Iniquities and these very Sins and Iniquities not made his or accounted his by Imputation §. VI. In Page 7. O! how doth the Rebuker fly out against this Sentence of the Reporter By this blessed change Christ is made Sin and Curse and we delivered from Sin and Curse as if the Reporter had imposed the Turkish Alcoran on our Faith whereas he no where denies the Order of the Gospel for our enjoying the Blessedness of our being delivered from Sin and the Curse viz. the intervening of Faith and Repentance And yet this the Rebuker calls Learning to quibble at Cambridge Sure this is not a Stile becoming a Grave Learned Instructor of Souls and yet the Rebuker cannot refrain his own Quibbles dish'd up with much Tartness calling the Reporter's Substance of the Gospel A superfaetation of Articles spawning of Creeds equipping Confessions every Campaign O! whither will not a fertile Fancy transport a Man that prefers his Wit before his Master Christ's Humility §. VII The great Objection comes in Page 9. about the Change of Persons between Christ and Sinners The Rebuker owns there was a Change of Christ for Sinners but denies that Christ took the Person of Sinners But if we read John 17. there we may find for our Comfort in Christ's Prayer Christ saith Thine they were thou gavest them me and I am glorified in them that they may be one in us Is not this taking their Persons into Oneness with himself And v. 23. I in them and thou in me that the World may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me And how can we be said to be Crucified with Christ to be Buried with him Risen with him if he took not our Persons He hath made us sit in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus It is not said only with him but in him Surely then Christ hath taken the Persons of Elect Sinners into himself and to deny this looks like denying being chosen in him from all Eternity and real Union to him and Incorporation in him in time §. VIII In Page 10. the Rebuker seems to swerve very much from the Orthodox in his opposing the Terms laid down and contradicts them very Dogmatically and in the place of that which he calls the Reporters Terms of Art he gives us his Sense concerning the Change of Persons All that the Case of Sinners required for Satisfaction to Divine Justice was a Substitute or Sacrifice to be offered for our Sins for the Substitute to take on him the PVNISHMENT due to them That 's all he allows not the Sins not the Guilt not the Offence only Punishment that 's all that Justice requires But to take on him the Person of Sinners as the Phrase is new and uncouth so it 's to me unintelligible till they who have invented it shall interpret it O! that Men were wise to Sobriety and not in effect to tax the Holy God with speaking uncouth new unintelligible Things 'T is evidently not true that the Term is new how uncouth or unintelligible soever it may be to some who will repel Scripture Truths Will any pretend to teach the Most High how to speak of our Sins laid on Christ by saying he only bare the Punishment due to them and that 's all that our Case required God saith expresly The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all and he shall bear their iniquities Their very Iniquities it was And he bare their Sins iii his own Body on the Tree Our very Sins our very Iniquities And is all this dwindled to nothing but the Punishment due to them Bearing Sin is in Deed and Truth if God say true bearing Sin 't is not bearing Punishment that follows bearing Sin Bearing Punishment is a word invented to nullifie Christ's bearing our Sins and so to evacuate the Gospel For if Christ bare not the Sins as well as the Punishment the Sins must lye on the Sinner to all Eternity For Sin being once committed must be born by us or our Surety I can find but lew Texts where Christ is said to bear Punishment due to Sin but through Infinite Rich Grace many Texts of Divine Truth shew that he bare Sins and did them away In bearing the Chastisement of our peace he bare our very Sorrows and Griefs which is more than bare Punishment due for Sin §. IX But this is new uncouth and unintelligible that Christ should take on him the Person of Sinners till they interpret it who invented it For this we may raise the Dead without a Miracle to prove the Expression though not the Invention of it that being Time out of mind I at present omit Calvin and Luther Twiss and Davenant Men of great Name and propose the Famous Dr. Harris who was an Eminent Member of the Assembly in 1642 and in opposition to the Poor Presbyterians as the Rebuker calls Mr. Williams and his Friends though the said Doctor was an Honourable one he saith plainly Christ sustained the Person of a Sinner in his Treatise fol. 215 thus Christ he stood in our room and sustained the Person of a Sinner though in himself sinless I add saith Dr. Harris if this were not true that Christ sustained the Person of a Sinner how could God punish him So that this uncouth and unintelligible saying was not only intelligible to this Learned Doctor but is by him well interpreted by his Question Else how could God punish him if he sustained not the Persons of Sinners in himself As much as to say God could not justly punish Christ if our New Neonomian Doctrine be true That Christ bare only the Punishment due for Sins that he did not bear the Sins the very Sins the very Iniquities of his People Now saith this Doctor he was so far from not bearing their very Sins that he bare their Persons which surely must include their Sins and all the horrid Appurtenances belonging to them But well may this be unintelligible to such as call Mr. Cole's Works Mysterious Nonsense What