3.4 5 6 7. read and consider the place and see it is the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man it 's not said Joh. 3.16 his special and peculiar Love to some Elect but the pity and love of God to Man-ward that in its appearing saved us not according to works of righteousness which we have done it neither appeared or saveth by any thing in us or done by us Rom. 3.9 25. 5.6 8 9 10. 2 Cor. 5.20 Eph. 2.16 17. in which we were better than others but according to his mercy that is his Love commended to sinners in his giving Christ to die and make peace for them by his Blood when we were Enemies and causing it to appear to us while we were such and no better than others he saved us that is reconciled our hearts and converted us to himself and this saving by the washing of Regeneration that is the vertue and efficaciousness of the Blood and Oblation of Christ by means of his Mediation made known to us and his Love there-through streaming Rom. 5 1-5 1 Pet. 1.2 2 Thes 2.13 Heb. 9.14 being by the Holy Ghost set home to the Heart and so also by the renewing of the Holy Ghost who in such discovery as is said sprinkleth the Blood of Christ in the Heart and thereby speaketh peace and createth or reneweth a new Disposition or Spirit in the Heart Rom. 3.22 24 25 26 27. 4.5 23 24 25. 5 1-11 Which washing of Repentance and renewing of the Holy Ghost he by vertue of his Oblation once offered and his Intercession continued the Divine Love appearing there-through shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord that we being justified by his Grace now mark the last end in which his coming again is intimated we should be made Heirs according to the Hope of Eternal Life 1 Joh. 4.9.10 Thus doth the Love of God to Mankinde appearing through the Oblation of Christ lead to see and enjoy the Ends and Vertues of his Oblation and therein the Benefit of his Mediation and Intercession and therewith and thereby the Hope of the Inheritance and Eternal Life in the coming again of Christ so precious is the word of the beginning of Christ to lead into all that follows to be known of him 2. Tit. 2.11 12 13 14. read the place and minde The Grace of God Tit. 3.4 2 Cor. 3.18 Phil. 3.7 8. which is the same with the kindeness and Love of God to Man-ward saving to all men or bringing Salvation to all Men hath appeared so as in its appearing and saving Operations it teacheth us here is the benefit of his Mediation in extending the Vertues of his Oblation that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world now mark the last looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ And all this large Grace appearing in such saving tendency with such teachings and fitness for prevalency therein grounded and bottomed upon the Word of the beginning of Christ vers 14. Who gave himself for us c. with which I began this Discourse of the Oblation Intercession and coming again of Christ and with the same I for this Part end In all that is said of the Testimony of Christ in every Branch and of all together it appears That this Testimony is a Doctrine according to godliness and hath its natural tendency to godliness effecting it in all cordial Believers of it and also that this Testimony of Jesus is The Spirit of Prophesie The Original of all right Understanding The true and so best Enlightner Teacher School-Master and Director to all right understanding and speaking And ignorance and unbelief of this Testimony or any Branch of it specially the first is the cause of all error and mistakes about Scriptures And by this Testimony minded we may discern what true Faith is what the Object what the Medium discovering what the Believing is and how it worketh But I forbear to proceed farther in those things till I have first minded the degrees of the Revelation of Christ in this Testimony of him and how it was revealed evidenced and so made known and taught by degrees till the whole was cleerly manifested to be so now taught and believed An Explicite Declaration of the Testimony of Christ c. PART III. CHAP. I. Of the first Revelation of Christ and Way of making him known THE first Revelation of Jesus Christ was in Paradise thus Gen. 3.15 I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel In which according to Explication since is observed 1. That the first Promulgation of the Gospel as it was immediate from and by God himself so it was done in the denouncing the Curse on the Serpent and his Seed yea Gen. 3.1.14 15. in some measure on the Serpent that was the Devil's Instrument and its Seed but in full and specially on the Devil the old Serpent with his Angels Rev. 12.9 20.2 8.13 9.12 11 14-18 and those by his Temptations become of him and so his Seed even as the compleating of the Exaltation of Christ and those that are his Seed is declared in the denouncing and bringing in the last and great Wo upon the Inhabiters of the Earth which are the Seed of this old Serpent 2. Gen. 3.16 17. Rom. 5.18 Heb. 9.27 That the Seed of the Woman is also so exprest that it may