〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crellius acknowledgeth do frequently signifie deliverance from guilt and punishment but he saith they may likewise signifie a declaration of that deliverance as decreed by God or a purging from the sins themselves or from the custom of sinning So that by Crellius his own confession the sense we contend for is most proper and usual the other are more remote and only possible why then should we forsake the former sense which doth most perfectly agree to the nature of a Sacrifice which the other senses have no such relation to as that hath For these being the words made use of in the New Testament to imply the force and efficacy of a Sacrifice why should they not be understood in the same sense which the Hebrew words were taken in when they are applied to the Sacrifices under the Law We are not enquiring into all possible senses of words but into the most natural and agreeable to the scope of them that use them and that we shall make it appear to be the same we plead for in the places in dispute between us as 1 John 1. 7. The blood of Iesus Christ his Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 purgeth us from all sin Heb. 9. 13 14. If the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your consciences from dead works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he had by himself purged our sins So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are used with a respect to the blood of Christ Heb. 10. 22. Apocalip 1. 5. And because remission of sin was looked on as the consequent of expiation by Sacrifice under the Law therefore that is likewise attributed to the blood of Christ Matth. 26. 28 This is the blood of the New Testament which was shed for many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the remission of sins Eph. 1. 7. In whom we have redemption through his blood the remission of sins and to the same purpose Coloss. 1. 14. And from hence we are said to be justified by his blood Rom. 5. 9. and Christ is said to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 25. The substance of all that Crellius replies to these places is That those words which do properly signifie the thing it self may very conveniently be taken only for the declaration of it when the performance of the thing doth follow by vertue of that declartaion which then happens when the declaration is made of the thing decreed by another and that in the name and by the command of him who did decree it And in this sense Christ by his blood may be said to deliver us from the punishment of our sins by declaring or testifying to us the will and decree of God for that purpose But this answer is by no means sufficient upon these considerations 1. Because it doth not reach the proper and natural sense of the words as Crellius himself confesseth and yet he assigns no reason at all why we ought to depart from it unless the bare possibility of another meaning be sufficient But how had it been possible for the efficacy of the blood of Christ for purging away the guilt of our sins to have been expressed in clearer and plainer terms than these which are acknowledged of themselves to signifie as much as we assert If the most proper expressions for this purpose are not of force enough to perswade our Adversaries none else could ever do it so that it had been impossible for our Doctrine to have been delivered in such terms but they would have found out ways to evade the meaning of them It seems very strange that so great an efficacy should not only once or twice but so frequently be attributed to the blood of Christ for expiation of sin if nothing else were meant by it but that Christ by his death did only declare that God was willing to pardon sin If there were danger in understanding the words in their proper sense why are they so frequently used to this purpose why are there no other places of Scripture that might help to undeceive us and tell us plainly that Christ dyed only to declare his Fathers will but what ever other words might signifie this was the only true meaning of them But what miserable shifts are these when men are forced to put off such Texts which are confessed to express our Doctrine only by saying that they may be otherwise understood which destroys all kind of certainty in words which by reason of the various use of them may be interpreted to so many several senses that if this liberty be allowed upon no other pretence but that another meaning is possible men will never agree about the intention of any person in speaking For upon the same reason if it had been said That Christ declared by his death Gods readiness to pardon it might have been interpreted That the blood of Christ was therefore the declaration of Gods readiness to pardon because it was the consideration upon which God would do it So that if the words had been as express for them as they are now against them according to their way of answering places they would have been reconcileable to our opinion 2. The Scripture in these expressionÅ› doth attribute something peculiar to the blood of Christ but if all that were meant by it were no more than the declaring Gods will to pardon this could in no sense be said to be peculiar to it For this was the design of the Doctrine of Christ and all his miracles were wrought to confirm the truth of that part of his Doctrine which concerned remission of sins as well as any other but how absurd would it have been to say that the miracles of Christ purge us from all sin that through Christ healing the sick raising the dead c. we have redemption even the forgiveness of sins which are attributed to the blood of Christ but if in no other respect than as a testimony to the truth of the Doctrine of Remission of sins they were equally applicable to one as to the other Besides if this had been all intended in these expressions they were the most incongruously applied to the blood of Christ nothing seeming more repugnant to the Doctrine of the Remission of sins which was declared by it than that very thing by which it was declared if no more were intended by it For how unsuitableâ—a way was it to declare the pardon of the guilty persons by such severities used towards the most Innocent Who could believe that God should declare his willingness to pardon others by the death of his own Son unless that death of his be considered as the Meritorious cause for
punishments of the future state So that the ends of punishment here are quite of another kind from those of another life for those are inflicted because persons have been unreclaimable by either the mercies or punishments of this life but these are intended that men should so far take notice of this severity of God as to avoid the sins which will expose them to the wrath to come And from hence it follows That whatsoever sufferings do answer all these ends of Divine punishments and are inflicted on the account of sin have the proper notion of punishments in them and God may accept of the undergoing them as a full satisfaction to his Law if they be such as tend to break men off from sin and assert Gods right and vindicate his honor to the world which are the ends assigned by Crellius and will be of great consequence to us in the following Discourse CHAP. II. The particular state of the Controversie concerning the sufferings of Christ. The Concessions of our Adversaries The debate reduced to two heads The first concerning Christs sufferings being a punishment for sin entred upon In what sense Crellius acknowledgeth the sins of men to have been the impulsive cause of the death of Christ. The sufferings of Christ proved to be a punishment from Scripture The importance of the phrase of bearing sins Of the Scape-Goats bearing the sins of the people into the Wilderness Grotius his sense of 1 Pet. 2. 24. vindicated against Crellius and himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never used for the taking away a thing by the destruction of it Crellius his sense examined Isa. 53. 11. vindicated The argument from Mat. 8. 17. answered Grotius constant to himself in his notes on that place Isa. 53. 5 6 7. cleared Whether Christs death be a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether that doth imply that it was a punishment of sin How far the punishments of Children for their Fathers faults are exemplary among men The distinction of calamities and punishments holds not here That Gods hatred of sin could not be seen in the sufferings of Christ unless they were a punishment of sin proved against Crellius Grotius his Arguments from Christ being made sin and a curse for us defended The liberty our Adversaries take in Changing the sense of words The particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned to sins and relating to sufferings do imply those sufferings to be a punishment for sin According to their way of interpreting Scripture it had been impossible for our doctrine to be clearly expressed therein THese things being thus far cleared concerning the nature and ends of punishments and how far they are of the nature of debts and consequently what kind of satisfaction is due for them the resolution of the grand Question concerning the sufferings of Christ will appear much more easie but that we may proceed with all possible clearness in a debate of this consequence we must yet a little more narrowly examine the difference between our Adversaries and us in this matter for their concessions are in teâ—ms sometimes so fair as though the difference were meerly about words without any considerable difference in the thing it self If we charge them with denying satisfaction Crellius answers in the name of them that we do it unjustly for they do acknowledge a satisfaction worthy of God and agreeable to the Scriptures If we charge them with denying that our salvation is obtained by the death of Christ they assert the contrary as appears by the same Author Nay Ruarus attributes merit to the death of Christ too They acknowledge that Christ dyed for us nay that there was a commutation between Christ and us both of one person for another and of a price for a person and that the death of Christ may be said to move God to redeem us they acknowledge reconciliation and expiation of sins to be by the death of Christ. Nay they assert that Christs death was by reason of our sins and that God designed by that to shew his severity against sin And what could we desire more if they meant the same thing by these words which we do They assert a satisfaction but it is such a one as is meerly fulfilling the desire of another in which sense all that obey God may be said