see here a plain difference Hence it appears that purity was a singular priviledg in Christs birth and pollution is the common lot of ours 2. The capacity Christ stood in is to be noted He was set up to be a common head of righteousness and life and that tells us that before him there was another who by his fall was a common head of sin and death Famous is that place Rom. 5 If by one mans offence death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous We see here two heads Adam and Christ both are set before us the one cannot be well known without the other the Pagans know neither Christians must confess both If they say Christ is an head communicating righteousness and immortality to us they must also say Adam was an head communicating sin and death to us else the Apostles Parallel is vain and frivolous in that Christ who obeyed in a publick capacity is opposed to Adam who sinned only in a private one Both these heads must be admitted or neither if both then there is sin from Adam as well as righteousness from Christ Epist 190. Thus St. Bernard saith Alius qui peccatorem constituit alius qui justificat a peccato alter in semine alter in sanguine One Adam makes us sinners another makes us righteous the one by his seed the other by his blood if neither then the obedience of Christ is made fruitless and to no purpose Hence St. Austin saith De Nat. Grat. c. 6. 7. That the Doctrine of Original sin
unrighteous Person cannot possibly enter into the holy Heaven where Eternal Life is given to the Righteous The main Quaere in Justification is What it is that constitutes us righteous before God Righteousness relates to some Law we are under a double Law the one the Law of Nature or Creation which calls for perfect Obedience in every point The other the Law of Grace which accepts of sincerity we must if justified be made righteous to both these accordingly I shall discourse of both We are under the Moral Law of Nature this is immortalized by its own intrinsecal rectitude it so naturally results out of the Relation which Man stands in towards God that as long as God is God the Supream Truth and Goodness and Man Man a Creature endued with Reason and Will it cannot cease to be or to oblige it is not imaginable that such a thing as Reason should be unbound to look up to the original Truth from whence it came or that such a thing as Free-will should be unbound to embrace that infinite Good which made it this Law stands faster than the pillars of Heaven and Earth it hath a double Sanction a promise of Eternal Life upon perfect obedience and a threatning of eternal Death upon the least Transgression The promise though never abrogated by God could not of it self bud or bring forth Life a Sinner because a Sinner not being capable of perfect obedience could not have Life from that promise cessat materia There could be no person capable of the promised Life the Law was weak though not in it self yet through the Flesh the sin of Man Man sinned away the Promise but the Threatning he could not sin away nay by his sin he put himself under the Curse and Wrath of it Sin made him a fit object and fuel for these the case standing thus how or which way should a Sinner be justified as to the Law In a Sinner there was matter enough for the Treatning but more for the Promise Death might justly seize him but Life he was not payable of by vertue of that Law here infinite Wisdom found out that which no created Eye could spy out a way of Justification without abrogating the Law thus therefore it was contrived the Law being under the power of the Legislator was relaxed though not abrogated there may be a double notion of the Law either it may be taken as it is in it self in summo apice in its primordial rigor requiring perfect personal obedience from us and thus it doth not cannot justifie us there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an utter impossibility upon it Rom. 8.3 Righteousness could not come by the Law nay in this sense it worketh wrath it condemns and curses the Sinner or else it may be taken as it is by the great Legislator relaxed to admit of a satisfaction in our Sponsor Jesus Christ and thus it hath its end its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Righteousness which satisfied it in him thus it cannot condemn Believers a satisfied Law so far as it is satisfied hath nothing to say against them who partake of that satisfaction That of Learned Mr. Gataker is remarkable Justificatio nostri tum ab Evangelio tum à Lege pendet à Lege quatenùs eidem satisfit pro delictis adversùs eam admissis ab Evangelio quatenùs satisfactio non à nobis sed à Christo Vicariâ operâ pro nobis exhibetur The Gospel reveals such a Sponsor as hath satisfied the Law for us the Law being satisfied cannot condemn those who partake of that