then is the great Armah's saying fol. 192. in the Sum of Christian Religion Our very Nature Body and Soul being coupled to the Body and Soul of Christ Is not this unintelligible But saith the Rebuker This new Phrase that Christ took on him the Person of Sinners is a Phrase to puzzle and confound Mens Vnderstandings Answer So doth the whole Doctrine of the Gospel do to some Understandings As that we should be Righteous by the Righteousness of another that we should be Christ s Delight from all Eternity before we had a Being Prov. 8. How may that of the Apostle confound a Man I live not I but Christ in me I sin not I but Sin that dwells in me and we were planted in the likeness of his Death our Old Man crucified when With Christ we are dead to the Law how By the Body of Christ What Nonsense and puzzling Stuff is this to the Natural Understanding Was I in being when Christ was Crucified No How then
Eph. 5.30 And he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Is not this one Spirit one Person Is the blessed Holy Spirit the Third Person in the Trinity Is he a Person and are not Christ and his believing Members becoming one Spirit are they not become thereby one Person Why else are they called Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 Is this novel uncooth and unintelligible to my Dear Kratiste a Master in Israel Need Christ and they go into his Mothers Womb to become one Person §. XLVII As for Legal Vnion before Faith I know of none unless he means a faederal Union such as Children of believing Parents have or bare nominal Christians have Sure these may be distinguish'd without Offence from such as have a Mystical Union by Faith without any Heresie attending it Thus we conclude the 21 Antinomian Heresies which have met with a Presbyterian Lash as the Great Apostle Paul did with the like from the Jews They appear not so formidable as the Neonomians would make them but rather some of them shine forth with brighter clearness for great Gospel-Truths by their being so set forth This I am comfortably satisfied in that God hath by the late Abuse put on Evangelical Truths held out by the branded Dr. Crisp Mr. Cole and many others he hath inlightened many Souls thereby and I wait in assured hope that God will in his blessed time which is hastening make the Light of the Sun of Righteousness shining in the Gospel to be as the Light of seven Days when Men will not put Light for Darkness and Darkness for Light Which the Good Lord for the sake of thy dying and interceding Son our Lord Jesus do thou hasten §. XLVIII In the mean time to our grave Rebuker I say Kratiste Theophile most excellent Sir take heed you be not a Theomaikos a Fighter against God while you design to justifie a Man whom you cannot vindicate with Honour till he renounce some Expressions in his Books which fight directly against the Gospel especially that Soul-endangering one in his Preface to Gospel-Truth stated which is this I affirm that the Righteousness of God Phil. 3.9 principally intends the Gospel-Holiness of a Person justified by Christ's Righteousness Which is an Interpretation that is directly opposite to all sound Protestants Judgments From such Interpreters of a Gospel-Truth the Lord in Mercy deliver all his People and from being a Champion for such an Interpreter the Lord deliver the Rebuker and all his 49 Vouchers §. XLIX In Page 27 he bewails the Case and saith And thus the Breach became beyond the Vnited Brethrens making up He means I suppose beyond their Power of making up that is because these Antinomian Heresies were not recanted And no wonder that it was beyond their Power to make up the breach that these Points made for how can Truth and Error coalesce If the Poor Presbyterians as he calls them do insist on the renouncing these 21 Doctrines as Heresies which have much of the Marrow of the Gospel in them as appears from plain Scripture and sound Authors already quoted they may enjoy their Repose in their own benighted Sentiments but may not imagine that they who are clearlyer inlightened in the Mysteries of the Gospel having tasted the good old Wine of God's Everlasting Love of Electing them in Christ that they will come to the new Wine of a pretended New Law given them by Christ That we performing Gospel-Obedience with our sincere indeavours to fulfil that New Law of Faith Love Repentance Holiness and perseverance therein this though imperfect in its self shall be accepted instead of perfect by Vertue of the Righteousness and Merits of our Lord Jesus Which in effect is to say that we are not saved by Grace but Christ hath merited that we should save our selves §. L. That this is their meaning appears by what Mr. Williams who seems to be their general Mouth has said in his Preface to Man made Righteous by Christ's Obedience Where he rebukes his Antinomians for owning no Law of God that admitted of faulty Obedience and by way of Contempt to Mr. Cole c. he saith They own no Law but the Law of Works which admitted nothing short of perfect sinless Obedience So that he looks on it as an horrid Error to hold that no Law is given by God that admitted of Obedience that had Sin in it Which shews plainly that they hold that God has set up a Law in the room of the Moral Law and that this their New Law which they have invented for God and wretchedly impute to God it doth admit of Sin in the Obedience to it than which there cannot be a more horrid Affront offered to the Holy God viz. That God should set up a Law that allows Sin Now if contradicting such Doctrine as this is accounted Antinomianism then to be freed from their Slanders we must rob God of his Honour nay deny him to be God to comply with