have a double sense one a more remote sense in which it may be carried to all that come of her by a natural conception before whom in the Promise Hope was set and of and from among whom the two Seeds more directly spoken of are and will be drawn And the other sense proper and nigher and that both principal full Gen. 3.15 Psal 49.7 8. Isa 7.14 Mat. 1.22 23. Luk. 1.30 34 35. Gal. 4.4 Mat. 1.1 Rom. 1.3 Gal. 3.16 1 Joh. 3.5 8. Heb. 2.14 and most cleer and direct and that is the Lord Jesus Christ for he saith It shall bruise thy head It was not thus The Woman nor any of her Seed by natural conception which are every way as much the Seed of Adam the Man as of the Woman of which no Man can redeem his Brother or give to God a Ransome for him But it was He even Jesus that was conceived in the Wombe and born of a Woman and a Virgin in a supernatural way without the help or use of Man which Virgin was of the Seed of Abraham and David to whom also the Promise was explicated and so he was the Seed of David of Abraham of the Woman the promised Seed even he that in due time was manifested to take away sins and destroy the works of the Devil And the Holy Ghost hath given us
him distinct though never divided from the Divine so that this humane Nature or Body of Christ is not only sinless just holy but also exceeding precious and beyond all our valuation for excellency and worthiness yet in this his personal body was he under the Law for us and brought before the Judgement-Seat for us and condemned and put to death in the flesh for sins committed by us in the flesh f Rom. 8.3 2 Cor. 5.21 Gal. 3.13 he himself bare our sins in his own Body to or on the Tree being put to death in the flesh g 1 Pet. 2.24 3.18 and by death he overcame death and him that had the power of death h Heb. 2.14 and so rose again just and for our justification in the same Body that died i 1 Cor. 15.3 4. and by the Eternal Spirit ascended in that Body by or with the vertue of his own blood into Heaven and offered that spotless Body of his which had satisfied for our sins by death and overcome death and risen just a Sacrifice to God k Heb. 9.12 14. 10 5-10 14. and God hath accepted him and taken up his well-pleasedness and dwelling in him and glorified him in the humane Nature also with the glory that he had in person with him before the world was and hath born Testimony of him And this the Oblation Gift Ransom Sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ the second publick Man a matchless and invaluable Sacrifice which excluded all other Sacrifices and all other works of Righteousness from being it or any part of it this Body of Christ that was crucified for us it and it alone is the Sacrifice which in his Oblation he offered to God for us CHAP. 4. 2. Who it was that offered up this Sacrifice THis is here also in Tit. 2.14 plainly express'd to be our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us plainly it was Jesus Christ he himself that did freely give himself Peter also speaking of the sufferings of Christ and having expresly named Jesus Christ that suffered for us saith of him Who his own self bare our sins in his own body a 1 Pet. 2.22 24. and our Saviour Christ saith of himself I lay down my life that I might take it again 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 This commandment have I received of my Father b Joh. 10.17 18. And so it 's often plainly and expressy said he gave himself for our offences Christ hath loved us and given himself for us he gave himself a ransome c. he offered up himself c. c Gal. 1.4 Eph. 5.2 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 7.27 If it be replied That God the Father he gave his only begotten Son he made his Soul an offering for sin he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all d Joh. 3 6. Isa 53 10. Rom. 8.32 I answer This is no contradiction or unsaying of any thing foresaid but rather an illustration and confirmation of the approvedness goodness and excellency of that his giving himself a Sacrifice not only in that no other Man did and that he himself did it by the Divine will and authority of the Father in respect of which will and appointment the Father did and in respect of acting and fulfilling that will he himself did but more also in this respect Joh. 10.30 1 Joh. 5 7. that the Father and he are one in respect of Divine Essence and in respect of both Natures in the person of the Son Joh. 5.17 18 16 20 21 22 23. the Father and the Son are both one in love to Mankinde and so both one in will and design so as also they work together so that the Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do and what things soever the Father doth those also doth the Son likewise and also in that the Father fitted him with a Body for this business and appointed and sent him forth to do it and even so he willingly accepted the appointment Heb. 10.5 7 8 9 10 12. and took the Body and came to do and did it and so with free and ready will and oneness of will with the Father he did offer up himself in that body of his once for all so that the saying He gave and offered up himself is not contradicted by saying the Father gave him but receiveth confirmation and illustration of the goodness and excellency of this his gift and giving yea it opens to us the right understanding of it he came and did it not barely of himself Joh. 8 42. 