Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	covenant_n	grace_n	mediator_n	4,478	5	11.2745	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85428	Christ set forth in his [brace] death, resurrection, ascension, sitting at Gods right hand, intercession, [brace] as the [brace] cause of justification. Object of justifying faith. Upon Rom. 8. ver. 34. Together with a treatise discovering the affectionate tendernesse of Christs heart now in heaven, unto sinners on earth. / By Tho: Goodwin, B.D.	Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.	1642 (1642)	Wing G1232; Thomason E58_2; Thomason E58_3; ESTC R8966	205,646	392

God to work all our works and undergoe all our punishments to pay our debts for us and to work in us all that God required should be done by us in the Covenant of Grace And thus to be a Surety is much more then simply to be an Intercessour or Mediatour as Pareus well observes God did as it were say to Christ What they owe me I require it all at your hands and Christ assented and from everlasting struck hands with God to doe all for us that God could require and undertook it under the penalty that lay upon us to have undergone Yea Christ became such a Surety in this for us as is not to be found among men A strange difference between Christs Suretiship and that of men for others on earth On earth Sureties are wont to enter into one and the same Bond with the Creditors so as the Creditour may seize on which of the two he will whether on the Debtour or on the Surety and so as usually on the Debtor first for him we call the Principal but in this covenant God would have Christs single Bond and hence Christ is not onely called the Surety of the Covenant for us but The Covenant God makes the Covenant of Grace principally with Christ for us Esay 49. 8. and elsewhere God making the Covenant of Grace primarily with him and with him as for us thereby his single Bond alone was taken for all that so God might be sure of satisfaction therefore he laid all upon Christ protesting that he would not deale with us nor so much as expect any payment from us such was his grace So Psal 89. 19. where the mercies of the Covenant made betweene Christ and God under the Type of Gods Covenant with David are set forth God requires payment of our debt from Christ first Thou spakest in vision to thy holy One and saidst I have laid help on one who is mighty As if God had said I know that these will faile me and break and never be able to satisfie me but you are a mighty and substantiall person able to pay me and I will look for my debt of you And to confirme this then which nothing can give stronger consolation or more advanceth Gods free grace when God went about the reconciling the world in and by Christ and dealt with Christ about it the manner of it is expressed to have been that God took off our sins from us and discharged us as it were meaning never to call us to an account for them unlesse Christ should not satisfie him and laid them all on Christ so as he would require an account of them all from him first and let him look to it and this he did to make the Covenant sure Thus 2 Cor. 5. 19. it is said the Apostle speaking of Gods transaction of this businesse with Christ that God was in Christ namely from everlasting reconciling the world of Elect Beleevers to himselfe not imputing their trespasses to them and made him sin who knew no sinne Observe that as he laid our sinnes on Christ so withall he discharged us in his compact betweene Christ and himselfe not imputing their trespasses to them So then all laid upon Christ and he was to look to it or else his soule was to have gone for it This is not the manner of other Creditours they use to charge the Debt on both the Surety and the Debtour but in this Covenant of Grace namely Christs single Bond is entred he alone is The Covenant so as God will have nought to say to us till Christ failes him He hath engaged himselfe first to require satisfactions at Christs hands who is our Surety Now then 2. 2. How the consideration of this is a strong evidence to faith of justification from Christs Resurrection for to make use of this notion for the clearing of the point in hand It might afford us matter of unspeakable cōfort onely to hear of Christs having been arrested by God for our debt cast into prison and his Bond sued and an Execution or Iudgement served on him as the phrases are Esay 53. 8. For thereby we should have seen how God had begun with our Surety as minded to let us alone and that it lay on him to discharge the debt who was so able to doe it And thereby we might also see how he was made sin for us and therefore we might very well have quieted our hearts from fearing any arrests or for Gods comming upon us till we should heare that our Surety were not sufficiently able to pay the debt as you have heard he is But yet our hearts would stil be inquisitive for all that to hear whether indeed he hath perfectly satisfied God or no and would be extreamly solicitous to know whether he hath satisfactorily performed what he undertook and how he got cleare of that engagement and of being made sinne for us And therefore the Apostle comforts Beleevers with this that Christ shall the next time appeare without sin * Heb. 9. 