their Doctrine of charging on God his making a Law that allows Sin in our Obedience to it For I dare be bold to say in Contradiction to such an Assertion and in Zeal to the pure Holy Nature of God God never did nay never can and that 's a bold word but true if God be God and Holiness his Nature he never can make a Law that admits of any thing but Sinless Obedience For God saith he cannot behold Iniquity and for any Man or number of Men or for any Angels of Heaven to talk at that rate for God to make a Law that admits of Sin let him be accursed To talk of a Law that admits of Sin is to make the Maker of such a wooden Law to be little better than a wooden God It is enough to make ones Flesh to tremble and Spirit rise into a rage against the bold strokes of some Ungodly Pens that corrupt the Gospel and Minds of Men to talk of a Law of the Holy God that admits any thing of Sin Mr. Williams and his Justifiers have subscribed to the Assemblies Confession of Faith and they say upon the Head of Repentance There is no Sin so small but it deserves Damnation and they justifie it by that Scripture The Wages of Sin is Death But our Neonomians our new-New-Law Men bring in God making a Law that admits of Faulty Obedience or Obedience that is not Sinless which is all one with Faulty Obedience Now my Dear Kratiste this Man's Champion pray where is this accounted for And if not how can it be expected that the Breach between the Orthodox and these should be made up Offences will come but woe to that Man by whom they come To such a Man as would impose a Law allowing Sinning Obedience And if Sinning then it hath Sin in it and if so and that the Assembly say right from the Wages of Sin being Death the least Sin never so small deserves Damnation then they will bring in God making a Law in complying with
Perfection in himself in that he owns all the Sins of Believers to be his Sins as in Psal 40.7 compared with the 12th Verse he saith Lo I come to do thy will O God Then it follows Mine Iniquities have taken hold of me so that I am not able to look up They are more than the hairs of mine head This is spoken by our Lord Jesus as is plain in Heb. 10.9 here he owns they are his Iniquities How were they his but as he sustained the Persons of all the Elect and so was a reputed Criminal in their stead and their Sins being by the Lord laid on him he takes them on himself as his own Iniquities and saith They are more than the Hairs of his Head And again in Psal 69.4 5. Christ saith Then I restored that which I took not away O God thou knowest my Foolishness and my Sins are not hid from thee Then it follows The Zeal of thine House hath eaten me up Which is plain of Christ So that our Foolishness and Sins being laid on him he calls them his and saith right for they were really his though but by Imputation as a Debt is really a Sureties though he be but a Surety yet that 's enough and so our Lord Jesus found it when he was in his Agony Sweating clodders of Blood and on the Cross crying My God why c. sure he did not cry out so terribly for faultless Sin but as a reputed Criminal for real Sin laid on him §. XXV The Fourth Heresie as he calls it is As to the Elect there never was any Guilt upon them in respect of the Righteous Judgment of God in foro Dei but that which accompanied the Letter of the Law setting in with Conscience Where he pick'd up this Offensive passage he shews not but that it goes among his abominable Doctrines this he declares Now how far this is Heresie we will at present only consult Famous Twiss who was no Antinomian and see what he says of Pardon in the sight of God before Faith nay from Eternity as it was an Immanent Act of God Twiss de Electione Sect. 25. Fol. 294. he proves Forgiveness to be before Faith even at Christ's Death nay from Eternity His words are these Quanam erit illa peccatorum remissio quae fidem consequitur This is his Question then he answers as follows Remissio enim peccatorum si Quidditatem inspicias nihil aliud est quam aut punitionis negatio aut volitionis puniendi negatio sit ergo peccata remittere nihil aliud quam nolle punire at hoc nolle punire ut actus immanens in Deo fuit ab aeterno nec fidem consequitur nec Spiritus Sancti operatione in nobis terminare deprehenditur Quod vero operatione Spiritus Sancti nobis hac parte per fidem contingit aliud esse non poterat quam SENSVS Gratiae Dei Ex quibus conficitur non potentialem tantum sed actualem peccatorum remissionem Christum morte suâ à Patre impetrasse nobis paucis concludimus immediatam mortis Christi effectionem esse expiationem Peccatorum Sive pro peccatis plenariam Satisfactionem quae quidem nobis non innotescit nisi per Fidem Spiritus Sancti operationem Which is to this purpose What is that Forgiveness of Sins which follows Faith Which he answers thus Forgiveness of Sins if you consider the Quiddity or Essence of it is nothing else but either a denying of Punishment or denying a Will to punish Therefore to remit or forgive Sins is nothing else but not to will to punish Now this not to will to punish as it is an immanent Act in God it was from Eternity neither doth it follow Faith neither is it held to terminate by the Operation of the Holy Spirit in us but what belongs to us by the Operation of the Holy Spirit in this matter can be nothing else but a SENSE of the Grace of God from which it is gathered not a Potential only but also an Actual Remission of Sins Christ obtained of the Father for us at his Death In short We conclude the immediate Effect of Christ's Death to be Expiation of Sins or a full Satisfaction for Sins which truly is not made known to us but by Faith and the Operation of the Holy Spirit