satisfaction It appears by this That Christ's Righteousness is that which constitutes us righteous as to the Law only here many worthy learned Divines are at a difference how it doth so doubtless it doth it in a way of Imputation but the mode of that Imputation is not agreed on Some say that Christ's Righteousness is the meritorious cause of our Justification and so imputed to us in the effects in that pardon which discharges us from the Law Others That it is it self in some sort imputed to us and so becomes the material cause of our Justification I take it our former Divines who disputed with the Papists about Imputed Righteousness are of the latter opinion Hence Bishop Davenant saith De Just hab fol. 364 373. that Ipsissima Christi obedientia nobis imputatur quasi esset nostra personalis The very obedience of Christ is imputed to us as if it were our personal Righteousness And again he saith that In se it is causa meritoria Justificationis but as it is apply'd to Believers Subit vicem causae formalis it is in the room of a formal cause 'T is true he saith That it is imputed to us ad aliquem effectum not that it is imputed only in the effect but that it is imputed in a measure and to some intents though not in the full latitude or as it is in Christ The Learned Professors of Leyden determine thus Mirum hîc videri non debet Christi Justitiam non meritoriae solùm sed materialis imò formalis causae rationem habere cum id diversimodè fiat nempe quâ illud est propter quod in quo sive ex quo per quod justificamur To quote no more If Christ's Righteousness be only a meritorious cause of Justification then our former Divines have striven in the dark the Controversies between them and the Papists in this point have been but a vain jangling no Papist ever denied that Christ merited Justification for us no Protestant should ask any more The Council of Trent laying down the causes of Justification saith Chistus suâ sanctissimâ Passione in ligno Crucis nobis Justificationem meruit pro nobis Deo Patri satisfecit Here our Divines should have acquiesced in silence but surely they thought there was somewhat more in it For my own part I conceive Christ's Righteousness is so far imputed to us as to be the matter of our Justification before I come to offer my Reasons I shall lay down several things tending to explain my meaning in this point First There is a double Imputation The one when a thing inherent or transient is imputed to the very Subject or Agent of it The other when it is imputed to those in conjunction with the Subject or Agent as being parts and portions of him The first Imputation is according to the course of Nature the second is according to some just constitution made touching the same the former is unquestionable the latter is that which is to be cleared that such an Imputation is possible and when it is done truth may appear by these Instances The primitive Righteousness of our Nature was only inherent in Adam Yet was it imputed to us we were by God esteemed as righteous in him else we are not fallen Creatures neither do we need any such thing as Regeneration Adam's sin was an act done by him yet
praeter illum Deum as if there were none in all the World besides himself and God still his Eye is upon God what ever he doth he doth it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto Men Col. 3.23 The great end and center of his actions is God's Glory and under that he designs to do good to Men he would conferre aliquid in publicum casts in something into the common good of Mankind An Holy Magistrate hath the fear of God upon him he judges not for Man but for the Lord he judges righteous Judgment and that as the Rabbins say is a sure sign that the Shecinah the Divine Presence is with him in the judgment An Holy Minister carries with him an Vrim and Thummim Light in his Doctrine and Integrity in his Life He burns in zeal for God and Christ he melts in labours and compassions for the Souls of Men. His Motto is the same with that of Mr. Perkins Verbi Minister es hoc age In a word whatever the Calling be the Holy Man is active faithful bent for the Glory of God still he remembers that he is a Christian Religion hath an influence upon his Calling His particular Calling which is Vocatio ad munus to a course of Life is made subordinate to his general Calling which is Vocatio ad Faedus to the Faith and Obedience of the Gospel Thus wee see An Holy Man is like himself at every turn as occasion is one odour of Grace or other is still a breaking forth from him Seventhly In an Holy Life there is not only an exercise of Graces but in that Exercise a growth of them the Holy Man of a Plant comes to be a Tree of Righteousness of a Babe he comes to be a Man in Christ he goes from strength to strength his path is as the shining Light