1 Joh. 5.6 but in union of will and approbation of the whole three in one God the Father sent him he came and the Holy Ghost witnessed of him Gal. 4.4 the Father sent him forth made of a woman of the Seed of David and the Holy Ghost sanctified that Seed in the wombe of the Virgin and framed him a Body thereof Luke 1.35 uniting it in the very framing to the person of the Son of God and so it was not the Father nor the Holy Ghost John 1.14 Rom. 1.3 but the Son that is the Word was made flesh of the Seed of David yet the Father by the Spirit made it so and the Son accepting willingly to receive this humane Nature into union of person with himself and to be thus abased he is truly said to have made himself of no reputation Phil. 2.7 8. and took upon him the form of a Servant and humbled himself so it was not the Father or the Holy Ghost that did die Joh. 10.17 18 1 Pet. 3.18 but the Son in the humane Nature or Body which he took he layed down his life for us being put to death in the flesh neither was it the Father or the Holy Ghost that rose from the dead Joh. 10.18 Eph. 4.9 10. but the Son and yet the Son in that Body of his the Father by the Holy Ghost did raise him yet was it he in that very Body that died that rose from the dead even so it was not the Father nor the Holy Ghost that offered the Sacrifice but Jesus Christ himself in oneness of will with the Father Heb. 9.14 Psa 110.1 Heb. 1.13 Heb. 1.3 10.12 and by or through the power of the Holy Ghost he did offer up himself his own Body a Sacrifice without spot to God even the Father who hath accepted him and set him on his right hand and so also as having finished and compleated his oblation and being accepted he sate down on the right hand of the Majesty on high so that there is no exclusion or denial of the works of the Father or Holy Ghost about the provision preparation offering and acceptance of this Oblation in saying Christ himself offered it but onely the affirmation of
Heb. 11.25 26 27 it will cause all services sufferings for Christ to appear but a little matter to be born yea it will lead to count sufferings for Christ greater riches then all the treasures of this World and strengthen them to endure as seeing him that is visible in which while these Promises are believingly viewed 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. our afflictions will work for us a far more exceeding weight of glory yea should temptation come so fiercely as to dazle the eye Psa 116.3 11. 31.22 23 24 56.4 10 11. or daunt the courage of our believing so as we fainted in the exercise of our Faith yet the minding of these Promises sealed by him that shed his Blood for us would make us cry to him in that fainting and he would hear us and help us comfort and enable us to comfort our selves in his word And will they not then allure and help to perseverance Surely Yes And thus I have briefly hinted the Promises of God through Christ to Mankinde to Mankinde believing to Believers in each condition and to them and Promises to be received after this life which heartily believed it would lead to cleanse from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit 2 Cor. 1.1 5.1 1 Joh. 2.24 25. and to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord it would lead to perseverance and to cause to long and wait for our House from Heaven In all which we see That the Promises of God and the Purposes of God and the Testimony of God concerning Christ are all one and the same Doctrine declare the same thing the same minde of God by diversity of expressions setting forth and closing together in one and the same Truth and so as the knowledge usefulness of and in any one will be found the same of and in each and every one yet I to evidence this will a little go over what hath already been shewn in usefulness of the Testimony of Christ and of the Purposes to shew how we are taught the same in the Promises and how the knowledge of them as hath been set forth is helpful to us in many things CHAP. 6. How this knowledge of the Promises is instructive to us about understanding some Sayings of Scripture 1. THis will help us to understand that saying 2 Pet. 1.4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature c. It is evident That in this and the former Verse Rom. 1.1 2 3 4 5. Eph. 1.2 4 5 11. Act. 26.18 Peter was declaring the Furniture given him by God for his Ministration as was Paul's course oft in beginning of his Epistles and both his Furniture and Mission for the same end that Paul had his and so in the former Verse he tells us That the divine Power of Christ Joh. 15.26 27. Act. 1.4.5 Luk. 24.4 Joh. 5.25 11.25 26. and so of God in and through Christ which was the Holy Ghost inspiring them with the Testimony of Christ hath given unto them all things pertaining unto life and godliness To life that is to forgiveness quickning and life and being enlivened to godliness to right worshipping of God and living to him an = d uniting and conforming to him 2 Pet. 1.1 2. and all this he saith the divine Power gave them through the knowledge of him that is in the Testimony of the Righteousness of God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 1 Pet. 1.20 21. 