to satisfie him They attribute our salvation to the death of Christ but only as a condition intervening upon the performance of which the Covenant was confirmed and himself taken into Glory that he might free men from the punishment of their sins They attribute merit to Christs death but in the same sense that we may merit too when we do what is pleasing to God They acknowledge that Christ died for us but not in our stead but for our advantage that there was a commutation but not such a one as that the Son of God did lay down his blood as a proper price in order to our redemption as the purchase of it when they speak of a moving cause they tell us they mean no more than the performance of any condition may be said to move or as our prayers and repentance do The reconciliation they speak of doth not at all respect God but us they assert an expiation of sins consequent upon the death of Christ but not depending upon it any otherwise than as a condition necessary for his admission to the office of a High Priest in Heaven there to expiate our sins by his power and not by his blood but they utterly deny that the death of Christ is to be considered as a pròper expiatory sacrifice for sin or that it hath any further influence upon it than as it is considered as a means of the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and particularly the promise of remission of sins on which and not on the death of Christ they say our remission depends but so far as the death of Christ may be an argument to us to believe his Doctrine and that faith may incline us to obedience and that obedience being the condition in order to pardon at so many removes they make the death of Christ to have influence on the remission of our sins They assert that God took occasion by the sins of men to ex ercise an act of dominion upon Christ in his sufferings and that the sufferings of Christ were intended for the taking away the sins of men but they utterly deny that the sufferings of Christ were to be considered as a punishment for sin or that Christ did suffer in our place and stead nay they contend with great vehemency that it is wholly inconsistent with the justice of God to make one mans sins the meritorious cause of anothers punishment especially one wholly innocent and so that the guilty shall be freed on the account of his sufferings Thus I have endeavoured to give the true state of the
fell to the share of the Priests and these were either sins particularly enumerated by God himself under the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or else generally comprehended under the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being allowed to be expiated because committed through inadvertency 3. Such whereof a less part was consumed as in the Peace-offerings of the Congregation mentioned Levit. 23. 19. whereof the blood was sprinkled only the inwards burnt and the flesh not eaten by the persons that offered them as it was in the Peace-offerings of particular persons of which as being private Sacrifices I have here no occasion to speak but only by the Priests in the Court and these had something of expiation in them For thence saith Vatablus the Peace offering was called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Expiatorium and the LXX commonly render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and several of the Iews think the reason of the name was That it made peace between God and him that offered it But the great reason I insist on is Because all the things which were used in an Expiatory Sacrifice were in this too the slaying of the Beast the sprinkling of the blood and the consumption of some part of it upon the Altar as an Oblation to God which are the three ingredients of an Expiatory Sacrifice for the shedding of the blood noted the bearing the punishment of our iniquity and the sprinkling of it on the Altar and the consuming of the part of the Sacrifice or the whole there that it was designed for the expiation of sin From whence it follows that the phrase of a sweet-smelling savour being applied under the Law to Expiatory Sacrifices is very properly used by St. Paul concerning Christs giving up himself for us so that from this phrase nothing can be inferred contrary to the Expiatory nature of the death of Christ but rather it is fully agreeable to it But Crellius hath yet a farther Argument to prove that Christs death cannot be here meant as the Expiatory Sacrifice viz. That the notion of a sacrifice doth consist in the oblation whereby the thing is consecrated to the honour and service of God to which the mactation is but a bare preparation which he proves Because the slaying the sacrifice might belong to others besides the Priests Ezek. 44. 10 11. but the oblation only to the Priests To this I answer 1. The mactation may be considered two ways either with a respect to the bare instrument of taking away the life or to the design of the Offerer of that which was to be sacrificed As the mactation hath a respect only to the instruments so it is no otherways to be considered than as a punishment but as it hath a respect to him that designs it for a Sacrifice so the shedding of the blood hath an immediate influence on the expiation of sin And that by this clear Argument The blood is said to make an Atonement for the soul and the reason given is because the life of the flesh is in the blood So that which was the life is the great thing which makes the Atonement and when the blood was shed the life was then given from whence it follows that the great efficacy of the sacrifice for Atonement lay in the shedding of the blood for that end Thence the Apostle attributes remission of sins to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the shedding of the blood and not to the bare Oblation of it on the Altar or the carrying it into the Holy of Holies both which seem to be nothing else but a more solemn representation of that blood before God which was already shed for the expiation of sins which was therefore necessary to be performed that the concurrence of the Priest might be seen with the sacrifice in order to expiation For if no more had been necessary but the bare slaying of the Beasts which was the meanest part of the service the people would never have thought the institution of the Priesthood necessary and least of all that of the High-Priest unless some solemn action of his had been performed such as the entring into the Holy of Holies on the day of expiation and carrying it and sprinkling the blood of the sin offering in order to the expiation of the sins of the people And it is observable that although the Levitical Law be silent in the common Sacrifices who were to kill them whether the Priests or the Levites yet on that day whereon the High-Priest was to appear himself for the expiation of sin it is expresly said that he should not only kill the bullock of the sin-offering which is for himself but the goaâ— of the sin-offering which is for the people And although the Talmudists dispute from their Traditions on both sides whether any one else might on the day of expiation slay the sin-offerings besides the High-Priest yet it is no news for them to dispute against the Text and the Talmud it self is clear that the High-Priest did it From whence it appears there was something peculiar on that day as to the slaying of the sin-offerings and if our Adversaries opinion hold good that the Sacrifices on the day of expiation did iâ— not aâ—one yet chiefly represent the Sacrifice of Christ no greater argument can be brought against themselves than this is for the office of the High-Priest did not begin at his carrying the blood into the Holy of Holies but the slaying the sacrifice did belong to him too from whence it will unavoidably followâ— that Christ did not enter upon his Office of High-Priest when he entred into Heaven but when the Sacrifice was to be be slain which was designed for the expiation of sins It is then to no purpose at all if Crellius could prove that sometimes in ordinary Sacrifices which he will not say the Sacrifice of Christ was represented by the Levites might kill the beasts for Sacrifice for it appears that in these Sacrifices wherein themselves contend that Christs was represented the office of the High-Priest did not begin with entring into the Sanctuary but with the mactation of that Sacrifice whose blood was to be carried in thither Therefore if we â—peak of the bare instruments of mactation in the death of Christ those were the Iews and we make not them Priests in it for they aimed at no more than taking away his life as the Popae among the Romans and those whose bare Office it was to kill the beasts for Sacrifice among the Iews did but if we consider it with a respect to him that offered up his life to God then we say that Christ was the High-Priest in doing it it being designed for the expiation of sin and by vertue of this bloodshed for that end he enters into Heaven as the Holy of Holies there ever living to make intercession for us But the vertue of the consequent acts depends upon the