Here you see this Famous Doctor evacuates your charging it to be an Antinomian Heresie to say in foro Dei there never was Guilt on the Elect in respect of God's Righteous Judgment and to make good your Charge I hope you will not call him an Heterodox Apochryphal Antinomian §. XXVI His fifth Heresie he charges as Antinomian is that Vnion to Christ is before Faith at least Naturâ and we partake of the Spirit by vertue of that Vnion It is to admiration that this firm solid Truth should be called Heresie Can any thing be more clear than that Faith is a Fruit of Union to Christ unless it be a dead Faith Can a Branch bring out Grapes before it is united to the Vine Christ Jesus Doth he not say Without me you can do nothing I would ask whence can a living Faith come but from Vnion to Jesus Christ Can it spring out of corrupt Nature and so bring us to Christ A dead Branch may be tyed to the Vine but a living Branch grows out of the Vine The Apostle was of the mind that Christ first takes hold of us before we can by Faith take hold of him according to Phil. 3.12 I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which I am also apprehended of Christ Jesus Here he was first apprehended of Christ as Dr. Manton told us well at Pinners-Hall and from thence infer'd as well he might that all that partake of Christ are first apprehended of him and so he unites himself to them before they can act Faith on him which is their apprehending him They must make Christians to be Monsters that make them to live as Members of Christ by Faith before they are united to him How can a Man possibly that is dead in Sins by Nature come to believe in Christ unless Christ comes first and quickens him by uniting himself to the Soul Hence the Apostle said It pleased God to reveal his Son in me Gal. 1.16 Till then he was a zealous persecuting Pharisee and could have not only called all Christ's Disciples Antinomians but have slaughtered them too as some now slay their Names but when Christ took hold of him and God revealed his Son in him then he conferred not with Flesh and Blood but in the way that they counted Heresie he worshipped the God of his Fathers believing what is written Acts 24.14 The second Adam is the quickening Spirit and quickens all his Seed before they can live You who were dead in Sins hath he quickned Sure here was Union of Christ to them thereby quickening them when dead in Sins before they could put forth any living Act of
standing in Christ's Person being found in him having put on Christ and his Righteousness as the Apostle Paul hath it in Phil. 3.9 who according to some Mens way of dogmatizing and making Antinomians is the King-leader of them all by saying as we frequently must quote That God made him Sin for us and us the Righteousness of God in him I must beg Pardon for casting this Salt so oft into the bitter Waters to make them sweet these two Passages into their Broth of Antinomianism and until you race them out of the Bible they will be a good defence of the Change of Persons between Christ and Sinners §. LXX These Two Pillars are the Jakin and Boaz Establishment and Strength in him that King Solomon our Lord Jesus hath erected before the Temple the Basis of the Commutation of Persons Christ made Sin for us and Righteousness to us and I am sure The Gates of Hell will never prevail against them let the Socinians or Deists or Quietists and let their Friends the Arminians be never so rampant One Athanasius one Hylary one Mr. Cole could withstand Ten Thousand Batteries and be no more shaken than a pair of Three penny Fellows can shake down the Monument and so extinguish the Memory of the Papists burning of London in 1666 witness Mr. Cole's sealing his Doctrine with Triumph at his departure dying in the Joy of what he had preach'd though by Mr. Williams called Mysterious Nonsense he saying a little before his Death in opposition to our Modern 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the resisters of the Truth Now I can spit in the Face of the Devil and so dyed in the Joy of having preach'd the Doctrine of Justification by Free Grace through Christ without any Works of ours concurring thereunto §. LXXI In Page 43 he asks Where has this Doctrine of Justification been settled all this while since the Reformation This is just copying after the Papists Where was your Religion before Luther We answer It was in the Scripture and in abundance of faithful Witnesses and so was this Doctrine in particular Read but the Apostle Paul and he 'll tell you where it was settled viz. In our being chosen in Christ before the World was and in Grace given us then in him and in Christ's being made Sin for us and the Righteousness of God to us Besides if you will read Calvin Twiss and Luther with multitudes more in your Study you will find how they settled it Antisozzo hath it in part also and why may not Dr. Tho. Goodwin come in for an Author O no now I remember a great Reason for said Kratiste he speaks in his Treatise on the Ephesians of the Spirit himself dwelling in Believers but I utterly deny it said he And I affirm said he he dwells in Believers only by his gracious Operations To which was opposed The Spirit himself witnesses with our Spirits that we are the Children of God And besides the Rebuker 't is like will say he is as dreadful an Antinomian as wild a Monster as the Dregs of it Dr. Crisp therefore I will not allow him to be an Author in this great Point of Justification for he is all for Free Grace §. LXXII He proceeds It is strange to me That Councils General and Provincial Synods Assemblies of Holy Learned Men should so oft so strenuously assert and confirm by the Word of God