2 Thes 2.14 2 Cor. 5.18 19. which the divine Power shined into their hearts in the face of Jesus Christ who hath saith he called us by glory and vertue or to glory and vertue whereby or by which divine Power and Spirit in the knowledge of Christ according to the Testimony put in our hearts are given to us that is for Ministration and to minister with exceeding great and precious Promises that by these ministred by us and heard and believed by you you might be Partakers of the divine Nature that you in hearing might believe and in believing being convinced and brought out of darkness might receive the light and so believing in Christ have Fellowship with and partake of the divine Nature and so the Promises here appears to be the same with Gospel-Testimony and the several Heads or Branches of Promises forementioned Consider it well 1. For fallen Man the Seed of the first Adam that are under sin and death that they may attain to life and godliness receive forgiveness and be accepted into favour and become of the spiritual Seed c. Needful it is That in that Nature of Man sin be condemned and punished blood shed death and curse suffered and overcome in the same Nature risen just ascended and offered to God a Sacrifice so as Aronement be made Redemption obtained Spirit and Eternal Life received in the Man to send forth that Men might believe Act. 13.31 32 33 38 39. Joh. 1.45 and that whoever believeth on him may receive forgiveness and life And such a Saviour God from the beginning promised to Mankinde and after more explicately to Abraham and by the Prophets and Jesus Christ that died and rose c. is this very Promise fulfilled as God hath now fulfilled this Promise in raising him from the dead Luk. 1.69 70 Joh. 14.6 Eph. 2.17 Rom. 3.25 1 Cor. 3.11 1 Pet. 1.21 25. Joh. 6.48 Isa 42.1 c. and so set him forth in the Gospel and this Jesus so set forth is the Way of approach to God The Propitiation for sins The Foundation The immortal Seed The Bread of Life The Elect of God The First-begotten and First-born Son of God that all that believe in him may through him approach to God receive forgiveness be united to and built on Christ and so become of the same seed born of God a Son of God by vertue of the Death and Resurrection of and union with the Son of God And this fulfilled Promise Joh. 3.14 15. Act. 2. 3.9 26. 13.38 39 and so the Promises under this first Head or Branch of Promises of things done are exceeding great and precious and to be held forth as the Promises of God fulfilled that in believing Men might be begotten by and born of the Word or Promise so that to conceive or suggest to any another Seed an elect Company for whom this Seed should come and die is altogether erronious there is but one blessed Seed in which blessing is and that is the Seed of the Woman of Abraham in which is blessing Gal. 3.16 26. And this Seed was not a People for Christ to die for but it is Christ dead and risen and by his communicative vertue all those that through Grace are brought in to him and united to him as such a Seed to bring Men in therefore to be of this Seed this Promise fulfilled in him is to be preached 1 Cor.
3.24 4.25 28. Rom. 1.1 2 3 they know also That what the Scripture saith the Holy Ghost saith the same o Gal. 3.8 Heb. 3.7 and what the Holy Ghost hath once said and testified as true in Christ he never altereth that Testimony but breatheth in it still and so where-ever written that remaineth Truth which proves this Objection vain Object 2 You understand not our meaning for we do believe in and magnifie Christ and the Scripture as much as you do but we have Christ and the Scripture within us and we believe that and speak that from inward and experimental Knowledge and the infallible Spirit and that we speak is the Minde of God but you believe in and magnifie a Christ without you and so believe and speak of and from the Scripture that is without you and so the true Sense and Mind of God which is infallible and from Christ and the Scripture within is to you a Parable and all you hold and believe is but fleshly and fallible Answ Here is still the former boasting and self-witnessing and self-exalting though with more discovery of Vanity Blasphemy and Pride or Atheism than the former as will appear to all that know who we mean by Christ and what we mean by Scripture For 1. By Christ in whom we believe we mean not An Imagination or Frame but the second publick Man the spiritual Man who not only out of us but before we in our Persons were and without any