from Lev. 17. 11. and the Concession of Crellius about the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lev. 10. 17. explained The expiation of uncertain murther proves a substitution A substitution of Christ in our room proved from Christ being said to dye for us the importance of that phrase considered In what sense a Surrogation of Christ in our room is asserted by us Our Redemption by Christ proves a substitution Of the true notion of Redemption that explained and proved against Socinus and Crellius No necessity of paying the price to him that detains captive where the captivity is not by force but by sentence of Law Christs death a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attributed to it cannot be taken for meer deliverance pag. 314 CHAP. V. The notion of a sacrifice belongs to the death of Christ because of the Oblation made therein to God Crellius his sense of Christs Oblation proposed Against him it is proved that the Priestly office of Christ had a primary respect to God and not to us Expiatory Sacrifices did divert the wrath of God Christ not a bare Metaphorical High-Priest Crellius destroys the Priesthood of Christ by confounding it with the exercise of his Regal Power No proper expiation of sin belongs to Christ in Heaven if Crellius his Doctrine be true Ephes. 5. 2. proves the death of Christ an Expiatory Sacrifice and an Oblation to God The Phrase of a sweet-smelling savour belongs to Expiatory Sacrifices Crellius his gross notion of it His mistakes about the kinds of Sacrifices Burnt-offerings were Expiatory Sacrifices both before and under the Law A new distribution of sacrifices proposed What influence the mactation of the Sacrifice had on Expiation The High-Priest only to slay the Sin-offering on the day of Atonement from whence it is proved that Christs Priesthood did not begin from his entrance into Heaven The mactation in Expiatory Sacrifices no bare preparation to a Sacrifice proved by the Iewish Laws and the customs of other Nations Whether Christs Oblation of himself once to God were in Heaven or on Earth Of the proper notion of Oblations under the Levitical Law Several things observed from thence to our purpose All things necessary to a legal Oblation concur in the death of Christ His entrance into Heaven hath no correspondency with it if the blood of Christ were no sacrifice for sin In Sin-offerings for the People the whole was consumed no eating of the Sacrifices allowed the Priests but in those for private Persons Christs exercise of Power in Heaven in no sense an Oblation to God Crellius his sense repugnant to the circumstances of the places in dispute Objections answered pag. 329 CHAP. VI. That the effects of proper Expiatory Sacrifices belong to the death of Christ which either respect the sin or the person Of the true notion of expiation of sin as attributed to Sacrifices Of the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to them Socinus his proper sense of it examined Crellius his Objections answered The Iews notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sacrifices not bare conditions of pardon nor expiated meerly as a slight part of obedience Gods expiating sin destroys not expiation by Sacrifice The importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to Sacrifices Expiation attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ in the same sense that it was to other Sacrifices and from thence and the places of Scripture which mention it proved not to be meerly declarative If it had been so it had more properly belonged to his Resurrection than his death The Death of Christ not taken Metonymically for all the Consequents of it because of the peculiar effects of the death of Christ in Scripture and because Expiation is attributed to him antecedently to his entrance into Heaven No distinction in Scripture of the effects of Christs entrance into Heaven from his sitting at the right hand of God The effects of an Expiatory Sacrifice respecting the person belong to the death of Christ which are Atonement and Reconciliation Of the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Reconciliation by Christs death doth not meerly respect us but God why the latter less used in the New Testament A twofold Reconciliation with God mentioned in Scripture Crellius his evasion answered The Objections from Gods being reconciled in the sending his Son and the inconsistency of the Freeness of Grace with the Doctrine of Satisfaction answered and the whole concluded pag. 355 TO THE Right Honourable ELIZABETH COUNTESSE DOWAGER OF JOCELIN Late EARLE of Northumberland Madam AMONG the number of those who congratulate Your safe return into Your own Countrey wherein Your Ladiship is so justly beloved and esteemed by all that honour Vertue and Goodness Give me leave to express my Duty in an Address more agreeable to my own Profession than some perhaps will think it is to Your Quality and Condition Those I mean who measure their Greatness by their contempt of Religion and all that belong to it Who know nothing of Wit or Vertue beyond the Stage or think the Leviathan contains in it the Whole Duty of Man The utmost these Persons will allow us whose Honour and Imployment lyes in asserting the Truth of Religion and perswading to the practice of it is that we are men of a Profession and speak for the things we are to live by As though Reason and Religion were such contemptible Wares as scarce any would enquire after if it were not some mens Trade to put them off and were of less force in themselves because it is our Duty and Interest to maintain them Is it any disparagement to a Prince to have Subjects obliged to defend his Honour and Servants to attend his Person and must not what they say or do be at all minded because their own Interest is joyned with his Why then should Religion suffer in the esteem of any because she hath servants of her own to defend her Cause As if it had alwayes been a received Principle with mankind that no man is to be trusted in his own Profession According to this the Lawyers ought to preach and the Divines plead Causes because the one gets nothing by Divinity nor the other by Law the Merchant should visit Patients and the Physicians attend the Committees of Trade because it is dangerous trusting men in what they are most concerned to understand When once I see these persons for bear to consult the Lawyers about setling their Estates and Physicians for their health meerly because they get by their Professions I shall then think it is something else besides a Pique at Religion which makes them so ready to contemn whatever is said by us in behalf of it because forsooth it is our Trade to defend it I wish it were theirs as much to practise it and then we should not be troubled
moenibus ruentibus moribus though their walls were firm if their manners were decayed But it is our misery that our walls and our manners are fallen together or rather the latter undermined the former They are our sins which have drawn so much of our blood and infected our air and added the greatest fuel to our flames But it is not enough in general to declaim against our sins but we must search out particularly those predominant vices which by their boldness and frequency have provoked God thus to punish us and as we have hitherto observed a parallel between the Iudgements of Israel in this Chapter and our own So I am afraid we shall find too sad a parallel between their sins and ours too Three sorts of sins are here spoken of in a peculiar manner as the causes of their severe punishments Their luxury and intemperance their covetousness and oppression and their contempt of God and his Laws and I doubt we need not make a very exact scrutiny to find out these in a high degree among our selves and I wish it were as easie to reform them as to find them out 1. Luxury and intemperance that we meet with in the first verse both in the compellation Ye Kine of Bashan and in their behaviour which say to their Masters bring and let us drink Ye Kine of Bashan Loquitur ad Principes Israel Optimates quosque decem Tribuum saith St. Hierom he speaks to the Princes of Israel and the chief of all the ten Tribes Those which are fed in the richest pasturés such as those of Bashan were Who are more fully described by the Prophet in this sixth chapter They are the men who are at ease in Sion v. 1. they put far away from them the evil day v. 3. they lye upon beds of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their Couches and eat the Lambs out of the flock and the Calves out of the midst of the stall v. 4. they chaunt to the sound of the Viol and invent to themselves instruments of Musick like David v. 5. they drink Wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief oyntments but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph The meaning of all which is they minded nothing but ease softness and pleasure but could not endure to hear of the calamities which were so near them Nothing but mirth and jollity and riot and feasting and the evil consequences of these were to be seen or heard among them Their delicate souls were presently rufled and disturbed at the discourse of any thing but matters of Courtship address and entertainment Any thing that was grave and serious â—hough never so necessary and of the greatest importance â—â—s put off as Felix put off St. Paul to a more convenient time especially if it threatned miseries to them and appeared with a countenance sadder than their own These were the Kine of Bashan who were full of ease and wantonness and never thought of the day of slaughter which the other were the certain fore-runner of Symmachus renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which others apply to the rich Citizens of Samaria I am afraid we may take it in either sense without a Soloecism Bring and let us drink which as St. Hierom goes on Ebrietatem significat in vino luxuria quae statum mentis evertunt it implies the height of their luxury and intemperance It is observed by some that our Prophet retains still the language of his education in the bluntness of his expressions the great men that lived wholly at their ease in wantonness and luxury he styles like the heardsman of Tekoa the Kine of Bashan That he thought was title good enough for such who seemed to have souls for no other end than the other had And hath not that delicata insania as St. Austin calls it that soft and effeminate kind of madness taken possession of too many among us whose birth and education designed them for more manly imployments Yea what an age of Luxury do we live in when instead of those noble characters of men from their vertue and wisdom and courage it is looked on among some as a mighty character of a person that he eats and drinks well a character that becomes none so much as the Kine of Bashan in the literal sense for surely they did so or else they had never been in so great esteem among the heardsmen of Tekoa A character which those Philosophers would have been ashamed of who looked upon no other end of humane life but pleasure but in order to that they thought nothing more necessary than temperance and sobriety but whatever esteem they had then they have lost all their reputation among our modern Epicures who know of no such things as pleasures of the mind and would not much value whether they had any faculties of the mind or no unless it were for the contrivance of new Oaths and debaucheries But if this were only among some few persons we hope the whole Nation would not suffer for their madness for scarce any Age hath been so happy but it hath had some Monsters in Morality as well as Nature But I am afraid these vices are grown too Epidemical not only in the City but the Countries too what mean else those frequent complaints and I hope more general than the causes of them that the houses of great men in too many places are so near being publick schools of debauchery rather than of piety and vertue where men shall not want instructers to teach them to forget both God and themselves wherein sobriety is so far from being accounted a matter of honour that the rules of the Persian civility are quite forgotten and men are forced to unman themselves I know nothing would tend more to the honour of our Nation or the advantage of it than if once these publick excesses were severely restrained I do not mean so much by making new Laws for those generally do but exercise peoples Wits by finding out new evasions but by executing old ones 2. Covetousness and oppression You see what these great men in Samaria did when they had any respite from their excesses and intemperance then wo be to the poor who come in their way Which oppress the poor and crush the needy v. 1. either by the hands of violence or by those arts and devices which either their honesty or poverty have kept them from the knowledge of And if there be not so much of open violence in our daies the thanks are due to the care of our Magistrates and the severity of our Laws but it is hard to say whether ever any Age produced more studious and skilful to pervert the design of Laws without breaking the letter of them than this of ours hath done Fraud and injustice is now managed with a great deal of artifice and cunning and he thinks himself no body in the understanding of the