which shines more and more unto the perfect day Prov. 4.18 He travels on from Vertue to Vertue to meet the everlasting day He grows in every part of the New Creature till he come to Heaven where Grace is perfected in Glory His Knowledg grows by following on to know the Lord he comes to know more of him by doing of God's Will he comes to understand it better than ever he did the Eye is more open the Heart is more unvailed the Truth is more sealed to the Mind the Understanding is more quick in the Fear of the Lord the Taste and Savour of Divine things is higher than it was before he had at his first Conversion a spiritual Knowledg and Understanding but exercising himself to Godliness he comes by degrees to all Knowledg 1 Cor. 1.5 and to Riches of Vnderstanding Col. 2.2 Notions are enlarged and withal Heavenly things are known per gustum spiritualem by a Spiritual taste of them his Faith grows at first there was but contactus but upon the Exercise of Graces there comes to be complexus fidei the touch of Christ by Faith is advanced into an embrace the recumbency on his Blood and Righteousness is stronger the subjection to his Royal Scepter is more full than it was the reliance on Promises and compliance with Commands are both raised up to an higher pitch than they were before at last Adherence comes to be Assurance His Love grows there comes to be an higher estimate set upon God a closer union with him a greater complacence in him than there was before At last Love becomes a vehement flame Cant. 8.6 Flamma Dei the Flame of God which burns up the earthly Affections and aspires after the full fruition of God in the Holy Heavens Also his Obedience and Patience are upon the increase by much obeying the Intention becomes more pure the Will more free the Obedience more easy and abundant he doth not only do the Work of the Lord but he abounds in it he doth not only bring forth Fruit but much Fruit Joh. 15.8 By patient bearing of Afflictions the Art or Divine Mystery of suffering comes to be understood the Heart is yielded and resigned up to the Divine pleasure he would be what God would have him be he hath not only patience but all patience Col. 1.11 Patience hath not only a Work but a perfect Work Jam. 1.4 Thus in the Holy Man Grace is still a growing Further The Holy Man grows every way he grows inward by exercising himself to Godliness his Vital Principles become more strong his Supernatural Heat is increased his inner Man is strengthened more than ever it was before he hath a Divine vigor to overcome corruptions to repel temptations to live above earthly things to perform Heavenly duties and to endure sufferings He is strengthened in the inner Man Ephes 3.16 and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all Power Col. 1.11 to do what is decorous to his spiritual Nature he grows outward he hath not only the fruits of Righteousness but he is filled with them Phil. 1.11 The influences of Grace and supplies of the Spirit make him to bring forth much fruit and that with great variety as occasion serves all the fruits of the Spirit Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance which the Apostle mentions Gal. 5.22 23. break forth from him in their spiritual Glory He is like the Tree planted by the Rivers of Waters Ps 1.3 which hath a fruit for every Season or like Joseph's Fruitful bough by a Well whose Branches run over the Wall Gen. 49.22 There is a redundance and exuberancy of Holy Fruits which shew that he hath a Divine Spirit a Well of living Water in him springing up into all Obedience and good Works He grows upward by conversing in holy things he is un-earthed and unselved he converses more than ever in Heaven the Glory of God is more precious to him his Intention towards it is more pure than it hath been he waits and longs to be in that Blessed Region where God is all in all Every Duty and Good Work looks up more directly than was usual to God the great Center and End of all things He grows downwards I mean in Humility by conversing with God he comes to have a greater Light than ever which discovers the Majesty and purity of God the rectitude and Holiness of the Law the infirmity and reliques of Corruption in the lapsed Nature of Man and this Discovery makes him very humble and vile in his own Eyes even his very lapses and falls serve occasionally to this growth De Corr. Grat. c. 9. Hence St. Austin treating on those words All things work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8. adds Etiam si deviant exorbitant hoc ipsum eis faciat proficere in bonum quia humiliores redeunt doctiores Experience tells him that he is nothing and Grace is all Morever the Holy Man never thinks that he hath Grace enough never saith I am perfect or I have attained Inceptio bonae vitae in quovis gradu sine desiderio