this great Truth and yet never once dream of Dr. Crisp ' s Commutation of Persons upon which to superstruct the Doctrine of Justification But it will appear more strange by and by I am perswaded that my Dear Kratiste with his Eagle-eyed Talent should so far over-shoot himself as to talk as if he had read all Councils and Synods c. when it will appear he has not well read our English Homilies setting forth clear Gospel-Truth in the Doctrine of the Church of England He is got into a large Field with a mighty Challenge like a Goliah defying all Councils c. to shew the Commutation of Persons He wages War under the Banner of all Councils c. as he thinks whereas one little David with a Stone out of the Brook of Life the River that makes glad the City of God one Text of Scripture will answer all his Rodomantado Challenge What if Councils c. that contract principal Articles of Faith into short Terms have not used the Doctor 's very words yet if they are consonant to Scripture one would think they may pass without such a strangeness Are there no Sentences in Antisozzo and Melius that are not in Synods and Councils and yet pass for Authentick I am confident the Doctor could not think it worth his while to tumble over the Records of all Councils c. to authorise him to speak to the Rebuker's approbation if the Scripture do but warrant him in his Change of Persons 't is enough and that is very abundant in Terms that may bear him out As where it speaks of Christ in us the hope of Glory do not we sustain his Person there or rather he being in us our hope he sustains our Persons in hope It speaks of our putting off our Sins in the circumcision of Christ Col. 3.11 which cannot be otherwise than by Christ's sustaining our Persons when he was circumcised and so our putting off our Sins is by our being in him representatively when the Fore-Skin of Christ's Flesh was cut off in order to the putting off our Sins in our Faith in a circumcised Christ It speaks of our being buried with him of our being raised in him of our being found in him What is this but a Change or Commutation of Persons I live saith the Apostle yet not I but Christ lives in me Is not this a Change of Person that answers Dr. Crisp's Commutation And yet still we are not Christ Personal but Christ Mystical and Christ was not Paul Personal but Paul and all Believers Mystical as sustaining their Persons as many Eminent Divines besides the Doctor speak without being accounted strange Monsters §. LXXIII For further Satisfaction in this great Point I refer the Rebuker to the great Pains of Dr. Chancy who hath gathered the Sentiments of very great Men among whom take this of Luther on Gal. 3.14 who saith It behoveth him to bear the Punishment and Wrath of God not for his own Person but for our Persons and so making A HAPPY CHANGE with us he took upon him our Sinful Person and gave unto us his Innocent and Victorious Person Is not this as monstrous a wild Sense as Dr. Crisp's But my Dear Kratiste hath more Sense than to call this new uncooth unintelligible Non-sense because of the great Name of Martin Luther Another of Dr. Chancy's Quotations is out of Mr. Stone of New England no Antinomian unless made so by the Rebuker he adds in the same Page 102 of Dr. Chancy There must be an Exchange between the Mediator and us 1 Tim. 2.6 There must be an
the Scripture foreseeing what distinctions and evasions would be made the Holy Ghost to fortifie and compleat the matter sums up all in the last Verse and saith He poured out his Soul unto death and he BARE the Sin of many Here is another word for bearing and the proper word it is for bearing away Chete rabbim nasa the Sin of many he bare Now put all these together and can the Wit of Man or Wisdom of Angels find out Words more plain and full more clear and nervous for Christ's bearing our Sins our very Sins The blessed Lord knowing what shifts windings and turnings would be made to evacuate to exinanitiate this great Point of Christ's being made Sin and bearing our Sins therefore in his Grace and Wisdom to stop all mouths he reiterates the Expression and delineates the matter with all the Flowery Varugation to invite our â—ttention and consent that can be imagined and so to obviate the Objections of Men of corrupt Minds that cannot endure this sound Doctrine That Christ bare our very Sins therefore the Lord saith The Loâ—d laid our Iniquity on him Hiphgiya b-o yavon and again He shall bear their Iniquities Iâ—ball yavonoth am and again His Soul was made a Sin-Offering and he bare the Sin of many All full home to the Point And that which makes it most conspicuous is God's making Christ Asham in ver 10. we render it When thou shalt make his â—oul an Offering for Sin But the Bishop knows full well that Asham in the Hebrew is the proper word for Guilt So that the strict rendring that which we make to be Thou shalt make his Soul an Offering for Sin which in Hebrew is Tasim naphsh-o Asham it is Thou shalt constitute his Soul Guilt where Guilt we may easily see is put for Guilt-Offering but the very words are Thou shalt constitute his Soul Guilt that is God himself in laying our Sins and our Iniquities and our Transgressions on his Dear Son he therein did constitute or make the Soul of Christ to be Guilt or a Guilt-Offering which directly answers that direful word of the Apostle God made him to be Sin for us And now is all this by our new sort of Divinity dwindled to his bearing of Punishment only Dr. Harris of the Famous Assembly at Westminster was very free in this Case and saith This would look like Injustice in God to punish his Son as guilty if he had not laid on him or imputed to him those Sins