laid on him the iniquities of us all that through the eternal Spirit he offer'd himself without spot to God and did appear to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself that he was made a propitiation for our sins that he laid down his life as a price of Redemption for Mankind that through his blood we obtain Redemption even the forgiveness of sins which in a more particular manner is attributed to the blood of Christ as the procuring cause of it That he dyed to reconcile God and us together and that the Ministery of Reconciliation is founded on Gods making him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and that we may not think that all this Reconciliation respects us and not God he is said to offer up himself to God and for this cause to be a Mediator of the New Testament and to be a faithful high-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people and every high-Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God not appointed by God in things meerly tending to the good of men which is rather the Office of a Prophet than a Priest So that from all these places it may easily appear that the blood of Christ is to be looked on as a sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the World Not as though Christ did suffer the very same which we should have suffer'd for that was eternal death as the consequent of guilt in the person of the Offender and then the discharge must have been immediately consequent upon the payment and no room had been left for the freeness of remission or for the conditions required on our parts But that God was pleased to accept of the death of his Son as a full perfect sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the World as our Church expresseth it and in consideration of the sufferings of his Son is pleased to offer pardon of sin upon sincere repentance and eternal life upon a â—…y obedience to his will Thus much for the things we are to consider concerning the contradiction of sinners which Christ endured against himself Nothing now remains but the influence that ought to have upon us lest we be weary and faint in our minds For which end I shall suggest two things 1. The vast disproportion between Christs sufferings and ours 2. The great encouragement we have from his sufferings to bear our own the better 1. The vast Disproportion between Christs sufferings and our own Our lot is fallen into suffering times and we are apt enough to complain of it I will not say it is wholly true of us what the Moralist saith generally of the complaints of men Non quia dura sed quia molles patimur that it is not the hardness of our conditions so much as the softness of our spirits which makes us complain of them For I must needs say this City hath smarted by such a series and succession of judgements which few Cities in the world could parallel in so short a time The Plague hath emptied its houses and the fire consumed them the War exhausted our spirits and it were well if Peace recovered them But still these are but the common calamities of humane nature things that we ought to make account of in the World and to grow the better by them And it were happy for this City if our thankfulness and obedience were but answerable to the mercies we yet enjoy let us not make our condition worse by our fears nor our fears greater than they need to be for no enemy can be so bad as they Thanks be to God our condition is much better at present than it hath been let us not make it worse by fearing it may be so Complaints will never end till the World does and we may imagine that will not last much longer when the City thinks it hath trade enough and the Country riches enough But I will not go about to perswade you that your condition is better than it is for I know it is to no purpose to do so all men will believe as they feel But suppose our condition were much worse than it is yet what were all our sufferings compared with those of our Saviour for us the sins that make us smart wounded him much deeper they pierced his side which only touch our skin we have no cause to complain of the bitterness of that Cup which he hath drunk off the dreggs of already We lament over the ruins of a City and are revived with any hopes of seeing it rise out of the dust but Christ saw the ruins that sin caused in all mankind he undertook the repairing them and putting men into a better condition than before And we may easily think what a difficult task he had of it when he came to restore them who were delighted in their ruins and thought themselves too good to be mended It is the comfort of our miseries if they be only in this life that we know they cannot last long but that is the great aggravation of our Saviours sufferings that the contradiction of sinners continues against him still Witness the Atheism I cannot so properly call it as the Antichristianism of this present Age wherein so many profane persons act over again the part of the Scribes and Pharisees they slight his Doctrine despise his Person disparage his miracles contemn his Precepts and undervalue his Sufferings Men live as if it were in defiance to his holy Laws as though they feared not what God can do so much as to need a Mediator between him and them If ever men tread under foot the Son of God it is when they think themselves to be above the need of him if ever they count the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing it is not only when they do not value it as they ought but when they exercise their profane wits upon it Blessed Saviour was it not enough for thee to bear the contradiction of sinners upon Earth but thou must still suffer so much at the hands of those whom thou dyedst for that thou mightest bring them to Heaven was it not enough for thee to be betrayed on Earth but thou must be defied in Heaven Was it not enough for thee to stoop so low for our sakes but that thou shouldest be trampled on because thou didst it was the ignominious death upon the Cross too small a thing for thee to suffer in thy Person unless thy Religion be contemned and exposed to as much shame and mockery as thy self was Unhappy we that live to hear of such things but much more unhappy if any of our sins have been the occasion of them If our unsuitable lives to the Gospel have open'd the mouths of any against so
apparent that in all this long captivity they never have had the heart to repent of the sin of crucifying Christ other sins they confess and say they heartily repent of but why then hath not God accepted of their repentance and brought them back into their own Land according to the promises he long since made unto their Fathers Which is a certain argument it is some sin as yet unrepented of by them which continues them under all their sufferings and what can this be but that horrid sin of putting to death the son of God with that dreadful imprecation which to this day hath its force upon them His blood be upon us and our Children and this sin they are so far from repenting of that they still justify their Fathers in what they did and Blaspheme Christ to this day in their prayers where they think they may do it with safety And to all this we may add that the ensuing calamities were exactly soretold by that Christ whom they crucified and if no other argument would convince them that he was at least a Prophet yet the punctual accomplishment of all his predictions ought to do it as will appear by comparing Matth. 24. With the series of the story And it is observable that the very place where our Saviour foretold these things viz. the Mount of Olives was the first wherein the Roman Army encamped before Hierusalem And as they had crucified the Son of God and put the Lord of glory to open shame mocking and deriding him in his sufferings so when the Romans came to revenge his quarrel upon them they took the captive Jews and crucified them openly in the view of the City 500. oft-times in a day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in different forms for sport sake as Iosephus tells us who was then in the Roman camp and withal adds their numbers were so great that these was no room left for the crosses to stand or wood enough to make crosses of And they who had bought the blood of the Son of God for 30. pieces of silver had this sin of theirs severely punished when such multitudes of the Jews 2000 in one night had their bowels ript up by the Roman Souldiers in hopes to have found the gold and silver there which they were supposed to have swallowed And what greater argument can we have to believe that such judgements fell upon them upon the account of their sin in crucifying Christ than that they were so punctually foretold so long before and had all things so exactly answering in the accomplishment of them For when Christ spake those things the Jews thought their destruction as incredible as that he was the Messias but what greater evidence could there be to them that he was so than that God did so severely avenge his blood upon them and continues to do it for their unbelief and impenitency to this very day But it may be some will say what are all these things to us we are none of those who crucified Christ or justify the doing it Thanks be to God the Kingdom of God is not taken from us but we enjoy what was taken from them To which I answer If we really were what we pretend to be these things are of great consequence to be considered by us 1. For is it nothing to us to have so great an argument of the truth of our Religion as the sufferings of the Jews to this day is for