28. Vnto them that look for him he shall appeare the second time without sinne It declaring unto faith that Christ that was in this death nale sin for us hath now discharged all and is without sin unto salvation One would think it no great matter of comfort to us to hear that Christ should appeare without sinne for who would imagine that it could be otherwise with The holy One The Lord of Glory there is no wonder in that Ay but sayes the Apostle your very salvation is interested in this as neerly as is possible It is well for you that Christ is now without sinne for he having as your Surety undertooke to satisfie for sinne and having accordingly beene once made sinne when on earth and arrested for it by God at his death in that now he is got cleare of that engagement which could be no way but by satisfaction which he undertooke this doth plainly evince it and ascertain you that you shall never be condemned for it for by the Law if the Surety hath discharged the debt the Debtour is then free And therefore no news would or could be more welcome to sinners And so that God will never come upon the sinner then to have a certaine and infallible evidence given that their Surety were well come off and had quitted all to satisfaction Now then to evidence this serveth his Resurrection Christ is risen How strong an evidence Christs Resurrection is that the debt is paid and God satisfied Nothing so sure Therefore certainly the debt is discharged and he hath paid it to the full and so is now without our sinne and fully got cleare of it For God having once arrested Christ and cast him into prison and begun a tryall against him and had him to judgement he could not come forth till he had paid the very utmost farthing And there is the greatest reason for it to ascertaine us that

besides all this there is a personall or an actuall Iustification to be bestowed upon us that is an accounting and bestowing it upon us in our own persons which is done whē we beleeve and it is called Rom. 5. 1. a being justifyed by faith and ver 10. receiving the atonement now this depends upon Christs Intercession and it was typified out by Moses his sprinkling the people with blood mentioned Heb. 9. 19. which thing Jesus Christ as a Mediator and Priest doth now from Heaven For Heb. 12. 24. it is said You are come to Heaven and to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant and as it is next subjoyned to the blood of sprinkling he shed his blood on the Crosse on earth but he sprinkleth it now as a Priest from Heaven For it is upon Mount Sion to which he had said first in the former verse ye are come and so to Christ as a Mediator standing on that mount and sprinkling from thence his blood and so therein there is an allusion unto Moses Christs Type who sprinkled the people with the blood of that ceremoniall covenant the type of the covenant of grace Now in the 1 Pet. 1. 2. The sprinkling of Christ his blood as it is there made the more proper work of Christ himselfe in distinction from the other persons and therefore was done by Moses who was his type so is it also put for our first justification And this sprinkling as it is there mentioned is from the vertue of his intercession And therefore in that place of the Heb. forecited he attributes an intercession unto it as the phrase that follows which speaks better things c. doth imply of which more hereafter Yet concerning this first Head let me adde this by way of caution which I shall presently have occasion to observe that though this our first justification is to be ascribed to his Intercession yet more eminently Intercession is ordained for the accōplishing our salvation this other more rarely in the Scripture attributed thereunto Secondly 2. The continuance of our justification depends upon it The continuation of our Iustification depends upon it And as his Intercession is the virtuall continuation of his Sacrifice so is it the continuing cause of our justification which though it be an act done once as fully as ever yet is it done over every moment for it is continued by acts of free Grace so renewed actually every moment There is a standing in Grace by Christ spoken of Rom. 5. 2. as well as a first accesse by Christ and that standing in grace and continuing in it is afterwards ver 11. attributed to his life that is as it is interpreted Heb. 7. 25. his living ever to intercede We owe our standing in grace every moment to his sitting in Heaven and interceding every moment There is no fresh act of justification goes forth but there is a fresh act of intercession And as though God created the World once for all yet every moment he is said to create every new act of providence beeing a new creation so likewise to justifie continually through his continuing out free grace to justifie as at first and this Christ doth by continuing his Intercession he continues a Priest for ever and so we continue to be justifyed for ever 3. A full security of our justification given thereby forever There is hereby a full security given us of justification to be continued for ever The danger either must lie in old sins comming into remembrance or else from sins newly to be committed Now first God hereby takes order 1. Against the remembrance of sins past that no old sins shall come up into remembrance to trouble his thoughts as in the old Law after the Priests going into the Holy of holies their sins are said yet to have done Heb. 10. 