Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A47210
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Christ crucified a sermon preached at Salisbury, August 23, 1691 / by Joseph Kelsey ...
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Kelsey, Joseph, d. 1710.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing K247; ESTC R222
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11,678
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26
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Imprimatur Nov. 2. 1691. Geo. Royse R. Rmo in Christo Patri ac D no D no Johanni Archiep. Cantuar. à sacris Domest Christ Crucified A SERMON PREACHED AT SALISBURY August 23. 1691. By JOSEPH KELSEY B. D. Prebendary of SARUM LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1691. TO THE Right Honourable THOMAS EARL of PEMBROKE c. One of Their Majesties Most Honourable Privy-Council My LORD HAD this Sermon been designed to be publick I would have endeavoured that it should better have answered both the Dignity of the Subject and the Nobleness of the Name prefixed to it But since your Lordship was pleased to encourage the Printing it as it was Preached I esteem that Favour solely to proceed from your Great Piety to Catholick Verities particularly the Honour of our Saviour at this time so injuriously assaulted and your Love to the Church of England which ever was and continues to be the best Defender and Conserver of them That God will confirm to your Lordship these and all other Virtues which make true Greatness and reward them with spiritual and temporal Blessings is the Prayer of My Lord Your Lordship 's in all Duty most obliged and most humble Servant Joseph Kelsey Christ Crucified 1 COR. I. 23 24. But we preach Christ Crucified unto the Jews a stumbling-block and unto the Greeks foolishness But unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the Wisdom of God CHRIST in this Text seems to represent the future fate of his Religion to the end of all things that it should be always militant on Earth till triumphant in Heaven like an Isthmus or narrow neck of Land it is opposed to the fury of two rageing Enemies Jew and Gentile yet stands the Emblem of invincible Fortitude an eternal exception to all the powers of fleshly Wisdom wounds no less the acuteness of the Grecian Sophister than the dullness of the illogical Jew and puzzles as well the brisker genius of Athens as the more phlegmatick Rabbies at Jerusalem A Problem baited both by ignorance and learning by prejudice and ingenuity by malicious interest and a better generosity The most excellent things still fight with the greatest difficulties God himself hath the most Enemies and Virtue is ever placed betwixt opposite Vices Christ Crucified sounds a contradiction to the Philosophy of a Greek implicates in the very terms To the Hebrew Superstition it is more terrible and confounding than the shakings of Mount Sinai Stupid and heavy Jew whom nothing less than Thunder will confute Captious Greek who seekest Wisdom in Mode and Figure rejecting all as folly which hath not its appearance in Logical Syllogisms or Sophistical Elenchs Quid quaeris Judaee Signa hic est Dei Virtus Quid tu Graece Sapientiam hic est sapientia Aeterni Patris We preach Christ Crucified The power of God and the Wisdom of God In which words we will consider I. The great subject of Christian Doctrine We preach Christ Crucified II. The Vindication of it from the Oppositions of Jew and Gentile The power of God and the Wisdom of God I. We preach Christ Crucified That is 1. The Satisfaction which he made 2. The Merit of his Death 3. The unbounded Virtue of it 4. The effect which so great an Example of Virtue ought to have upon our selves 1. We preach the Satisfaction which by his Death he gave to Divine Justice for the sins of the World rendring the offended Majesty of his Father gracious by the oblation of himself They are low and unworthy designs which terminate the Virtue of our Saviours Death in any thing less than those high and noble effects which Scripture and the Faith of Gods Church have attributed unto it That he should dy chiefly to give Testimony to the Doctrine of Remission of sins which he preached is to make him a meer Martyr to his own Religion to put no distinction betwixt the Death of the Son of God and of a mortal Man to allow more real Virtue to the blood of Bulls and Goats as to the taking away of sin than of the immaculate Lamb of God The Apostles and all holy Martyrs who died for the Doctrine which they preached might on this account compare with him in the efficacy of their Deaths and challenge the incommunicable Title of Saviours and Redeemers of Mankind Nay Socrates himself supposing the Morality of his Philosophy such as might make those who should practise it acceptable unto God would justly be said by his Death to have purchased remission of sins and to have been the Author of Eternal Salvation to his Athenian Proselytes The Miracles which our Saviour did were more convincing Arguments of the truth of his Doctrine than was his Death it being no unheard of thing for Men with the loss of their Lives to defend the most impious and heretical Opinions Nor is that Faith and Hope of Eternal Life so much magnified as the great effect of his Death with any reason applyed unto it since the cruel torments of a most innocent Person at first sight appears the most preposterous means to induce a belief of immortal bliss And the Scriptures every where lay the foundation of a firm Faith in our Saviours Resurrection Moreover had the Death of Christ been only intended for a Testimony to his Doctrine it might very well have been spared and others and no less convincing methods used After having lead a Life of perfection upon Earth he might have ascended after the manner that Enoch and Elias were translated into Heaven and from thence have showed his Majestie to the confusion of his Enemies He might have taken his Murderers at their word have descended from the Cross and so confuted all their pretences But this Sacrifice was intended for greater ends To have its effect not only upon Men but to move even God himself And this it did to two things which seem to make up the Nature of Satisfaction 1. It moved God to a relaxation of his Law or a receding from his right 2. To a translation of the punishment 1. Upon the account of Christ's Sufferings God was moved to a dispensation of his law This Law is set down Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest the forbidden fruit thou shalt surely die thou shalt be punished with eternal death If this Law had exactly been executed none could be saved but we are taught that those who believe in Christ are redeemed from the Curse of the Law Gal. 3.13 And by the conditional Promises of the Gospel God doth plainly recede from that right of punishing which that Law gave him Many are the instances in Scripture that God hath done this and to dispute that he cannot is to transform the God of Christians into a stoical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to bind him in Chains of fatality as invincible as a Heathen Jupiter Promises do give a right to him to whom they are made which