Motion or In-being in us did himself take our Nature being conceived by and born of a Woman a Virgin that was of the natural Seed and Lineal Descent of David and Abraham and Adam and so took a personal Body of his own in which he bore our sins on the Tree and was made a Curse and died for us and overcame Death and shook off all Mortality without seeing corruption in that Body in which being buried he rose again and appeared to and conversed with his Disciples and then in their sight departed from them out of this World in that risen Body and so ascended into Heaven and offered himself a sacrifice to God and sate down on his right Hand and in that now glorified Body remaineth in Heaven a great High Priest appearing before God ever-living to intercede for us This is The Christ our Saviour not to come to take flesh nor so coming nor so in us he hath done that already he was to do in his own Body for us and can die no more but is alive for evermore immeasurably filled with Spirit to send forth to us The right knowing of him is the original and right way of knowing all things and right knowing and worshipping of God is in the Confession of him thus to be already come in the flesh 1 John 4.3 and that Spirit that denieth this is the Spirit of Antichrist and he that denieth that This Jesus is The Christ he is Antichrist 1 Joh. 2.22 23. and denieth the Father and the Son And whoever believeth in This Jesus receiveth of his Spirit which imprinteth his Word and frameth his Minde in his Heart enriching him with his Consolations and so by Word Col. 1.25 26 27 and Spirit and Riches of Grace and not in bodily presence is Christ in Believers and in so being in them he is to them the Hope of Glory But whoever believeth not in this Christ without them and receiveth not the Efficacies and Frames within from the excellency of the knowledge of and Belief in him without so as he that is without in bodily presence is within by spiritual presence but come to undervalue him as without them and magnifie something within them All that within is but meer delusion which the ensuing Discourse will further shew so that the voice of this Objection being so strange the sheep will not hear it 2. And as for the Scripture we mean not by Scripture Ink and Paper nor Letters of A B C c. nor Syllables and particular Words nor Writing or Printing or a Book bound up in Leaves or rolled in Parchment But that we mean by Scripture is not the writing but the thing written not barely the words but the thing sounded forth and imported to us in the words And so the Almighty God that is Eternal without Beginning before all Things and without End Omnipotent Omniscient Infinite and Immutable the Creator of all things and his onely Son that was in the Beginning and from Eternity with him by whom he made all things and whom he sent forth made of a Woman and so Man the essential Word and the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son the infallible Spirit that witnesseth the Minde of God This one God Three in One and this Minde made known to Men the Manifestation and making it known is the Instrumental Word of God whether inspired spoken or written And of this God and his Minde it is as so made known that we mean and when it is once by his Command and Inspiration written and put on record for us to make known his Minde to us Prov. 22.20 21 as now it is then is all this called Scripture and so when God had once by his Spirit preached the Gospel to Abraham this being after written by Moses is since called Scripture Now it was not Moses his Writing that did fore-see and preach nor the Book or Letters or Words written therein but the Spirit in that Testimony did fore-see and preach which being Written and left on Record is therefore called Scripture Gal. 3.8 And when the Holy Ghost had in and by David said to the People To day if you will hear my voice harden not your hearts This being once written and left on Record for Generations following Psal 95.7 the Holy Ghost is said where-ever that Scripture is given still to say it And to those to whom no probability that that particular Word was inspired into every of them Heb. 3.7 which was so given to Israel and Joshua Deut. 13.6 8. yet it being after written and left upon Record for his peoples use it 's said to them many Generations after Heb. 13.5 He hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee yea that which God spake to Moses in the Bush our Saviour it being written Exod. 3.6 said to the corrupt and erroneous Sadduces Have not you read that which was spoken by God to you saying Mat. 22.31 32 I am the God c. And so the Spirit in the Apostles teacheth us That whatsoever things were written aforetime Rom. 15.4 were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope Surely this written aforetime so long before we were was written without us yea without even those of us to whom that sentence was written and therefore written without in Leaves that they might have recourse to it and learn it and love it and so have it