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world_n	law_n	sin_n	transgression_n	4,002	5	11.2412	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29103	The nature of that salvation, which the Gospel offereth, and the method of obtaining it, by a mediator a sermon preach'd in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, March the 6th, 1698/9, being the third, for this year, of the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. / by Samuel Bradford ...	Bradford, Samuel, 1652-1731.	1699 (1699)	Wing B4116; ESTC R19719	15,399	36

The Nature of that Salvation which the Gospel offereth and the Method of obtaining it by a Mediator A SERMON Preach'd in the Cathedral Church of St. PAVL March the 6th 1698 9. Being the Third for this Year of the Lecture Founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq By SAMUEL BRADFORD M. A. Rector of St. Mary le Bow LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1699. Mr. BRADFORD's SERMON Preached at St. Paul's March the 6th 1698 9. 1 TIM I. 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners IN treating on these Words I propos'd by God's Assistance to make good the Apostle's assertion viz. that the Saying mention'd by him is both certainly true and fit to be entertain'd by us with all readiness and thankfulness and that whether we consider the intrinsick Evidence it carries along with it or the external Attestation which hath been given to it I began with its intrinsick Evidence viz. its credibility from its manifest agreeableness to those Notions which we naturally have concerning God and our selves And to make this appear I propos'd the following Method First To consider who the Persons are whom Christ Jesus came into the VVorld to save Secondly What kind of Salvation he proposeth to them Thirdly In what way and manner he hath by his coming into the world wrought out this Salvation for them The first of these I have dispatch'd shewing that the Persons whom Christ Jesus came into the VVorld to save were both Men and Sinners under each of which denominations I endeavour'd to make it appear that they were fit Objects of the Divine Care and Compassion to be exercised in some extraordinary manner I proceed now to consider in the second place what kind of Salvation Christ Jesus proposeth to these Creatures concerning which I shall not need to add much after what hath been discours'd upon the former head For by a little reflection upon the condition of Sinners 't will be easie to discern what kind of Salvation they stood in need of which is the very same which our Saviour hath propos'd to us in his Gospel his design in coming into the World being to provide for the necessities of fallen Men with reference to which Necessities Salvation must imply both a Deliverance from those many Evils to which Sin had exposed them and a Restitution of those many Blessings which by their transgression they had forfeited Thus for Instance The Salvation of Men by Jesus Christ consists in his delivering them from the just displeasure of their Maker and all the terrible Effects of it together with a complete Restoration of them to the Divine favour and giving them a Title to all those Blessings which are proper for humane Nature when accepted of God in the setting them free from all that disorder and irregularity which had been introduc'd into the several Faculties of their Souls together with the dissatisfaction and uneasiness of Mind which necessarily follow'd as also from those inconveniencies and miseries to which their Bodies likewise were expos'd either as a consequence or a punishment of the corruption of their Minds in restoring perfectly that frame and temper of Spirit which is natural to an intelligent and reasonable Creature together with that healthful and vigorous state of Body that sound constitution of the whole Man which would have been the Effect or the Reward of Innocency and Integrity In a word Salvation consists in reconciling God to Men and Men to God and in all the blessed Fruits of such a Reconciliation which how many and how great they will be we are not able in this imperfect State so much as to conjecture This will be best understood by such as shall partake of this Salvation when it shall be fully accomplished In the mean time it may satisfie and encourage us to believe that they will bear a proportion to the Bounty of God and the Capacities of Men. And as this is the Salvation which the Gospel offereth to every particular Man to whom it is Preach'd so it assures us that all those who shall embrace the offer shall be thus saved and that the consequence of this will be a Renovation of this part of the World which has been so miserably disorder'd by the Sins of Men a Restitution of whatsoever has been decay'd in it the expelling sin and misery out of it the subduing and confining the great Enemy of God and Man who has so long usurp'd dominion over it Rom. 8.20 the delivering the Creature it self even this whole lower Creation from that vanity and bondage of Corruption to which it is at presented subjected and under which it groans and travelleth in pain into a glorious Liberty in a word 2 Pet. 3.21 the creating New Heavens and a New Earth wherein nothing but