the sin of crucifying Christ As often as we think of them we ought to consider the danger of infidelity and the heavy judgements which that brings upon a people We may take some estimate of the wrath of God against that sin by the desolation of the Country and the miseries of the inhabitants of it When you think it a small sin to despise the Son of God to revile his doctrine and reproach his miracles consider then what the Jews have suffered for these sins As long as they continue a people in the world they are the living monuments of the Vengeance of God upon an incorrigible and unbelieving nation And it may be one of the ends of Gods dispersing them almost among all nations that as often as they see and despise them they may have a care of those sins which have made them a byword and reproach among men who once were a nation beloved of God and feared by men See what it is to despise the offers of grace to reproach and ill use the Messengers of it who have no other errand but to perswade men to accept that Grace and bring forth the fruits thereof See what it is for men to be slaves to their own lusts which makes them not only neglect their own truest interest but that of their nation too If that had not been the fundamental miscarriage of the rulers of the Jewish nation at the time of our Saviour they would most readily have entertained him and saved their land from ruine See what it is for a people to be high in conceit of themselves and to presume upon Gods favour towards them For there never was a nation more self opinionated as to their wisdom goodness and interest with God than the Jews were when they began their war and the confidence of this made them think it long till they had destroyed themselves See what it is to be once engaged too far in a bad cause how hard it is though they suffer never so much for it afterwards for them to repent of it We might have thought the Jews when they had seen the destruction of Ierusalem would have come off from their obstinacy but how very few in comparison from that time to this have sincerely repented of the sins of their Fore-fathers in the death of Christ. See how hard a matter it is to conquer the prejudices of education and to condemn the most unjust actions of those when we come to understanding whom from our infancy we had in veneration For it is in great measure because they were their Ancestors that the Jews to this day are so hardly convinced they could be guilty of so soul a sin as crucifying the Messias 2. Is it nothing to us what they have suffered who enjoy the greatest blessings we have by their means and upon the same terms which they did For to them at first were committed the Oracles of God we enjoy all the excellent and sacred records of ancient times from them all the prophecies of the men whom God raised up and inspired from time to time among them By their means we converse with those great persons Moses David Solomon and others and understand their wisdom and piety by the writings which at this day we enjoy By them we have conveyed to us all the particular prophesies which relate to the Messias which point out the Tribe the place the time the very person he was to be born of By their means
we are able to consute their infidelity and to confirm our own faith Therefore we have some common concernment with them and ought on that account to be sensible of their miseries Is it nothing then to you that God hath dealt so severely with them from whom you derive so great a part of your Religion But if that be nothing consider the terms upon which you enjoy these mercies you have and they are as the latter clause of the text assures us no other than the bringing forth the fruits thereof If we prove as obstinate and incorrigible as they God may justly punish us as he hath done them It is but a Vineyard that God lets us it is no inheritance God expects our improvement and giving him the fruits of it or else he may justly take it away from us and give it to other Husbandmen Let us never flatter our selves in thinking it impossible God should make us as miserable and contemptible a people as he hath done the Jews but we may be miserable enough and yet fall short of them Have we any such promises of his favour as they had how great were their priviledges while they stood in favour with God above all other nations in world But we see though they were the first and the natural branches they are broken off by unbelief and we stand by faith Nothing then can be more reasonable than the exhortation of the Apostle be not high minded but fear Boast not of your present priviledges despise not those who are broken of for consider if God spared not the natural branches we ought to take heed lest he also spare not us 3. Is it nothing to us what the Jews suffer since our sins are in some senses more aggravated than theirs were For though there can be no just excuse made for their wilful blindness yet there may be much less made for ours For what they did against him was when he appeared in the weakness of humane flesh in a very mean and low condition before the great confirmation of our faith by his resurrection from the dead But our contempt of Christ is much more unpardonable not only after that but the miraculous consequences of it and the spreading and continuance of his doctrine in the world after the multitudes of Martyrs and the glorious Triumphs of our Religion over all the attempts of the persecutors and betrayers of it after the solemn vows of our Baptism in his name and frequent addresses to God by him and celebrating the memory of his death and passion What can be more mean and ungrateful what can shew more folly and weakness than after all these to esteem the blood of Christ no otherwise than as of a common malefactor or at least to live as if we so esteemed it Nay we may add to all this after so severe an instance of Gods vengeance already upon the Jews which ought to increase our care and will therefore aggravate our sin What the Jews did they did as open and professed enemies what we do we do as false and perfidious friends and let any man judge which is the greater crime to assault an enemy or to betray a Friend 4. Can this be nothing to us who have so many of those Symptoms upon us which were the fore-runners of their desolation Not as though I came hither like the son of Anani in the Jewish story who of a sudden 4. years before the war cryed out in the Temple a voice from the East a voice from the West a voice from the 4. Winds Woe to Jerusalem Woe to the Temple Woe to all this people and this he continued crying saith Iosephus for 7. years and 5. months till at last being upon the Walls of the City he cryed Woe to my self also and immediately a stone come out from one of the Roman Engines and dispatched him God forbid we should be so near a desolation as they were then but yet our Symptoms are bad and without our repentance and amendment God knows what they may end in There were these following remarkable forerunners of desolation in the Jewish state I am afraid we are too much concerned in 1. A strange degeneracy of all sorts of men from the vertues of their Ancestors This Iosephus often mentions and complains of and that there was no sort of men free from the highest to the meanest they had all degenerated not only from what they ought to be but from what their Ancestors were And there can be nothing which bodes worse to a people than this doth for the decay of vertue is really the loss of strength and interest And if this be not among us at this day in one sense it must be in another or else there would never be such general complaints of it as there are It is hard to say that there hath ever been an Age wherein vice such as the very Heathens abhorred hath been more confident and daring than in this wherein so many have not barely left vertue but have bid defiance to it and are ashamed of their Baptism for nothing so much as because therein they renounced the Devil and all his works These are the Zealots in wickedness as the Jews were in faction The flaming sword the voice in the Temple the terrible Earthquakes were not greater Prodigies in nature among them than men are in Morality among us nor sadder presages of future miseries 2. A general stupidity and inapprehensiveness of common danger every one had a mighty zeal for his little party and faction he was engaged in and would venture his life for that never considering that by this means there was no more left to do for the Romans but to stand by and see them destroy one another I pray God that may be never said of the Romans in another sense concerning this Church of ours We cannot but be sensible how much they are pleased at our divisions and they have always hay and stubble enough not only to build with but thereby to add fuel to our flames How happy should we be if we could once lay aside our petty animosities and all mind the true interest of our Church and the security of the Protestant Religion by it which ought to be dearer to to us than our lives But that is our misery that our divisions in Religion have made us not more contemptible than ridiculous to forrain nations and it puzleth the wisest among our selves to find out expedients to keep us from ruining one of the best Churches of the Christian world 3. An Atheistical contempt of Religion for Iosephus who was apt enough to flatter his Country-men tells us there never was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a more Atheistical Generation of men than at that time the leaders of the factions were for they contemned the Laws of men and mocked at the Laws of of God and derided the Prophetick Oracles