3. and to that end it was that he placed Christ as his Remembrancer for us so neere him to take up his thoughts so with his obedience that our sinnes might not come into mind not that God needed this help to put himself in mind but onely for a formality sake that things being thus really carryed between God and Christ for us according to a way suiting with our apprehensions our faith might be strengthened against all suppositions and feares of after reviving our guilts Look therefore as God ordained the Rain-bow in the heavens that when he lookt on it he might remember his Covenant never to destroy the world againe by water so he hath set Christ as the Rain-bow about his Throne And look as the Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper are appointed on earth to shew forth Christs death as a Remembrancer to us so is Christ himselfe appointed in heaven to shew forth his death really as a Remembrancer thereof to his Father and indeed the one is correspondent to the other Onely the Papists have perverted the use of the Lords Supper by making it on earth a commemorative sacrifice to God when as it is but a Remembrancer thereof to men and besides their Priests therein do take upon themselves this very office of presenting this sacrifice to God which is proper onely to Christ in Heaven But God when he would make sure not to be tempted to remember our sins any more nor trouble himselfe with them hath set his Christ by him to put him in minde of his so pleasing an offering So the High-Priests going into the Holy of holies was for a memoriall and therein the Type of Christ And this is plainly expresly made the use of this execution of his Priestly office in Heaven Heb. 8. where the Apostle having discoursed of that part of his office as the chiefe thing he aimed at in this Epistle ver 1. and of the necessity of it ver 3 4 and 5. and excellencie of it in this respect ver 6. he then shews how from thence the new Covenant of pardon came to be sure and stedfast that God will remember our sins no more ver 12. which he there brings in as the proper use of this Doctrine and of this part of his Priesthood 2. 2. To prevent the accusing condemning us by new sinne for times to come As by reason of intercession God remembers not old sins so likewise he is not provoked by new For though God when he justifies us should forgive all old sins past for ever so as never to remember them more yet new ones would break forth and he could not but take notice of them and so so long as sinne continues there is need of a continuing intercession Therefore for the securing us in this it is said Rom. 5. 10. That if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life Where we see that his Death is in some more speciall manner said to procure reconciliation at first for sinnes of unregeneracie and to bring us to

should not accomplish he after all this should not be a perfect Priest It was the fault that God found with the Old Priest-hood that it made nothing perfect Heb. 7. 19. and therefore ver 12. the Law was changed and the Priesthood was changed together with it as there you have it Now in like manner Christs Priesthood should be imperfect if it made not the elect perfect and then God must yet seek for another Covenant and a more perfect Priest for this would be found faulty as the other was So then our comfort is if Christ approve himselfe to be a perfect Priest we who come to God by him must be perfectly saved It is in this office of his Priesthood and all the parts of it as in his Kingly office The worke of his Kingly office is to subdue all enemies to the last man even fully to do the thing and not onely to have power and to goe about to doe it so as if there should be any one enemie left unsubdued then Christ should not be a perfect King The same holds in his Priestly office also he should not be a perfect Priest if but one soule of the elect or those he intercedes for were left unsaved And this is indeed the top and highest consideration for our comfort in this argument that Intercession leaves us not till it hath actually and compleatly saved us and this is it that makes the Apostle put a further thing upon Intercession here in the Text thē upon that other his sitting at Gods right hand So as we are in this respect as sure of attaining unto the utmost glory of our salvation as Christ to have the full honour of his Priesthood A man saved is more then justifyed and Christ cannot reckon his work nor himselfe a perfect Priest untill we are saved Who shall condemne it is Christ that intercedes Besides §. 2. the consideration of the nature and scope of this work it selfe 2. Demonstration It is one end of Christs life in Heaven which Christ upon his honour of acquiting himselfe as a perfect Priest hath undertaken There is in the second place a farther consideration that argues him engaged by a stronger obligation His honour engaged to effect even the losse of his owne honour his office and all if he should not effect salvation for those that come to God by him so much doth it concern him to effect it Of all the works that ever he did he is most engaged in this it will not only be the losse of a businesse which concerns him and of so much work but himselfe must be lost in it too And the reason is that he intercedes as a Surety He was not onely a Surety on earth in dying and so was to look to do that work throughly That Christ is a Surety as wel by interceding as by dying and to be sure to lay downe a price sufficient or else himselfe had gone for it hee pawned in that work not onely his honour but even his life and soule to effect it or lose himselfe in it but he is a Surety now also in heaven by interceding This you may find to be the scope of Heb. 7. 