obtain for him a Gospel-forgiveness and that for this Reason because there is such a Thing in the Gospel as an eternal Punishment allotted to Sin And as under the last Head we found that Reason did fall in with the Gospel and that they both spake the same thing so also we shall find it here For it is certain that the Punishment of sinful Man can therefore never expiate his Sin because it can never purchase a just Release from Punishment and it is certain that it cannot do that if it may be justly continued to Eternity And that it may be so we may learn from hence because the Law of Grace being God's Law as well as the Law of Works must for that Reason be just And we are assured by this Law as much as Words can assure us that the Punishment which it denounces against those who do not fulâ—â—l the Conditions of it is Eternal And that it shall so prove besides the express Words of the Law we have this farther Reason which is that the suffering the Punishment threatned by the Law to those who neglect to perform the Conditions of the Law can neither in Sense or Reason pass for the Performance of such Conditions so neglected and that the Neglect of this Law shall and that in Reason and Justice be repaid with an additional Vengeance for the refusal of the Mercy offered in it which designs to free us from the Punishment of all our other Sins as well as with that Punishment which is due to such Sins For it is Reason and Justice that a more heinous Sin should be punished with a more grievous Judgment and it is Truth and Reason that a Sinner does then become a more heinous Criminal when to his Desert of Punishment he adds a Neglect or Contempt of the easie Conditions of Pardon And since by the Tenor of the Covenant of Grace such Sinner is to suffer his Punishment after his Resurrection from the Dead that is not only after the Time limited for the Possibility of his Pardon is expired but also after Death it self shall be destroyed as we may from thence conclude the certainty so may we also the eternal Duration of his Punishment For as a Punishment due after the Day of Grace is past will not be remitted so such Punishment when Death is no more cannot be determined By which we may understand that as Death is without a Saviour the just and necessary Wages of Sin as we made it good in our first Chapter so also that when such Death is sure by a Resurrection purchased by a Saviour to be taken away in order to an happy and everlasting Life and that too upon the easie or at worst the very feasible Conditions of the Gospel yet if Men will neglect such Salvation so placed within their reach and so leave the eternal Life purchased for them in order to their Happiness exposed to the Vengeance which is the just and necessary Reward of all their other Sins and of such their Neglect they must impute it to their own Folly if such Vengeance in stead of Happiness be the continued Companion of their eternal Life For in the Case so put the Restoration from Death to Life comes from the Mercy of God the making that Life eternal comes from the Mercy of God the Designing to make that eternal Life happy comes from the Mercy of God The granting Means to Men and those no very hard ones neither of obtaining that Happiness comes from the Mercy of God But foolish Man defeats the Counsel of God by an obstinate and unrelenting Perseverance in Sin and does in this Case as he does in most others turn the Blessing of God into a Curse upon himself that is he makes that Life which was designed for his eternal Happiness an Occasion of the eternity of his Misery One thing more may be added to what has been said upon this Head and then we shall apply it to our present Design and that is That at that time when the Punishment we now speak of shall come to be inflicted our Saviour as the Scriptures tell us will have laid down his Mediatorial Office and so Men must stand the Award of their own Deserts and then if such their Deserts be Evil we may be instructed from what was said in the First Chapter that the Justice which will overtake them will be Justice without Mercy and that pure and unmix'd Vengeance will be their Portion even such Vengeance which will only revenge upon them the Breach of the Covenants of their God but will never so much as pretend to make up such Breach To our present purpose then If the Punishment of Men for their own Sins shall without the Interposition of a Saviour be eternal and if this appear to be so by the Testimony of that very Gospel in which however there is a Possibility of Salvation held forth and if Reason do vouch for the Truth of what the Gospel in this Case teaches and lastly if an Eternity of Punishment be absolutely inconsistent with an Expiation of Sin by such Punishment for the last supposes the Sin to be cancelled and the first supposes it to be continued Then we may conclude that the Punishment of Man for his Sin can no more expâ—ate his Sin under this Head than his Repentance as we there made it good could do so under the last Anâ— then because there is no other possible Way for Mankind to expiate their Sin but by their Repentance or by their Punishment wâ— do conclude that there is no possible Way for them to make any Expiation of it at all 3. As Man cannot expiate his Sin by any Punishment of his own neither by his Repentance nor by his Death whether Temporâ— or Eternal So neither can he expiate his Siâ— by the Death of any other Creature This 〈◊〉 therefore add because we may be apt to surmise that what has been done already may be done again And we can hardly be ignorant that the Lives of other Creatures have been offered to God and that too by his own