the soul for the sake of the world yet he doth imply the danger may be as great although a mans ambition never comes to be so extravagant as to aim at the possession of the whole world The whole world can never make amends for the loss of the soul yet the soul may be lost for a very inconsiderable part of it although all the wealth and treasures of the Indies can never compensate to a man the loss of his life yet that may be in as great danger of losing upon far easier terms than those are It is not to be thought that those whom our Saviour speaks to could ever propose such vast designs to themselves as the Empire of the whole world was but he tells them if that could be supposed it were far more desirable to save a soul than to gain the world yet such is the folly of mankind to lose their souls for a very small share of this present world For the temptations of this world are so many so great so pleasing to mankind and the love of life so natural and so strong that inconsiderate men will run any hazard of their souls for the gain of one or preservation of the other The highest instance of this kind is that which our Saviour here intends when men will make shipwrack of faith and a good conscience to escape the danger of their lives or with Iudas will betray their Saviour for some present gain although very far short of that of the whole world And if I be not much mistaken it is upon this account that our Saviour pronounces it so hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven because in such difficult times of persecution on the account of Religion as those were such men would be shrewdly tempted to venture the loss of their souls in another world rather than of their estates in this For it was the young mans unwillingness to part with his great possessions to follow Christ which gave him occasion to utter that hard saying It is on this account St. Paul saith the love of money is the root of all evil which while some have coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows It was on this account that Demas forsook Paul having loved this present world and that the friendship of this world is said to be enmity with God and that our Saviour saith no man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other else he will hold to the one and despise the other ye cannot serve God and Mammon Which doth suppose that these two do require two contrary things at the same time for if a hundred Masters did all require the same thing a man might in doing that be said to serve them all But when Religion requires that we must part with all for that and the world requires that we must part with Religion to preserve our interest in it then it is impossible to serve God and Mammon together for we must hold to the one and dispise the other But what then Is there no danger of the loss of the soul for the sake of this world but only in the case of persecution then some may say we hope there is no fear now of mens being too rich to go to Heaven Thanks be to God that we live in times free from such dangerous tryals as those of persecution are and wherein men may quietly enjoy their Estates and the best Religion in the world together but although there be no danger of splitting upon the rocks there may be of sinking with being overcharged or springing too great a leak within us whereby we let in more than we can be able to bear And supposing the most prosperous and easie condition men can fancy to themselves here yet the things of this world are so great occasions of evil so great hindrances of good that on these accounts men always run a mighty hazard of their souls for the sake of this world The Devil knew well enough where his greatest strength lay when he reserved the temptation of the glories of this world to the last place in dealing with Christ himself when nothing else would prevail upon him he was yet in hopes that the Greatness and Splendour of this world would bring him to his terms And surely if the Devil had not a mighty opinion of the power of these charms of the Kingdoms and glory of this world he would never have put such hard terms to them which were no less than falling down and worshipping him which we do not find he ever durst so much as mention before till he held this bait in his hand And although our Saviour baffled him in this his strongest temptation yet he still finds that far less than what he here offered will bring men in subjection to him How small a matter of gain will tempt some men to all the sins of lying of fraud and injustice who pawn their souls and put them out at interest for a very small present advantage although they are sure in a very little time to lose both their interest and the Principal too How many for the sake of the Honours and preferments of this World are willing to do by their consciences as the Indian did by his letter lay them aside till their business be done and then expect to hear no more of them What poor and trifling things in this world do men continually venture their souls for As though all were clear gains which they could put off so dead a commodity as the Salvation of their Souls for How apt are such to applaud themselves for their own skill when meerly by a little swearing and lying and cheating things which cost them nothing but a few words they can defeat the designs of their enemies and compass their own But how low is the rate of souls fallen in the esteem of such persons as these are If they had not been of any greater value they had not been worth any ordinary mans much less the Son of Gods laying down his life for the redemption of them Is this all the requital men make him for the travail of his soul the wounds of his body the bitterness of his passion to sqâ—ander away those souls upon any trifling advantages of this world which he shed his most pâ—ecious blood for the redemption ofâ— When ever men are tempted to sin with the hopes of gain let them but consider how much they undervalue not only their own souls but the eternal Son of God and all that he hath done and suffered for the sake of the souls of men If theâ—e had been no greater worth in our souls silver and gold would have been a sufficient price of redemption for them for if men lose their souls for these things it is a sign they set a higher
of the White Hart in Westminster Hall and the Phoenix in S t. Paul's Church-Yard 1673. DISCOURSE Concerning the TRUE REASON Of the SUFFERINGS of CHRIST CHAP. 1. Of the Socinian way of interpreting Scripture Of the uncertainty it leaves us in as to the main articles of Faith manifested by an Exposition of Gen. 1. suitable to that way The state of the Controversie in general concerning the sufferings of Christ for us He did not suffer the same we should have done The grand mistake in making punishments of the nature of Debts the difference between them at large discovered from the different reason and ends of them The right of punishment in God proved against Crellius not to arise from meer dominion The end of punishment not bare Compensation as it is in debts what punishment due to an injured person by the right of Nature proper punishment a result of Laws Crellius his great mistake about the end of Punishments Not designed for satisfaction of Anger as it is a desire of Revenge Seneca and Lactantius vindicated against Crellius The Magistrates interest in Punishment distinct from that of private persons Of the nature of Anger in God and the satisfaction to be made to it Crellius his great arguments against satisfaction depend on a false Notion of Gods anger Of the ends of divine Punishments and the different nature of them in this and the future state SIR ALthough the Letter I received from your hands contained in it so many mistakes of my meaning and design that it seemed to be the greatest civility to the Writer of it to give no answer at all to it because that could not be done without the discovery of far more weaknesses in him than he pretends to find in my discourse Yet the weight and importance of the matter may require a further account from me concerning the true reason of the sufferings of Christ. Wherein my design was so far from representing old Errors to the best advantage or to rack my wits to defend them as that person seems to suggest that I aimed at nothing more than to give a true account of what upon a serious enquiry I judged to be the most natural and genuine meaning of the Christian Doctrine contained in the Writings of the New Testament For finding therein such multitudes of expressions which to an unprejudiced mind attribute all the mighty effects of the Love of God to us to the obedience and sufferings of Christ I began to consider what reason there was why the plain and easie sense of those places must be forsaken and a remote and Metaphorical meaning put upon them Which I thought my self the more obliged to do because I could not conceive if it had been the design of the Scripture to have delivered the received Doctrine of the Christian Church concerning the reason of the sufferings of Christ that it could have been more clearly and fully expressed than it is already So that supposing that to have been the true meaning of the several places of Scripture which we contend for yet the same arts and subtilties might have been used to pervert it which are imployed to perswade men that is not the true meaning of them And what is equally serviceable to truth and falshood can of it self have no power on the minds of men to convince them it must be one and not the other Nay if every unusual and improper acception of words in the Scripture shall be thought sufficient to take away the natural and genuine sense where the matter is capable of it I know scarce any article of Faith can be long secure and by these arts men may declare that they believe the Scriptures and yet believe nothing of the Christian Faith For if the improper though unusual acception of those expressions of Christs dying for us of redemption propitiation reconciliation by his blood of his bearing our iniquities and being made sin and a curse for us shall be enough to invalidate all the arguments taken from them to prove that which the proper sense of them doth imply why may not the improper use of the terms of Creation and Resurrection as well take away the natural sense of them in the great Articles of the Creation of the World and Resurrection after death For if it be enough to prove that Christs dying for us doth not imply dying in our stead because sometimes dying for others imports no more than dying for some advantage to come to them if redemption being sometimes used for meer deliverance shall make our redemption by Christ wholly Metaphorical if the terms of propitiation reconcilation c. shall lose their force because they are sometimes used where all things cannot be supposed parallel with the sense we contend for why shall I be bound to believe that the World was ever created in a proper sense since those persons against whom I argue so earnestly contend that in those places in which it seems as proper as any it is to be understood only in a metaphorical If when the World and all things are said to be made by Christ we are not to understand the production but the reformation of the World and all things in it although the natural sense of the Words be quite otherwise what argument can make it necessary for me not to understand the Creation of the World in a metaphorical sense when Moses delivers to us the history of it Why may not I understand in the beginning Gen. 1. for the beginning of the Mosaical Dispensation as well as Socinus doth in the beginning John 1. for the beginning of the Evangelical and that from the very same argument used by him viz. that in the beginning is to be understood of the main subject concerning which the author intends to write and that I am as sure it was in Moses concerning the Law given by him as it was in St. Iohn concerning the Gospel delivered by Christ. Why may not the Creation of the Heavens and the Earth be no more than the erection of the Jewish Polity since it is acknowledged that by New Heavens and new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness no more is understood than a new state of things under the Gospel Why may not the confused Chaos import no more than the state of Ignorance and darkness under which the World was before the Law of Moses since it is confessed that it signifies in the New Testament such a state of the World before the Gospel appeared and consequently why may not the light which made the first day be the first tendencies to the Doctrine of Moses which being at first divided and scattered was united afterwards in one great Body of Laws which was called the Sun because it was the great Director of the Iewish Nation and therefore said to rule the day as the less considerable Laws of other Nations are called the Moon because they were to