that deserved that Punishment §. CXLIII There are many other Scriptures that shew plainly that Christ bare the very Sins of the Elect that 's a famous one where God's Name is proclaimed Exod. 34.6 there he stiles himself Jehovah God Merciful and Gracious c. forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin Here 's the Name of the Blessed Jehovah at length but it is to be noted the word in the Hebrew which is by our Translators rendred Forgiving is nose which is properly bearing and so is used at least 100 times in Scripture and is the same word as is in Isa 53. last he Bare the Sin of many 't is nasa chete Rabbim And 't is to be lamented that our Translators should not as well translate it so here in Exod. 34. as in Isa 53.12 so that the plain Name of God is among other glorious Titles he is nose yavon c. bearing Iniquity Transgression and Sin that is our Lord Jesus Jehovah our Righâ—eousness he is Gracious and Merciful in this that he hath borne away our Iniquity Transgression and Sin Here lies the transcendent â—ender Mercy and the Riches of God's Grace that the Lord Jesus hath â—orn and born away our Iniquity our very Iniquity so saith the Blessed God but this cannot go down in the shallow Reason of poor Man till God shine with the glorious Light of the Spirit to convince him and enable him to believe it because God faith it The like Expression we have in Psal 32 1. Blessed is the Man whose Transgression is forgiven it is the same word for forgiven 't is nesu O the Blessedness of the Man whose Transgressions are born away that is by Christ who bare the Sin of many so in Verse 5. I said I will confess my Transgressions unto thee and thou forgavest the Iniquity of my Sin it is in Hebrew ve attah nasatha yavon chattash-i and thou hast born away the Iniquity of my Sin He did not only beare the very Sin but he bare also the Iniquity of it all the Iniquity that was in his Sin in his great and crying Sins all the Guilt and Obliquity in it God saith of it that it was borne away let Man mince it as he pleases God saith It is borne away So in many more Scriptures nose is translated forgiving whereas the proper rendring is it is borne away As for the proper word for forgive that we have in 1 Kings 8.30 in Solomon's Prayer salachta When thou hearest forgive which in the Hebrew is ve-shamayta ve-salachta and thou hearest and do thou forgive Thus we have plenty of Testimonies in the Old Testament that the very Sins of God's People were born away §. CXLIV The New Testament concurs in the same way of expressing Christ's taking away our very Sins as in 1 John 3 5. The Son of God was manifested to take away our Sins He not only bare the Punishment but he bare the very Sins and he bare them so effectually as to take them away and therefore he is called The Lamb of God that taketh away the Sin of the World John 1.29 How could he take them away if he bare only the Punishment upon account of the Guilt laid on him on the Offenders compliance whereas the Fault is denied to be laid on him So that with our New Divinity he took away Faultless Sin which in most Mens Opinions must be no Sin at all But the Scripture is plain He took away Sin he appeared to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of himself Heb. 9.26 So that to insist on Christ's bearing Punishment for Sin and not bearing the Sin it self is not Scripture Dialect we shall lose the Gospel and our Christian Religion if we forsake Scripture Terms especially in this great Case of Christ's being made Sin and bearing our Sin and taking it quite away so as never by God to be remembred more for these are his words their Sins and their Iniquities I will remember no more Heb 9.22 and repeated for the Confirmation of that which Flesh and Blood cannot receive in Heb. 10.17 Now can any one imagine that when our Lord Jesus took away Sin by his Death and Oblation of himself on the Cross that he left the Guilt or the Fault behind This is Nonsense to take away Faultless Sin we should be but little the better for the Death of Christ If he left the Guilt or Fault for us to remove by Repentance or any of our good Works which at best are so far
the Sin of many by the Bishop's saying This makes us apt to lessen the Divine Perfections and our just sense of the difference of Good and Evil and our Obligations to all sorts of Duties Cujus contrarium Nothing more contrary For what can honour more the Glory of God's Holiness and the Infiniteness of his Grace and Goodness than his sending his own Eternal Son to undergo that horrid Task by his own consent of bearing our Sins that we might be free And what greater Argument of the difference of Good and Evil than Christ's suffering so great an Evil as the bearing our Sins that we might have so great a Good as Reconciliation to God Pardon and Eternal Salvation thereby And what greater spur to all the Duties of Holiness than our being delivered from all our Enemies Sin Death and Hell by the precious Blood of his Dear Son O! what an ingagement is this to serve him without fear all the days of our Lives And this Love of God in Christ being shed abroad in our Hearts will constrain us so to do much more than all the thundring Terrors of the Law which only work Condemnation But this Grace of God bringing Salvation this teaches effectually to deny ungodliness and to live righteously c. Therefore I humbly conceive the Bishop is out in saying It makes us apt to lessen the Divine Perfections whereas all the Torments in Hell of all final Unbelievers to all Eternity cannot so heighten and glorifie the Justice and Holiness of God as our Lord Jesus shedding his precious Blood which is called the Blood of God