Appointment for the Expiation of the Sinâ— of Men. And which is yet something more they have not only been offered by Man but they have been also accepted by God as aâ— effectual Expiation And that they have beeâ— so the History of the Jewish Religion recorded in the Bible it self may easily convince us But notwithstanding all this yet he who shall look nearer into the Matter and examine it more nicely will be satisfied 1. That all those Sacrifices tho' instituted by God himself were only Types and Shadows of that great Propitiatory Sacrifice that was to expiate the Sins of the whole World And therefore tho' they may serve to inform us that such a Sacrifice ought to be in order to the Expiation of Sins and because they did prefigure such a Sacrifice they might over and above foretell that such a Sacrifice should be yet because they themselves
whereof we are capable does so too And we are moreover sure in Reason that God will more freely bestow his best Gift there where it is most heartily desired and therefore also most kindly received And we are the more sure that he will do so in the present Case because the Will of Man must in this Case concur with the Grace of God or else it is impossible that the Holiness to be bestowed should ever become his own For no Man can in Reason or Nature be holy against his own Will He then who by the Means of Grace has advanced so far as to hunger and thirst after Righteousness shall be sure to be filled We have his Promise for it who is able to make it good and we have his Promise for it whose Promise cannot fail And then we cannot but be sensible that he who is filled with Righteousness cannot want that Holiness which accompanies Salvation And truly when I consider how these lower good Things the Blessings of Nature which are confessedly the Bounties of the God of Nature do freely flow in upon all his Creatures where their natural Appetites or Wants do desire or require them and where their Powers and Faculties are such in pursuit of such their Desires they endeavour to obtain them it mightily inclines me to think that his Blessing of Holiness will also there flow in where the moral Appetites of his Rational Creatures do sincerely desire it and where they are so sensible of their Want of it as to endeavour after it 4. We proceed and add in the fourth place That we are instructed both by God's Word and by our own Experience that tho' a perfect Holiness may be heartily desired and sincerely endeavoured after yet that it is never attained by any Man in this Life and therefore so neither is a perfect Happiness The Evidence for the first is because all Men in this World are Sinners and the Evidence for the last is because all Men in this World are Mortal Now as Sin is an infallible Confutation of a perfect Holiness so Mortality is an infallible Confutation of a perfect Happiness We are therefore at last arrived thus far that no Man shall arrive at a perfect Holiness till he is translated to another World And because it is difficult if not impossible to conceive how any Man should arrive at a perfect Holiness in the Grave therefore we may go one Step farther and add that no Man shall attain to such an Holiness till the Resurrection And we may very fairly and rationally conjecture I may say infer That then the Faithful shall For we know that by the Resurrection we shall be released from the Curse of the Law on the one Hand and shall enter upon the Reward of Obedience and Holiness on the other 5. And then lastly Because that Happiness which our Saviour has purchased for Believers is an eternal Happiness and because as we have seen it is impossible that there should be any such Thing as an eternal Happiness without an eternal Holiness and because to pretend to bestow an everlasting Happiness upon Man and not an everlasting Holiness without which such an Happiness is impossible is to mock Man and not to save him and because lastly we cannot without Blasphemy and Absurdity tax the Counsels and Purposes of our Saviour in the Business of Man's Salvation of such gross Prevarication therefore we do at last conclude That God in our Saviour will endow Believers at or upon their Resurrection with an Inherent Immutable and Eternal Holiness Now we have observed before That the Punishment threatned by the Gospel against those who shall refuse their Salvation by the Neglect of the Conditions of the Gospel is greater than what was threatned against the Breach of the Law of Works the Law given to Adam And that the Reward proposed by the Gospel to those who shall admit the Conditions of it is greater than what was by the Law proposed to Adam upon his Obedience And we have observed in this Chapter That that Inherent and Indefectible Holiness which is a Part of such Reward is greater and nobler than Adam's Holiness before the Fall because it is more lasting than that of him or indeed of the faln Angels Now it is certain that the Degrees of the Punishments are by Justice proportioned to the Degrees of the several Sinners own Deserts And it is certain that the Rewards of eternal Life and of an Indefectible Holiness do in Justice exceed the Deserts of all that are saved for they have been all Sinners And then what Grounds these Considerations may afford for the magnifying of God's Grace and the Merits and Dignity of our Saviour's Purchase and Person may be a Matter worthy our Meditations But I shall not pursue it here because tho' there be an Occasion for me to enlarge what has been said already yet I am unwilling to repeat CHAP. XIII By what Means Men shall be put into the Actual Possession of Eternal Life HAving thus far discoursed First