22. by observing the coherence of that 22. ver wherein he is called a Surety with ver 23 24 25. that title and appellation is there given him in relation unto this part of his office especially And although it holds true of all parts of his office whatsoever yet the coherence carryes it that that mention there of his being a Surety doth in a more special manner refer unto his Intercession as appeares both by the words before after In the words before ver 21. the Apostle speaks of this his Priest-hood which is for ever and then subjoynes ver 22. By so much was Iesus made a Surety of a better Testament and then after also he discourseth of and instanceth in his Intercession and his continuing a Priest for ever in that work So ver 23 24 25. Wherefore he is able to save to the utmost seeing he ever lives to make Intercession Yea he is therefore engaged to save to the utmost because even in interceding for which he is said there to live he is a Surety He was a Surety on earth and is a Surety still in heaven The difference of these two Suretiships onely with this double difference which ariseth first from the different things which he undertook for then whilst on earth and for which now he undertakes in heaven That on earth he was a Surety to pay a price so sufficient as should satisfie Gods justice which having paid he was discharged in that respect and so far of that Obligation and his Bond for that was cancelled but so as still he remaines a Surety bound in another Obligation as great even for the bringing to salvation those whom he dyed for for their persons remained still unsaved though the debt was then paid and till they be saved he is not quit of this Surety-ship and engagement And secondly these two Surety-ships doe differ also by the differing Pawns which he was engaged to forfeit by failing in each of these works for the payment of our debt his soule it selfe lay at the stake which he offered up for sin but for the saving of the persons all his honour in heaven lies at stake He lives to intercede He possesseth Heaven upon these tearms and it is one end of his life so that as he must have sunk under Gods wrath if he had not paid the debt his soule standing in our souls stead so he must yet quit heaven and give over living there if he brings us not thither It is true he intercedes not as a Common person which relation in all other forementioned acts he still bore thus in his death he was both a Common person and a Surety representing us so as we died in him so likewise in his Resurrection we arose with him and in his Ascension we ascended c. but yet he intercedes not under that relation namely not as a Common person for we must not cannot be said to intercede in him for this last work lay not upon us to doe He doth it wholly for us indeed but not in our stead or as that which we should have done though on our behalfe for it being the last the crowne of all his works of mediation is therefore proper to him as Mediator and his sole work as such Thus in like manner the first work of Incarnation and answerably the last of Intercession in neither of these was Christ a Common person representing others though a common Saviour of others in these for the one was the foundation of all the other the accomplishment of all and so proper onely to himselfe as Mediatour But although he intercedes not as a Common person as representing us in what we were to have done for our selves yet so as that other relation of a Surety is continued

Common person with or for another hee goes for is one who represents personates and acts the part of another by the allowance and warrant of the Law so as what he doth as such a common person and in the name of the other that other whom he personates is by the Law reckoned to doe and in like manner what is done to him as being in the others stead and roome is reckoned as done to the other Thus by our Law an Attorney appears for another money received by him is reckoned as received by him whom it is due unto Thus the giving possession of an estate a re-entry made and possession taken of land c. if done by and to a man who is his lawfull Attorney it stands as good in Law unto a man as if in his owne person it had been done So Embassadours for Princes represent their Masters what is done to them is reckoned as done to the Prince and what they do according to their Commission is all one as if the Prince whose Person they represent had done it himselfe In like manner also the marriages of Princes are transacted solemnized by Proxie as a Common person representing his Lord and in his name is married to a Princesse in her Fathers Court and the Lawes of men authorize it and the marriage is as good as if both Princes themselves had been present and had performed all the Rites of it