doth heighten and glorifie both his Holiness and his Grace to all that believe in this Lord Jesus and accept of him and this way of Salvation by him and him alone §. CLIV. But the frightful Charge against Dr. Crisp is That this Change of Persons makes Christ the Sinner then Christ is the Murderer and the Adulterer not David I answer Could not Christ bear the Sin and be the reputed Criminal without his being really and personally the Sinner What more common among Men than for a Surety to bear the burden of that Debt which he never contracted a penny of yet lyes in Goal for the whole and before he comes out pays the whole So our Lord Jesus standing in our place paid the whole as the voluntary Surety in our stead and yet was no more the Murderer than David was the Christ But he took David's Person on him and put himself on David to be his Righteousness as David sweetly sings O God my Righteousness Psal 4.1 But the great Jealousie is That Men think if Christ did really bear the Sins of the Elect the very Murder and Adultery of David c. that this did defile and taint the Holy Nature of Jesus Christ and so they would infer that the Free Grace Teachers would be saved by a defiled polluted Saviour Whereas there is nothing more inconsistent for there is none that believes the infinite incomprehensible Holiness and Purity of our Lord Jesus Holy with all the perfection of Holiness as God his Eternal Father is Holy but must conclude it is impossible that his Holy Nature should be tainted or polluted by the Sins of the Elect charged upon him and lying upon him for if instead of bearing the Sins only of all that the Father had given to him he being God-Man he had born the Sins of Ten Thousand Worlds full of Sinners they could not have defiled his Holy Nature there being an infinite disproportion between his infinite Holiness and Man's finite Sins so that they could no more defile him than a Viper's or a Toad's spitting Poyson against the Sun can defile the Sun Therefore I say with boldness If we believe our Lord Jesus to be true God and consider the infinite Purity of this Holy God our Lord Jesus Christ in our Humane Nature we cannot conceive that this Humane Nature could possibly be tainted or contaminated by his being made Sin for us and by bearing our Sin for the same Scripture that saith God made him to be Sin for us saith also He knew no Sin that is so as to be in his Holy Person guilty of any Sin of his own or to allow of any Sin to go unpunished §. CLV It would do well for all that stumble at our Sins our very Sins being by God laid on Christ and he as our Surety made Sin for us and that think that this will lessen the Divine Perfections and our Sense of the difference of Good and Evil to consider that our Lord Jesus is called by the same Name as the Sacrifices of old were called that had the Sins of the People laid on them they were called Sin so is our Lord Jesus Nay he compares himself to the Serpent Was the Serpent cursed beyond all the Beasts of the Field Christ is said to be made a Curse for us Did the Brazen Serpent lifted up heal all that look'd to it of their Stings of the Fiery Serpents So saith our Lord Jesus As the Serpent was lifted up shall the Son of Man be That whosoever believeth in him that being taken for looking to him and being Saved he shall not perish but have everlasting Life Can any sober Christian think that God himself would lessen the Divine Perfections of his Nature or of his Son Jesus who is one with himself Whom he charges all Men to Honour as they Honour the Father by his giving up his Son to Death for us all and by putting our Sins on him and giving the Name of Sin and comparing him to the Serpent for being a Curse We should rather from hence learn the Infinite Love of the Father and the Son and his Infinite Hatred of Sin insomuch as nothing could expiate it or take out the Stain of it from us but the Blood of him that was God §. CLVI And because our whole Concern to all Eternity depends on God's making Christ to be Sin for us and thereby glorifying the Divine Perfections of his Wisdom Holiness and Goodness not lessening them as is intimated I think it may to some be useful to give an Instance or two of the Sacrifices that had the Sins of the People laid on them how they as Types of Christ were called Sin they are in near 100 places called Sin and Guilt and yet at the same time they were called Most Holy as in Lev. 6.17 it is said of the Meat-offering It is most Holy as the Sin-offering and the Trespass-offering and more plainly in v. 25. This is the Law of the sin-offering it shall be killed before the Lord It is most Holy Nay so Holy it was that in Verse 27. it is said Whosoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy Now though these were so Holy yet it is to be observed that in both these places the 17th and 25th Verses that the word which we translate Sin-offering is in the Original only Sin the word being Chattath