Concerning the Pardon of Sin and Secondly Concerning the Gift of an Happy and Eternal Life the Two Things in which a Gospel Salvation does consist And having made it good That Believers do obtain both the one and the other only in Consideration of our Saviour's Merits and that their so doing is agreeable to Reason and Justice Two Things do still remain to be examined 1. By what Way or Means they shall be put into the Possession of such Eternal Life And 2. Wherein the Happiness of such Life does consist 1. And in order to the Resolution of the first Thing we lay it down as a certain Truth in the first place That Man in order to his entring upon the Possession of Eternal Life must first rise from the Dead For all Men die because all Men are Sinners And because it is absurd so much as to imagine that Man can enter upon the Possession of Eternal Life while he remains under the Power of Death therefore without any more ado we shall take it for granted that Man must be freed from that Death which is brought upon him by his Sin before he can obtain that Eternal Life which is purchased for him by his Saviour 2. We lay it down in the second place as a certain Truth That because our Saviour underwent Death himself for the Expiation of Man's Sin and because our Saviour could not in Nature or Possibility be qualified to bestow upon Man the Purchase of such his Death till he himself should rise from the Dead That therefore in order to Man's entring upon the Possession of an Eternal Life it was necessary that our Saviour himself as well as Man should first rise from the Dead 3. We lay it down in the Third place That if the Merits of our Saviour's Death were of Value sufficient to make good the Expiation of Man's Sin that then in Reason and Justice he ought to rise again from the Dead For
because in the Case so put he could have no Concern with Justice but what was his own and because he himself had paid an exact Obedience to the Law and because Life is the Reward of such Obedience as Death is the Wages of Disobedience Therefore if we do allow him to have unloaded himself of the Sin of Man which he had taken upon himself by his Death we must and do by so doing reinstate him in his own Right that is we must allow that he had a Right to be and therefore in Justice ought to be restored to Life again And therefore it is not at all to be questioned but that our Saviour had never died at all if he had never taken upon himself the Sins of other Men. But of this more by and by In the mean while these Things being laid down we proceed and 1. Observe in the first place That our Saviour's Resurrection is almost constantly by the Scriptures of the New Testament ascribed to God the Father And Multitudes of Texts might be quoted for it as the Second of the Acts ver 24 30. The Fifth Chapter of the same ver 26 30. The Tenth ver 40. The Seventeenth ver 31. The Tenth to the Romans ver 9. The First to the Corinthians chap. 6. ver 14 c. We know well enough that they who make it their Business to degrade our Saviour below his most exalted Dignity and Station do make use of these Texts for such their Purpose But we know withal that there are other Texts tho' indeed not so many and some of them when compared with their Context not so Categorical which yet ascribe his Resurrection to himself Such is that in the Second Chapter of St. John v. 19. Destroy this Temple and in three Days I will raise it up And so again in the Tenth of St. John v. 18. No Man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Now as we made it out just now that after the Expiation finished he had a Right to rise from the Dead so we do not at all question but that he had a Power to raise himself too But tho' it should be allowed as we do not at all question and that too from several Things already laid down and made good but that it may be proved But I say tho' it should be allowed that he had both a Right and a Power to raise himself from the Dead yet notwithstanding that it was not altogether so congruous or agreeable to the equitable Proceedings of Justice that he should exercise such his Power or put himself into the possession of such his Right in the present Case For because he had submitted to offer his Life an Expiatory Sacrifice to the Divine Justice for the Sin of Man he had by such his Submission so far resigned such his Right and Power into the Hand of God as that both by the Laws of Reason and Justice as well as by the Rules of Decency and Congruity God was now become the sole Judge of the Validity of such his Sacrifice for the Accomplishment of the designed Expiation And if God was the sole Judge of the Validity of his Sacrifice he had by the same Means the rightful and I may add the sole Power of declaring such Validity And because the Resurrection of our Saviour from the Dead was in effect such a Declaration therefore we may now be satisfied why the Holy Ghost does so very frequently and in a manner constantly ascribe the Resurrection of our Saviour in the Scriptures to God alone To which we may add That the High-Priest under the Law who in this very Case was a Type of our Saviour was obliged once a Year to enter into the Holy of Holies but as the Author to the Hebrews words it not without Blood which he offered for himself and for the Errors of the People In which Case it must be confessed that the offering of the Blood to God was in order to his acceptance and that God's acceptance of the Blood that is of the Life of the Sacrifice was the Ratification of that Expiation that was made by such Sacrifice And in deed and truth our Saviour in the Business now before us being both the Priest and