controversie with all clearness and brevity And the substance of it will be reduced to these two debates 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion 2. Whether the death of Christ in particular were a proper expiatory sacrifice for sin or only an antecedent condition to his exercise of the Office of Priesthood in Heaven 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion for that it must be one or the other of these two cannot be denyed by our Adversaries for the inflicting those sufferings upon Christ must either proceed from an antecedent meritorious cause or not If they do they are then punishments if not they are meer exercises of power and dominion whatever ends they are intended for and whatever recompence be made for them So Crellius asserts that God as absolute Lord of all had a right of absolute dominion upon the life and body of Christ and therefore might justly deliver him up to death and give his body to the Cross and although Christ by the ordinary force of the Law of Moses had a right to escape so painful and accursed death yet God by the right of dominion had the power of disposal of him because he intended to compensate his torments with a reward infinitely greater than they were but because he saith for great ends the consent of Christ was necessary therefore God did not use his utmost dominion in delivering him up by force as he might have done but he dealt with him by way of command and rewards proposed for obedience and in this sence he did act as a righteous Governor and indulgent Father who encouraged his Son to undergo hard but great things In which we see that he makes the sufferings of Christ an act of meer dominion in God without any antecedent cause as the reason of them only he qualifies this act of dominion with the proposal of a reward for it But we must yet further enquire into their meaning for though here Crellius attributes the sufferings of Christ meerly to Gods dominion without any respect to sin yet elsewhere he will allow a respect that was had to sin antecedently to the sufferings of Christ and that the sins of men were the impulsive cause of them And although Socinus in one place utterly denies any lawful-antecedent cause of the death of Christ besides the will of God and Christ yet Crellius in his Vindication saith by lawful cause he meant meritorius or such upon supposition of which he ought to dye for elsewhere he makes Christ to dye for the cause or by the occasion of our sins which is the same that Crellius means by an impulsive or procatartick cause Which he thus explains we are now to suppose a decree of God not only to give salvation to Mankind but to give us a firm hope of it in this present state now our sins by deserving eternal punishment do hinder the effect of that decree upon us and therefore they were an impulsive cause of the death of Christ by which it was effected that this decree should obtain notwithstanding our sins But we are not to understand as though this were done by any expiation of the guilt of sin by the death of Christ but this effect is hindred by three things by taking away their sins by assuring men that their former sins and present infirmities upon their sincere obedience shall not be imputed to them and that the effect of that decree shall obtain all which saith he is effected morte Christi interveniente the death of Christ intervening but not as the procuring cause So that after all these words he means no more by making our sins an impulsive cause of the death of Christ but that the death of Christ was an argument to confirm to us the truth of his Doctrine which doctrine of his doth give us assurance of these things and that our sins when they are said to be the impulsive cause are not to be considered with a respect to their guilt but to that distrust of God which our sins do raise in us which distrust is in truth according to this sense of Crellius the impulsive cause and not the sins which were the cause or occasion of it For that was it which the doctrine was designed to remove and our sins only as the causes of that But if it be said that he speaks not only of the distrust but of the punishment of sin as an impediment which must be removed too and therefore may be called an impulsive cause we are to consider that the removal of this is not attributed to the death of Christ but to the leaving of our sins by the belief of his Doctrine therefore the punishment of our sins cannot unless in a very remote sense be said to be an impulsive cause of that which for all that we can observe by Crellius might as well have been done without it if any other way could be thought sufficient to confirm his Doctrine and Christ without dying might have had power to save all them that obey him But we understand not an impulsive cause in so remote a sense as though our sins were a meer occasion of Christs dying because the death of Christ was one argument among many others to believe his Doctrine the belief of which would make men leave their sins but we contend for a neerer and more proper sense viz. that the death of Christ was primarily intended for the expiation of our sins with a respect to God and not to us and therefore our sins as an impulsive cause are to be considered as they are so displeasing to God that it was necessary for the Vindication of Gods Honour and the deterring the world from sin that no less a Sacrifice of Attonement should be offered than the blood of the Son of God So that we understand an impulsive cause here in the sense that the sins of the people were under the Law the cause of the offering up those Sacrifices which were appointed for the expiation of them And as in those Sacrifices there were two things to be considered viz. the mactation and the oblation of them the former as a punishment by a substitution of them in place of the persons who had offended the latter as the proper Sacrifice of attonement although the mactation it self considered with the design of it was a Sacrificial act too So we consider the sufferings of Christ with a twofold respect either as to our sins as the impulsive cause of them so they are to be considered as a punishment or as to God with a design to expiate the guilt of them so they are a Sacrifice of Attonement The first consideration is that we are now upon and upon which the present debate
be said to be on purpose to shew Gods severity against the sins of the world And this excellent notion of the beasts being punished for their own sins is improved by him to the vindication of the Scape-Goat from being punished because then saith he the most wicked and corrupt Goat should have been made choice of As though all the design of that great day of expiation had been only to call the Children of Israel together with great solemnity to let them see how a poor Goat must be punished for breaking the Laws which we do not know were ever made for them I had thought our Adversaries had maintained that the Sacrifices on the day of expiation at least had represented and typified the Sacrifice which was to be offered up by Christ and so Socinus and Crellius elsewhere contend he need not therefore have troubled himself concerning the sins of the Goat when it is expresly said That the sins of the people were put on the head of the Goat Whatever then the punishment were it was on the account of the sins of the people and not his own But Crellius urgeth against Grotius that if the Scape-Goat had been punished for the expiation of the sins of the people that should have been particularly expressed in Scripture whereas nothing is said there at all of it and that the throwing down the Scape-Goat from the top of the rock was no part of the Primitive Institution but one of the superstitions taken up by the Iews in after-times because of the ominousness of the return of it and although we should suppose which is not probable that it should dye by famine in the Wilderness yet this was not the death for expiation which was to be by the shedding of blood To this therefore I answer 1. I do not insist on the customs of the later Jews to prove from thence any punishment designed by the primitive institution For I shall easily yield that many superstitions obtained among them afterwards about the Scape-Goat as the stories of the red list turning white upon the head of it the booths and the causey made on purpose and several other things mentioned in the Rabbinical Writers do manifest But yet it seems very probable from the Text it self that the Scape-Goat was not carried into the Wilderness at large but to a steep mountain there For although we have commonly rendered Azazel by the Scape-Goat yet according to the best of the Jewish Writers as P. Fagius tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not come from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Goat and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abiit but is the name of a Mountain very steep and rocky near Mount Sinai and therefore probably called by the later Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the name of a Rock and to this purpose it is observable that where we render it and let him go for a Scape-Goat into the Wilderness in the Hebrew it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to send him to Azazel in the Wilderness as the joyning the preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth import and