will be injury against his consent to take away but threatnings are revocable without any injury because it is supposed the party threatned will not challenge the performance of the threatening Nor in this case is it necessary to dispute the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under what notion God is to be considered whether this action of relaxing his Law proceeded from him as a Judge as the party offended or as the Governour of the World since all these agree in him It is sufficient that he is God a Being wise just and good and was pleased for satisfacere in the Law is alterius voluntatem implere upon the account of Christ's Death to dispense with the execution of that Law whereby all Sinners that is whole Mankind were condemned to Eternal Torments Which dispensation if it had not intervened two most excellent things had quite perished out of the World Religion from Man to God and Divine goodness towards Man 2. The second part of this Satisfaction is the translation of the punishment God's accepting the Sufferings of Christ for the punishment due to Sinners This is according to another expression of the Civil Law Satisfactio est pro solutione It is not the payment it self but in lieu of it the Sufferings of Christ were not the same which we deserved yet such as served all the ends of Justice and Mercy That he suffered very grievous Tortures appears from the History of his Passion That he suffered for our sins is clear from the ancient Prophecies Isaiah 53. God laid on him the iniquities of us all and from infinite places in the Epistles He was made sin for us a Curse for us which places can signify nothing else but that Christ did undergo those Sufferings upon the account of our sins and his Death was accepted instead of ours It is objected That no body can be justly punished for anothers sin because obligation to punishment ariseth from Merit but Merit is personal proceeding from the will than which nothing is more our own But. 1. First It is to be considered That though all the instances brought to declare the translation of punishment from the guilty to the innocent in the Athenian and Roman Commonwealths of two Friends ready to die one for the other of Zaleucus who redeemed his Sons Eye with the loss of his own do suppose a Principle which Christianity will not allow That every Man is perfect Master and hath the disposal of his own Life as appears by that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-murder which was not only not esteemed blameable but gained the repute of manly and heroic amongst the most refined Heathens yet it was not so with Christ He had both power from his Father and as himself tells us John 10.18 No man taketh my life from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down That which made their actions unjust hath no place in his sufferings 2. Although when God visits the sins of the Fathers upon the Children he may be said to make use of his Soveraign right in taking away that Life which he gave in which there can be no injustice so long as the punishment exceeds not the benefit of Creation upon which his right is founded Yet is it clear from Scripture That the People of Israel and the Posterity of Jeroboam however they had sins of their own yet were they innocent as to that for which they suffered David's numbring of the People and Jeroboam's many iniquities 3. Lastly it is evident that exquisite sufferings are inflicted by Providence where there is no sin to be punished or prevented but perfect innocence For brute Beasts and infant Children who having no free will cannot by sin abuse it do ly under and dy by the same tormenting Diseases with rational sinful men So that the distinction betwixt punishment and affliction will not bear that weight either in the common use of words or reasoning which in this dispute is laid upon it God will ever be just what names soever Men put upon his proceedings It was not therefore unjust either according to Scripture or reason that our most innocent Saviour should be punished for our offences that we by his stripes might be healed and the wrath of God receive that satisfaction which his mercy truth and justice did require 2. We preach the Merit of his Death which is founded in these particulars 1. In the free and willing obedience of Christ This the Scriptures take great notice of Thus Christ himself bespeaks his Father Lo I come to do thy will O God And God at the first appearance in his Office by a Voice from Heaven declared the great complacency he had in the Obedience of his Son This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And St. Paul tells us that as by the disobedience of one many were made Sinners so by the obedience of one many should be made righteous Amongst the Heathens it was accounted a bad Omen if the Beast to be Sacrificed came with any reluctancy to the Altar The prompt and ready submission of Christ to so great sufferings on behalf of the World was of mighty power to encline his Father to recede from the rigour of his Justice 2. The Merit of Christ's Death is founded in the dignity of his Person We were not redeemed with corruptible riches but with the precious blood of the Son of God It was the Lord of Life and Glory who was Crucified God did purchase to himself a Church by his own blood Although the Divinity was impatible and remained untouched amidst all the fury of its Enemies yet was the value of his Sufferings advanced by its union with his Godnead as it is a greater aggravation to strike a King than a Slave though in both only the body receive the stroke The Stoicks do but play with words whilst they maintain an equality of sins yet grant that the Murderer of his Father deserves greater punishment because there is a complication of many sins he not only killed a Man but took life from him who gave him his who nourished him and was the Authour of all his contentment If the Catholick Fathers in their disputations with Arius and others the Opposers of Christ's Divinity did not insist much upon the undervaluing the merit of his Death nor urged the detriment to his satisfaction by making him meer Man it was rather because his Divinity being secured his satisfaction likewise would remain entire than that they did not see the consequence He must have low thoughts of his Sufferings who believes them only to be the Sufferings of a Mortal Man as he who can allow all that to the Sufferings of a Man which the Scriptures give to Christ's will easily be brought to think there is no need of a Mediator And therefore Socinus from the denial of Christ's satisfaction proceeded to bereave him of his Godhead A meer Man destroyed the World but only God could recover it