the Sacrifice to God for the Sins of Man and his Resurrection being the first Testimony or Declaration of the Acceptance of such his Sacrifice We cannot in any Congruity suppose that such Testimony or Declaration should be ascribed to any other but to God alone And therefore as all those Texts which ascribe our Saviour's Resurrection to God do in this Case speak strictly and properly so we may now by what has been said perceive that they are no Prejudice to his Divinity because he having obliged himself to offer that Body to which his Deity was united a Sacrifice for Sin he had by the same Act obliged himself to expect from God the Approbation and Allowance of such his Sacrifice and therefore also to receive from him his Resurrection which was an effectual Declaration of such Allowance And therefore 2. I do offer it to Consideration That the Resurrection of our Saviour from the Dead was an undoubted Argument that he had finished and compleated that Expiation which he had undertaken to make by his Death for the Sins of Men. For as we are assured by the Scriptures that he was crucified dead and buried and so that he died the Death of a Criminal So we are assured by the same Scriptures that he did not die for his own Crimes For it is utterly impossible and that too in the Nature of the Thing that he should die for his own Sins who yet did no Sin neither was Guile found in his Mouth that is who had no Sins of his own to die for Now because we are taught by the Scriptures and as we have already made it out because our Reason guided by them does fall in with them and so both do tell us that the Wages of Sin is Death that is that there is a Natural Justice in the Case that Death should be inflicted as the Punishment of Sin And because we are assured by the same Natural Reason that it must needs be unjust to inflict the same Punishment upon an Innocent Person which is the just Punishment of a Criminal I say for this Reason we may be satisfied that our Saviour tho' he was in himself a Lamb without Spot yet did die for some Sins or others be those Sins whose they will at present And therefore because the Spirit of God has by his express Word told us that he died for our Sins we may upon his Testimony rest satisfied that so he did Thus far therefore we have advanced towards our present Purpose and Argument That Death was what the Law threatned for our Sins and that we being Sinners and so having incurred the Vengeance threatned
our Saviour who as we have shewed had an absolute and uncontroulable Power to dispose of his own Life as he himself pleased did put himself in our stead became a Sacrifice for us and so in his own Person suffered that Death which we by our Sins had deserved But then to the making good of our present Proposition we add That as he suffered Death for the Expiation of our Sins so if he had not finished and compleated such Expiation he had not rose again For so long as the Guilt remained so long the Punishment was and that too in Justice to be continued For in such Case there had been the same Reason for the Continuation of the Punishment that there was for its first Infliction And therefore as it was first inflicted for a Guilt so it must have been continued for the Continuation of such Guilt From which we do infer That if he was justly acquitted from the Continuation of the Punishment then he was also acquitted from the Guilt and if he was justly acquitted from the Guilt that then he had by his Punishment made a sufficient Expiation for it And that he was acquitted from the Punishment due to the Guilt and that he was justly acquitted too the Resurrection singly and by it self will make out an undoubted and uncontroulable Argument For our natural and common Sense does assure us that a Resurrection to Life is an Acquittance and Discharge from Death And Reason will tell us that because a Discharge from Death can only come from God and because God cannot but be just therefore that Acquittance and Discharge that is made by a Resurrection must needs be just too And therefore from the Whole we may infer That the Resurrection of our Saviour from that Death which he suffered as the Punishment of our Sins was a demonstrative Argument and Proof that by his Death he had paid a sufficient Ransom and had made a sufficient Expiation for such Sins So that strictly speaking in his Death consisted the Punishment of our Sins in the Infinite Value of his Death consisted the Expiation of our Sins and in the Resurrection appears the full Proof and Evidence of such his Expiation Before we part with this Head it may not be improper to take notice that because his Death was of infinite Value that therefore there was a sufficient Ransom paid for our Sins by that Death so soon as it was suffered For it must be confessed that the Ransom was then made when the Debt was paid And because that is Truth and Justice we do from thence infer That our Saviour might and that justly too have resumed his Life so soon as he had laid it down And so he might for any thing that Justice can offer to the contrary have descended alive from the Cross after he had once died upon it Nor needed his Resurrection in point of Justice to have been deferred to the third Day but might had God so pleased have been caused on the first But tho' it might justly have been done so yet we do not find that it was actually so done for the Scriptures tell us that he did not rise till the third Day From whence we observe That as he died to save Man from Sin so he did for some time continue in a State of Death to satisfie and assure us that he did so die And so as his Death had a regard to God's Justice