So that when the Peoples Sins were laid by God's appointment on the Beast then the Beast was by God called the Sin as Christ was called Sin or made by God Sin for us by our Sins being laid on him and yet notwithstanding that the Goat had the Sins of the People laid on him and therefore called Sin yet at the same time it is most Holy or Holiness of Holinesses Kodesh Kadashim In answer to which when God made Christ to be Sin he saith of him That he knew no Sin he being most Holy Holiness of Holinesses untainted undefiled with our Sins he was at the same time the Lamb of God without Spot in himself and need there was for it for if he had not been Holy to the Extremity of Holiness in his own Nature and Person he had not been fit to be made a Sin offering for us If he had had the least speck of Sin in him or could have been tainted with our Sin he had not then been a meet Sacrifice to take away our sin Though he was made sin yet it was our sin he was made sin for us Was the poor Beast made sin in it self or for it self when the sins of the People were laid typically on it No sure for if it were the Scape-goat could not have been led into the Wilderness but the sin would have sunk it down dead immediately The sin it was made was the Peoples sin as the sin Christ was made was our sin §. CLVII This may possibly be the better understood and the more readily assented to by seriously considering the Infinite Perfection of the Holy Nature of the Blessed Son of God which was and is the same in the Man Christ Jesus as in the Godhead of the Father he and the Father being one in Essence and in all the glorious Perfections of the Godhead This Consideration may by the Operation of the Holy Spirit reconcile our Thoughts to this Truth That though Christ was made Sin for us and a Curse for us by having our Sins laid on him and by his hanging on the Tree for us yet his Holy Immaculate Person was not in the least tainted or defiled thereby nay God so ordered it that his holy Flesh when dead should not see the least Corruption This appears clear because the Infinite Holiness of the Godhead in the Man Christ Jesus was of such Infinite Perfection in him that the Sins of Men falling on him they being but Finite must of necessity be evacuated exinanitiated expiated and purged away by Infinite Perfection As a little for Illustration Suppose a small drop of Water out of a Smith's Trough should fall on a glowing red-hot large piece of Iron Can this defile or hurt the Iron No 't is immediately evaporated in Smoak 'T is true the Humanity of our Lord Jesus might be and was affected with our sins so as to cry out My Soul is troubled but he was not in the least infected with them his Humanity being made perfectly Holy by Union and Oneness with the Divine Nature in an ineffable manner at his very first Conception his Humane Nature being called that holy thing Luke 1.35 so that he was untainted by our sins being laid on him which he purged away by the offering up of himself in the Fire of God's Wrath upon him for sin §. CLVIII We will suppose again That all the Gold in the World should be put into a vast Cauldron and Ten hundred thousand load of Charcoal under it and about it melting the Gold and while this vast Fire is glowing with an unconceivable heat the Refiner should cast a small drop of Poyson into the Furnace where this boyling Gold is Would not this drop of Poyson be consumed at its first falling into the Furnace without defiling the Gold So the sins of the Elect though they deserve Hell Fire to all Eternity on the guilty Sinners yet these sins when laid on the Person of God-Man Jesus Christ who hath infinitely more Holiness than our sins have of Deliquity or Malignity in them When these sins were laid on our Lord Jesus they could no more taint our Lord Jesus than the drop of Poyson could taint all the Gold in the Furnace Wherefore it is said by the Holy Spirit when he is giving an account of the glorious Perfection of the Divine Nature of Christ in Heb. 1.3 calling him the Brightness the Effulgency of the Father's Glory the express Image of his Person the Upholder of all things by the Word of his Power The very first and next effect of all this glorious Excellency in the Person of Christ is when he had by himself purged our Sins As much as to say this great Character that is here given to Jesus Christ which mortifies the Socinians is given for this very purpose to shew us how he by himself by his own glorious Perfection as the Brightness of the Father's Glory when our sins were laid on him he by himself without any assistance or Cooperation of us or any Man or Angel he by himself saith the Holy Ghost purged our sins he made a perfect Expiation of them the glowing Holiness of the Divine Nature purged them clear away so as never to be remembred more and that without any taint to himself that being impossible he being the brightness of the Father's Glory so pure and Holy is our blessed Lord God the Lord Jesus Christ God blessed for ever to whom be glory for ever §. CLIX. By this I hope we may see that the Consideration of the most adorable Holiness in our Lord Jesus may reconcile us to such Passages as we find in the Scripture of his bearing our sins and his being made Sin and a Curse for us without any ground of charging it with such bad Consequences as the Bishop intimates That this tends to lessen our Reverence of the Divine Perfections whereas nothing can heighten our Reverence more for this shews that his Divine Perfections were so Infinite that by bearing our Sins in his Body on the Tree and by offering himself with our Sins on him a Sacrifice to God for Sin he thereby expiated and purged all the Sins of all the Elect one of which by reason of the infinitely Holy Nature and Law of God would have sunk all the Angels in Heaven to Hell if by God laid on them Therefore instead of diminishing our Esteem of the Divine Perfections because Christ hath borne away our Sins for ever freely without any Conditions or Works of ours to induce him Let us by all means endeavour to magnifie them and for the Riches of the Grace of God and our Lord Jesus therein Let us fall down and adore him that sits on the Throne and the Lamb in the midst of the Throne for that he of his free Grace hath loved us and washed us from our Sins in his Blood and sing with the four Beasts and 24 Elders with the People in the four parts of the World and with