The difference betweene these two And thus to be a Common person is more then simply to be a Surety for another it is a farther thing and therefore these two relations are to be distinctly considered though they seem to be somewhat of a like nature Thus an Attorney is a different thing from a Surety A Surety undertakes to pay a debt for another or the like but a Cōmon person serves to perform any common act which by the Law is reckoned and virtually imputed to the other and is to stand as the others act is as valid as is he had done it So as the good and benefit which is the consequent of such an act shall accrew to him whom he personated and for whom he stood as a Common person Adam was not a Surety for all Man-kind Adam a Common person but not a Surety he undertook not for them in the sense fore-mentioned but he was a Common person representing all Man-kind So as what he should do was to be accounted as if they had done it Now the better to expresse and make sure our Justification in and by Christ according to all sorts of Laws the equity of all which God usually draws up into his dispensations God did ordain Christ both to be a Surety for us Christ ordained to be both and the reason why and also a Common person representing us and in our stead That as Christ tooke all other relations for us as of an Husband Head Father Brother King Priest Captain c. that so the fulnesse of his love might be set forth to us in that what is defective in any one of these relations is supplyed and expressed by the other Even thus did God ordaine Christ to take and sustaine both these relations of a Surety and a Common Person in all he did for us thereby to make our justification by him the more full and legall and justifie as I may so speake our Justification it selfe or his justifying of us by all sorts of legall considerations what ever that hold commonly among men in like case and that which the one of these relations or considerations might not reach to make good the other might supply what fel short in the one the other might make up and so we might be most legally and formally justified and made sure never to be condemned CHAP. III. The first Head The EVIDENCE of Iustification which Christs Resurrection affords to faith explained by two things 1. By shewing how Christ was made a Surety for us 2. How his Resurrection as a Surety holds forth this evidence COncerning the first of those two Heads at first propounded namely the Evidence which Christs Resurrection affords unto our faith in point of non-condemnation I have two things to handle in this Chap. to make this out First how Christ was made a Surety for us and what manner a Surety he did become secondly what the consideration hereof will contribute to that evidence which faith hath from Christs Resurrection For the first §. 1. Christ was appointed by God and himselfe also undertook to be our Surety 1. How Christ was made and became a Surety for us This you have Heb. 7. 22. He was made Surety of a better Testament or Covenant namely of the New The Hebrew word for Covenant the Septuagint stil translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Testament the word in the Hebrew being of a large signification comprehending both a Covenant and Testament and so in the New Testament it is used promiscuously for either And indeed this new Covenant of Grace is both Of this Covenant Christ is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the plighter of his troth for it the Surety the Promiser the Undertaker The Verb this comes of is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 promittere which comes form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in manibus striking hands or giving ones hand as a signe of a covenant and so to bargaine with or make up a covenant Prov. 22. 26. Be not thou one of them that strike hands or of them that are sureties for debts Which whole verse the Septuagint reads Give not thy selfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Suretyship The same word that is here used by the Apostle It was the manner both of the Jews and Romanes also to make Covenants by striking of hands And in Testaments the Heire and Executor shook hands or the Executor gave his hand to fulfill it Suretiship not onely used in matters of debt but in criminall causes punished with death and is put for being a pledge for another And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used not onely in promising to pay a debt for another but also in becomming a pledge for another for to undergoe death or a capitall punishment in anothers roome as in that famous story of friends namely Euephenus and Eucritus Eucritus did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 willingly become a surety for Euephenus when condemned to dye by Dionysius the tyrant This very word is used by Polyenus the Historian of that fact Now such a Surety every way did Christ become unto God for us Christ undertook as a Surety for both to satisfie God to work all in us also both to pay the debt by undergoing death in our stead and so to satisfie God and then as the Heire to execute his Will and Testament He became a Surety of the whole Covenant and every condition in it take it in the largest sense and this of all both on Gods part and on ours For us he undertook to