so his Continuance so long under the Power of Death had a regard to our Faith The first was the Purchase of our Salvation The last was our Assurance of and therefore also our Comfort in such a Purchase By which we may understand that his Love was expressed to us even in the Grave and tho' as the Psalmist speaks no Man remembreth God in the Pit yet we may hence learn that even in the Pit our God both can and has remembred us We may also under this Head take notice That as our Saviour had never died at all as we observed before because he himself was perfectly Innocent if he had not by his own Choice put himself in the stead and so exposed himself to the Punishment of the Guilty so we may be confident that he whose Innocence was so singular and illustrious as not to be in the least tarnished whilst he inhabited in mortal Flesh and Blood must now that Flesh and Blood is spiritualized see the First to the Corinthians chap. 15. ver 44. be rather the more free if that were possible from all possibility of Stain or Guilt And we may be secure that if his glorified Body shall ever live free from Sin it shall for that single Reason if yet there were no other live free from Death too So true is that of the Apostle in the Sixth to the Romans ver 9. that Christ being raised from the Dead dieth no more Death hath no more Dominion over him and that in the Revelations I am he that was dead and am alive and live for evermore So that the Victory which our Saviour obtained over Death by his Resurrection cannot so well be looked upon as a single Conquest since it is to extend it self to all Successions of Ages and Time and is to last when Time shall be no more that is for ever and ever 3. As our Saviour by his Resurrection did so far subdue Death as to obtain to himself a future and secure Immortality so also he did by the same Resurrection so far subdue Death as to secure a future and glorious Resurrection to all those who are so far planted into the likeness of his Death as to be dead to Sin and alive to God For if we live to him while we live here we may from his Resurrection have a comfortable Assurance that notwithstanding we die for a time as he did yet we shall be raised again and live with him for evermore To this purpose we must recollect that when he died he did not die for his own Sins but for ours And then if in his Death he laid down his Life in our stead we may be easily satisfied that it was in our stead that he took it up again at his Resurrection For if our Guilt had not been cancelled and so our Debt discharged by his Death then his Death as we observed under the last Head had been continued still And as then we did conclude that he had therefore satisfied the Debt because he was released from the Penalty so now we do conclude that because the Debt so discharged was ours and not his own therefore the Benefit of the Release must redound to us as well as to him For it must needs be unjust in the Creditor to detain us in Prison for that Debt which our Surety has paid And because we know that the Creditor in the present Case is God himself and because we know also that such a Creditor can do no Injustice therefore we know that as when our Saviour laid down his
expiate its own Sin both which we have already shewed to be impossible Therefore it was necessary that as our Saviour in order to his undertaking the Expiation of Sin should be a real Man a Creature so that he should be more than a Creature in order to the accomplishing of such his Undertaking For tho' by becoming Man he did accommodate his Condition to his Design of undertaking an Expiation as we have just now seen yet for all that his Humanity had sunk under but but had not taken away the Burden had it not been supported by his Divinity For that that crushes both Angels and Men and that too while they cope against it only with their own Strength beyond the possibility of a Recovery must for the same Reason have crushed him also when once he had put himself in Man's stead and by consequence into Man's Condition had he not been endowed with a Power superiour to both to enable him to subdue and conquer it And what Power but that of God can we think sufficient to conquer Sin and Death and that too when they had got to such an heighth as to have infected and over-run the whole Race of Mankind Can we think that when the Contagion and Mischief had spread it self so wide that even the best of Men and those whose Graces are chiefly celebrated by the Spirit of God himself could not preserve themselves from the overflowing Inundation I say can we think that in such a Case any one single Man were he no more than a Man could have saved himself from the universal Mischief by the Strength of his own Resolution or Vertue And if in Reason we must think that he could not then how can we in Reason think that his Strength should be sufficient to rescue and save all the Rest No! Such Salvation belongs only to the Arm of God and He who can save from Sin Death and Hell and can over and above extend such Salvation over all the Earth and that too through all the successive Generations of Mankind that ever did or ever shall live upon the Earth must be God and God alone The Extensive Merit therefore of the Death and Sufferings of the Man Christ Jesus derives it self from the Infinite Dignity of Jesus the Son of God For had not this Jesus been the Son of God as well as the Son of Man he had never been the Saviour of Man And if there be not Salvation in any other as in effect the whole Book of God does tell us it may seem inconceivable how this Seed of the Woman should extend this Salvation and so break the Serpent's