Righteousness shall dwell and finally the complete and everlasting happiness of an innumerable company of intelligent and reasonable Creatures who by the craft of their subtile Enemy and through their own weakness and folly had once fallen from God and the state in which he had placed them and been in imminent danger of utter Perdition All this is so evidently propos'd by the Gospel of our Saviour as the design of his Undertaking and so expresly and fully declar'd thereby that I need not spend time in producing any particular Proofs And all this is without question highly worthy of so great and so good a Being as God is Had the Christian Revelation told us that Almighty God had sent his only-begotten Son from Heaven only to secure to us the pleasures of the Elysian Fields or a Mahometan Paradice to provide for us a full and perpetual Enjoyment of Sensual Entertainments and Delights whosoever had any just thoughts of the divine or humane Nature might reasonably have disputed nay boldly denyed the divinity of such a Revelation But when on the contrary it assures us that our Saviour came into the World with such noble and generous designs as these to cause the displeasure of God to cease to heal the diseases of immaterial and immortal Spirits to repair the divine Image in them to restore both them and the Tabernacles they sojourn'd in to their primitive Integrity and Soundness to repair the ruins of Nature to make the Beauties of the Creation in this lower World conspicuous to destroy the Works of the Devil to recover such of God's Creatures as should be found capable of a Recovery to introduce and settle Everlasting Righteousness and Peace and finally to make a considerable number of the children of Men Eternally happy in the Enjoyment of their Maker these are all of them things so well becoming the Majesty and the Benignity of the Everlasting Father and his only-begotten Son and at the same time so beneficial and grateful to humane Nature that we have all the reason in the World to hearken to

another instance wherein our Mediator glorified the Attributes of God by his coming into the World But He did so in the highest degree by all the Sufferings which de underwent upon our account It was not it seems sufficient for our Mediator to declare and publish the divine Law afresh nor to give an instance of perfect Obedience to it in his own person but it was judg'd requisite also that he should submit to an afflicted and suffering condition and at last yield himself to be offer'd up as a Sacrifice upon the Cross to testifie in the most significant manner that was possible the fixed love of God to Righteousness his unalterable hatred of Sin his impartial justice in governing the World the excellency of the Laws which he had given to Men and the danger of transgressing them Such was the nature of the Offence given to God by Man's Apostacy and so bad were the circumstances of Mankind that it seem'd expedient to the great Father and Lord of all that our Mediator should voluntarily humble himself in this extraordinary manner The Son of God was admitted to be our Mediator upon no lower Terms than these as is plainly intimated by the Author to the Hebrews when citing a passage out of a prophetical Psalm he applies it to our Saviour and represents him as saying to his Father when he came into the World Sacrifice and Offering thou wouldst not Heb. 10.5 6. but a Body hast thou prepared me In burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure Then said I Lo I come in the Volume of the Book it is written of me to do thy will O God by which will as he adds a little after we are sanctified Ver. 10. through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all And upon our Mediator's thus suffering for us new terms of Mercy and Reconciliation were offer'd to us upon which account he himself calls his Bloud Mat. 26.28 the Bloud of the new Covenant viz. that Bloud in the shedding of which the new Covenant between God and Man for acceptance upon Repentance and Faith was made and ratified The Sufferings of our Lord are throughout the Holy Scriptures represented as making expiation for the Sins of Men and particularly his death upon the Cross as it is made to answer all the expiatory Sacrifices under the Law so it is it self frequently Styled a Sacrifice and Offering for Sins and represented as the means of God's being reconciled to us and so it evidently was in as much as by this means the Sins of Men were so openly condemn'd the Righteousness of God's Law so notoriously declar'd and by consequence the Holiness and Justice of God so conspicuously honor'd in the view of the World which certainly may be reasonably call'd giving Satisfaction to God This Doctrine of our Saviour's offering up himself as a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World and thereby giving Satisfaction to the great Lord of all is so fully declar'd throughout the New Testament and particularly in one whole Epistle Written as it should seem to that very purpose I mean that to the Hebrews that I knew not how to do right to Christianity without thus plainly asserting it I know that according to the Will of our pious and charitable Founder I am not to descend to any