Head from the Days of Adam to the Consummation of all Things unless all Things were in his Disposal that is unless he were God No! He who considers the Thing seriously and wisely may be satisfied not only by the Scriptures but by his own Reason also that there is the same Mercy and the same Power required to redeem sinful Man that was required to make Man and that He only who did the first can do the last And therefore as we are taught by God that all Things were made by his Word so are we also that this Word was made Flesh and that by being so made he became to us after we were dead in Trespasses and Sins the Word of Life From all which and a great deal more that might be offered both from Reason and from Revelation some of which Things we have already spoken to and some of which we shall have occasion to speak to hereafter we may be not only informed but assured That the great Merit of our Saviour's Expiation made for Sin by his Death and Passion did arise from hence that his Divinity was personally united to that Body which underwent such Death or that nothing less than the Death of the Son of God could expiate that Death which the Law had denounced against the Sin of Man But because these Thing will appear in a more full and clear Light in the farther Prosecution of our Design therefore we here leave them for a while and proceed For it having appeared as to Matter of Fact and that too by most express Declarations of Scripture that our Saviour was made an Expiatory Sacrifice for Sin and it having also appeared that he did by his Incarnation accommodate his Condition to the making good of such Expiation and that too in a Way very agreeable to our Natural Sense and Reason The next Thing to be spoken to is the Matter of Right or whether or no he could make such Expiation in Justice But before we proceed to speak to That it will be proper that we make some Inferences of weight and moment from what has been already spoken And 1. By what has been said it appears plainly That tho' our Saviour made good the Purchase of our Redemption by his Death and Resurrection yet that such his Purchase shall not be fully made over to us till our own Resurrection That he made good the Purchase his Resurrection is a Demonstration For because the Wages of Sin is Death and because he died for our Sins and not for his own and because after such his Death he rose again and because such his Resurrection was a Discharge from the Penalty of those Sins for which he died I say from all these Things it is evident that he accomplished his designed Purchase that is he made good his Expiation by his Death and Resurrection But then on the other side because it is most certain that we are not redeemed from the Curse or Penalty of the Law till we are redeemed from Death and because we are not redeemed from Death till we rise from the Dead that is till our own Resurrection therefore it is as evident that till such our Resurrection we are not put into the Possession of such his Purchase And therefore strictly speaking no Man be he who he will is â—actually justified in this Life For because every Man that lives shall certainly die and because Death is the Penalty threatned to Sin by the Law it therefore grates too hard upon our common Sense to tell us that any Man is then justified when he is not only liable to the Vengeance of the Law but when he is also sure in a little time to undergo such Vengeance If therefore any Man be according to a Gospel-estimate of Righteousness a righteous or good Man we may upon that Account say and we shall say true that he is in a justifiable Condition but we cannot truly say that he is a justified Person Justification then in the Execution belongs to a future Life and not to this And when we shall come to discourse on the second Thing contained in a Gospel-Salvation which is a Restitution to Holiness and the Consequent of it the Gift of Eternal Life we shall then be more fully satisfied that Justification cannot belong to any Man in this World because no Man in this
whether there be any Injustice in this whole Transaction that will readily tell us that if there be any such Thing as Injustice in it that Injustice must be attributed to some of the Persons concerned in it For in this Case it is not sufficient to say that the Transaction either in the Whole or in any Part of it is unjust unless we do particularly assign that Person engaged in it to whom that Injustice does belong For all Injustice in Matters of Fact must be ascribed to some Person or other And no Injustice in any Matter of Fact whatsoever can be truly ascribed to any Person whomsoever if that Person be supposed to have nothing to do in that Matter of Fact Now in the Case as it is put there are as we observed just now no other Persons concerned but God our Saviour and our selves If therefore the Thing prove to be as by the Revelations of God it will be found to prove that we Sinners are reconciled to God by the Sufferings Death and Merit of our Saviour and so are pardoned for our Sins then it will follow that if there be any Injustice in the Case that Injustice must be either ascribed to God to our Saviour or to our selves Now there cannot possibly be any Injustice in us because we are purely passive in the Case For so far forth as we are forgiven and that is as far as we are concerned most certainly we are so And we may be very sure that Reason will never tell any Man that he is therefore a Criminal because he receives a great Blessing from God and least of all will it tell him that it is a Sin in him to receive from God the Pardon of his Sins And I dare not so far question the Modesty of any Christian as to suppose that they will fix any Injustice in the present Case either upon God or upon our Saviour And therefore because no Injustice can be charged upon any of the Persons concerned in the whole Affair therefore if we be but once satisfied that God himself has told us in his Word that the Affair was so managed as most certainly so he has told us then the Conclusion at last must be that there was no Injustice in it at all I say I am satisfied that this would be the way of Reasoning to a sober and modest Christian and that this would be good and satisfactory if Men would with Modesty and Humility bring their Rational Sentiments to comply with the Scriptures and not industriously struggle to force the Scriptures to comply with their own prejudicate Opinions or Surmises For in a Thing of that Depth and Counsel as is the Redemption of Mankind I am sure it is much more safe as well as more modest to comply with the Declarations of God whose Counsel and Work it is and that too especially where as we have seen a sober and modest Reason falls in with and approves such his Declarations than by a more refined way of Reasoning and a more tedious and intricate Deduction of Consequences where any little Flaw or Mistake may spoil the whole Concatenation and at long run determine in Deceit and Fallacy downright to controul and contradict such Declarations For God is our best and most sure Guide in all things And then when he professedly undertakes to be so and that too in such Things that our Natural Reason knows nothing of without such his Guidance it would be the best Use that we can possibly make of such our Reason in all such Cases to follow his Conduct For in this very Case God has himself told us that he has confounded the Wisdom of the Wise For Christ crucified was to the Jews a Stumbling-block and to the Greeks Foolishness And it has before our Days been thought very good Reason that he therefore could not save others because he could not save himself Tho' I cannot persuade my self to doubt but that That and all other Methods of Reasoning that attempt to make out the Injustice of his Suffering in our stead or any other ways to evacuate the Merit and Purchase of his Blood will in the conclusion prove frivolous and empty and that they will be found light even in the Balance of Reason it self But to carry this Business a little farther As we have made it out that sober and sound Reason will warrant the Justice of Man's Redemption if it was so managed as we have laid it down so that it was so managed we may be as much assured by the Word of God as we may of any other Thing contained in that Word And hence we are told that God made our Saviour to become Sin for us who knew no Sin 2 Cor. 5. ult That he reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ in the Eighteenth Verse of the same Chapter He tells us also that he was reconciling the World to himself not imputing their Trespasses unto them in the Verse immediately following And that we may be assured that God does all this in Consideration of our Saviour's Death and Passion we are told in one Place that he died for our Sins in another that the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all Sin in a third that being justified by his Blood we shall be saved from Wrath through him All which with a great deal more to the same import that might be alledged amounts to thus much That our Saviour took upon himself our Sins and in our stead died for them and that thereupon God pardoned such our Sins and was reconciled to us Now because God himself tells us such a thing and that too in as plain and express Words as any thing can possibly be told in we may be very sure that what is so told is plain and open Truth And because at the same time he tells us that what was so done was done by himself we may moreover be sure that what was so done was just and right However thus far we are certain that if in the present Case we will be contented to be determined by the Word of God that then there neither are nor can be any Laws of Justice that can hinder our Saviour's Suffering in our stead in order to our obtaining the Pardon of our Sins by such his Suffering The Answer then to what shall be alledged against such Justice we shall defer to the next Chapter Only before we break off here we cannot but take notice that the Doctrine of our Saviour's Expiation as it has in part already and will more fully hereafter appear to have more Truth in it than what is alledged against it so also it will appear to have more Comfort For if there be no other Name whereby we must be saved it must needs be very imprudent at least to refuse to admit our own Salvation in and by him And it is a Doubt at least whether they who deny his Expiation the Purchase of his Blood and the Forgiveness of Sins in