Controversies that are amongst Christians themselves and therefore I shall not make this a Controversie but take it for granted as what is not only fully asserted in holy Writ and agreeable to the sense of the most primitive Christian Antiquity as well as the judgment of the main Body of Christians throughout every age but what belongs to the true Christian Scheme and is necessary to render it entire and of a piece And though I would be very loth to deny the Title of Christian to any man who seriously lays claim to it and in so sceptical an Age as this to lessen the number of Christian Professors yet I must not for the sake of such as desert the Christianity which we are taught by the Scriptures over-look so prime a branch of it as this is Let those who call themselves by this Name and yet deny that satisfaction was made to God by the Sufferings of Christ for the sins of Men reconcile their Title and their opinion as well as they can My business is to assert and vindicate the truth of the Christian Religion as exhibited to us in the Gospel and I am so far from thinking the Doctrine of Expiation and Satisfaction made by the Death of Christ an objection against the Christian Revelation that I have judg'd it necessary to insist upon it as one admirable instance of the Excellency of that Method in which our Mediator hath obtain'd Salvation for us The Sum of what I have said upon this Argument is that our Lord when he came into the World took upon him the Character of a Mediator and that he executed his Mediatorial Office partly by doing that which was greatly for the honor of his Heavenly Father the Person offended and consequently well-pleasing and satisfactory to him making this the first step in procuring Reconciliation between God and Men. The business of my next Discourse will be to proceed to shew how our Lord hath farther executed the same Office by providing for the Necessities of Men. I shall conclude at present with two short Inferences from what has been now offer'd If what I have said upon this Subject be true it shews us how little Christianity is beholden to those who attempt to lessen the Person of our Mediator This inference will appear just if we do but observe that by how much the greater and more considerable the Person of our Mediator is by so much the better qualified he must also be for the obtaining Salvation for us and particularly by so much the greater will that honor be which is done to the Attributes of God by his Doctrine and especially by his Actions and his Sufferings It must certainly in the account of any reasonable Man be a more full and ample declaration of the Holiness and Justice of God for a Person so near to the Father as the Scriptures represent our Mediator to be first to condescend so low as to assume our Nature and then to do and suffer so much upon our account than for one that was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a meer Son of Adam to have done it The dignity of the Person transacting this affair must needs add weight to all that was done by him If this be true what awful thoughts ought we to have of Almighty God! what regard to his Purity and Justice and his Authority over us what fear of dishonoring and offending so Excellent a Majesty what a dread of wilfully violating any of his known Laws for the future When he thought fit notwithstanding the infinite Goodness of his Nature not to offer us Terms of Mercy but in the Method of the Gospel when he would not treat with us at all without a Mediator and when having appointed his own Son to that Office he was pleas'd to found and ratifie a New Covenant with us in his Bloud The reasoning of the Apostle is unanswerable both with respect to the former part of this Discourse and the latter How shall we escape Heb. 2.3 if we neglect so great Salvation And If we sin wilfully Chap. 10 2● after we have receiv'd the knowledge of the Truth i. e. if we either Apostatize from our Christian Profession or which comes to the same issue ver 27. live in plain contradiction to the Profession we make there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sins no greater can be made but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries Heb. 10.29 this as he adds being to tread under foot the Son of God and to count the bloud of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing besides doing despite to the Spirit of Grace May Almighty God preserve us all from such Apostacy in this degenerate Age may he if it be possible recover such as be fallen and may he give us all Grace not only to adhere to the Profession of Christianity but also to bring Reputation to it by a suitable Practice through Jesus Christ our only Mediator and Advocate to whom with the Father and the Eternal Spirit our great Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier be ascribed all Honor and Glory now and for ever Amen FINIS The First SERMON The Qualifications requisite towards the Receiving a Divine Revelation The Second SERMON Apostate Men fit Objects of Divine Care and Compassion The Third SERMON The Nature of that Salvation which the Gospel offereth and the Method of obtaining it by a Mediator These three by Mr. Bradford and Printed for Tho. Parkhurst