of the Love of God in the Effusions of such Joy and Delight such agreeable Transports and Ecstasies as shall fill the utmost Capacities of his Chosen ones and shall therefore exceed their Hopes and Wishes because their first Knowledge of such their Happiness can only come from their Experience of it and that Experience alone will fully answer to and gratifie their Self-love 7. Lastly The Love of the glorified Saints to God will be still further augmented and indeed receive its full Complement and Perfection by their Assurance that all that Happiness of which they stand possessed at present shall be eternal For a Fear of a Failure for the future may dash the Relish of the highest Enjoyment for the present and our Satisfaction in the Possession of any Good Thing be it what it will must needs be abated if it be accompanied with a Doubt of its Continuance But Happiness with Security must needs be compleat and perfect Nay it must be so much the more compleat and perfect because tho the Continuance of Happiness be future yet the Assurance of such Continuance is present and by such Assurance we do in some Degree compendiously and at the same time enjoy both our present and our future Happiness Now the Blessed in Glory may therefore be secure of the Eternity of their Happiness because God's Love stands immutably engaged to their Holiness forasmuch as such their Holiness is indefectible and eternal For where that is eternal his Love most certainly is so too To conclude in a few Words Our Love of our selves makes us desire to be happy But it must be our Love of something else that must make us so For if the Love of our selves could of it self make us happy then it could not for that Reason engage us to desire to be so And nothing can conduce to our Happiness much less can any thing compleat it but what is entertained by our Love When therefore we fix our Love upon that which will answer the Desires of our Self-love we may then be sure that we love that which may make us happy and when we come to possess and enjoy that which we so love we may be sure that we shall be happy and if our Enjoyment of it be securely eternal we may then be farther assured that we shall be always so And that our perfect Love of God and our Enjoyment of his Love and Favour will bring all these things to pass we hope our foregoing Discourse has made good 1. Now if the Happiness of our future State in Glory shall come from our Love of God and his Love of us then this should teach us to have a care that we do not make our selves unfit for the Happiness of Heaven by our Uncharitableness whilst we live here upon Earth For the Love of God will hardly be perfected in that Man who does not love his Neighbour For He who loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how shall he love God whom he hath not seen And he who does not love God here how shall his Love to him be perfected hereafter For that that is not can never be made perfect And he whose Love to God shall never be made perfect how shall he be ever made happy For there can be no Happineâ—s no not in Heaven it self without our perfect Love of God It is remarkable that our Saviour when he taught his Disciples to pray tho' he taught them to pray for several Things yet annexes a Condition to that Petition alone by which they were to bâ—g Forgiveness of their Sins and afterwards gives them a Reason for his so doing because if they forgive not Men their Trespasses neither will their Father who is in Heaven forgive them their Trespasses By which we may understand that as we shall not be admitted into Heaven unless we be made like to God and as we shall not be admitted into Heaven unless God does forgive us our Sins so neither shall we be admitted into Heaven unless we be in this like to God that we do forgive their Sins to others In one Word the malicious ill-natur'd and uncharitable Man is one of the worst Companions in the World For he is very apt to do it always and for the most part actually does make all People uneasie where he comes and from thence we may be satisfied that he is very unlikely to come in for a Share of that Happiness which consists in Love And for that Reason we may be satisfied also that till he lays aside his Uncharitableness it will be impossible that he should be made Partaker of the Happiness of the Blessed 2. If our eternal Happiness must come from our ardent and eternal Love of God and Holiness then we should have a care that we do not place our Religion and by consequence our Hopes of eternal Happiness in such Things which have no real Holiness in them For it is a very great Mistake which yet perhaps runs thro all Sorts of Christians to think that such Things that are not good and holy will for ever make them happy For too many People do place not only their Religion but their Zeal for it too in such little and in themselves insignificant Observances and Practices which may be done or may be let alone and yet all the while they themselves be never the more either religious or holy For what Holiness for Instance can the Confession of the Sinner or the Absolution of the Priest confer upon that Man who has no other Design in his Confession but that he may go on to sin upon a new Score and so continue his Sin with a better Relish and with the less Reluctance Or What Holiness can the strict Observance of the Sabbath beget in that Man who therefore only obliges himself to a greater Severity upon that Day that he may by that Means compound with his Conscience for his fraudulent Dealings or his profligate and vicious Life all the rest of the Week Or How can any Man be the more holy because he lists himself under this or that Party or Sect when all the while he takes no care to do what God commands or to avoid what God forbids No! no! Holiness is a real Thing tho' it be not the Object of our Senses And this Thing only lodges in that Heart which by an humble Obedience conforms it self to God's Will and which by hearkning to his Voice is conformed to his Likeness And if any Man thinks to become Holy by any other Means he does but deceive his own Soul and by a fond and foolish Imagination exclude himself from that Happiness which shall only be bestowed upon those who shall be made like to him who is most happy that is who shall be holy as he is holy All they then who would make themselves happy must take care that they make themselves holy They must I say do so and they must be pleased that they have so done For he only