the Arabick Version where-ever Azazel is mentioned renders it by Mount Azaz and the Chaldee and Syriack to Azazel so that from hence a carrying the Scape-Goat to a certain place may be inferred but I see no foundation in the Text for the throwing it down from the rock when it was there and therefore I cannot think but that if the punishment intended did lye in that it would have been expresly mentioned in the solemnities of that day which had so great an influence on the expiation of the sins of the people 2. I answer that the Scape-Goat was to denote rather the effect of the expiation than the manner of obtaining it For the proper expiation was by the shedding of blood as the Apostle tells us and thence the live Goat was not to have the sins of the people to bear away into the desert till the High Priest had made an end of reconciling the Holy Place and the Tabernacle of the Congregation and the Altar and by the sprinkling of the blood of the other Goat which was the sin-offering for the people which being done he was to bring the live Goat and to lay his hands upon the head of it and confess over it all the iniquities of the Children of Israel and all their transgressions in all their sins putting them upon the head of the Goat and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the Wilderness and so the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited and he shall let go the Goat in the Wilderness So that the former Goat noted the way of expiation by the shedding of blood and the latter the effect of it viz. that the sins of the people were declared to be expiated by the sending the Goat charged with their sins into a desart place and that their sins would not appear in the presence of God against them any more than they expected that the Goat which was sent into the Wilderness should return among them Which was the reason that afterwards they took so much care that it should not by causing it to be thrown off from a steep rock which was no sooner done but notice was given of it very suddenly by the sounding of horns all over the Land But the force of Socinus his argument from the Scape Goats bearing the sins of the people that therefore that phrase doth not always imply the beaâ—ing of punishment is taken off by Crellius himself who tell us that the Scape-Goat is not said to bear the sins of the people in the Wilderness but only that it carried the sins of the people into the Wilderness which is a phrase of another importance from that we are now discoursing of As will now further appear from the places where it is spoken of concerning our Saviour which we now come particularly to examine The first place insisted on by Grotius with a respect to Christ is 1 Pet. 2. 24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree which saith Crellius is so far from proving that Christ did bear the punishment of our sins that it doth not imply any sufferings that he underwent on the occasion of them He grants that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie to carry up but withall he saith it signifies to take away because that which is taken up is taken away from the place where it was Besides he observes that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth answer to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath made to ascend which is frequently rendred by it in the LXX and sometimes by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that Hebrew word doth often signifie to take away where it is rendred in the Greek by one of those two words 2 Sam. 21. 13. Iosh. 24. 32.
of kindness it must be there fore out of enmity and with a design to destroy him and so our sins cannot be understood as Socinus and Crellius would have them as the meer occasions of Christs death but as the proper impulsive cause of it Whether the following word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be taken with a respect to sin and so it properly signifies It is required or with a respect to the person and so it may signifie he was oppressed is not a matter of that consequence which we ought to contend about if it be proved that Christs oppression had only a respect to sin as the punishment of it Which will yet further appear from another expression in the same Chapter vers 5. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed In which Grotius saith the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie any kind of affliction but such as hath the nature of punishment either for example or instruction but since the latter cannot be intended in Christ the former must Crellius thinks to escape from this by acknowledging that the sufferings of Christ have some respect to sin but if it be such a respect to sin which makes what Christ underwent a punishment which is only proper in this case it is as much as we contend for This therefore he is loth to abide by and saith that chastisement imports no more than bare affliction without any respect to sin which he thinks to prove from St. Pauls words 2 Cor. 6. 9. We are chastised but not given over to death but how far this is from proving his purpose will easily appear 1. Because those by whom they were said to be chastened did not think they did it without any respect to a fault but they supposed them to be justly punished and this is that we plead for that the chastisement considered with a respect to him that inflicts it doth suppose some fault as the reason of inflicting it 2. This is far from the present purpose for the chastisement there mentioned is oposed to death as chastened but not killed whereas Grotius expresly speaks of such chastisements as include death that these cannot be supposed to be meerly designed for instruction and therefore must be conceived under the notion of punishment The other place Psal. 73. 14. is yet more remote from the business for though the Psalmist accounts himself innocent in respect of the great enormities of others yet he could not account himself so innocent with a respect to God as not to deserve chastisement from him But Crellius offers further to prove that Christs death must be considered as a bare affliction and not as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or exemplary punishment because in such a punishment the guilty themselves are to be punished and the benefit comes to those who were not guilty but in Christs sufferings it was quite contrary for the innocent was punished and the guilty have the benefit of it and yet he saith if we should grant that Christs sufferings were a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that will not prove that his death was a proper punishment To which I answer That whatever answers to the ends of an exemplary punishment may properly be called so but supposing that Christ suffered the punishment of our sins those sufferings will answer to all the ends of an exemplary punishment For the ends of such a punishment assigned by Crellius himself are That others observing such a punishment may abstain from those sins which have brought it upon the person who suffers Now the question is whether supposing Christ did suffer on the account of our sins these sufferings of his may deter us from the practice of sin or no And therefore in opposition to Crellius I shall prove these two things 1. That supposing Christ suffered for our sins there was a sufficient argument to deter us from the practice of sin 2. Supposing that his sufferings had no respect to our sins they could not have that force to deter men from the practice of it for he after asserts That Christs sufferings might be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to us though they were no punishment of sin 1. That the death of Christ considered as a punishment of sin is a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or hath a great force to deter men from the practice of sin and that because the same reason of punishment is supposed in Christ and in our selves and because the example is much more considerable than if we had suffered our selves 1. The same reason of punishment is supposed For why are men deterred from sin by seeing others punished but because they look upon the sin as the reason of the punishment and therefore where the same reason holds the same ends may be as properly obtained If we said that Christ suffered death meerly as an innocent person out of Gods dominion over his life what imaginable force could this have to deter men from sin which is asserted to have no relation to it as the cause of it But when we say that God laid our iniquities upon him that he suffered not upon his own account but ours that the sins we commit against God were the cause of all those bitter Agonies which the Son of God underwent what argument can be more proper to deter men from sin than this is For hereby they see the great abhorrency of sin which is in God that he will not pardon the sins of men without a compensation made to his Honor and a demonstration to the world of his hatred of it Hereby they see what a value God hath for his Laws which he will not relax as to the punishment of offenders without so valuable a consideration as the blood of his own Son Hereby they see that the punishment of sin is no meer arbitrary thing depending barely upon the will of God but that there is such a connexion between sin and punishment as to the ends of Government that unless the Honor and Majesty of God as to his Laws and Government may be preserved the violation of his Laws must expect a just recompence of reward Hereby they see what those are to expect who neglect or despise these sufferings of the Son of God for them for nothing can then remain but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the Adversaries So that here all the weighty arguments concur which may be most apt to prevail upon men to deter them from their sins For if God did thus by the green tree what will be do by the dry If he who was so innocent in himself so perfectly holy suffered so much on the account of our sins what then may those expect to suffer who have no innocency at all to plead and add wilfulness and impenitency to their sins But if it be replied by Crellius that it is otherwise
upon it Now these three I shall make appear to agree fully to the death of Christ for us 1. A Substitution in the place of the Offenders That we are to prove was designed in the Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law and that Christ in his death for us was substituted in our place 1. That in the Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law there was a Substitution of them in the place of the Offenders This our Adversaries are not willing to yield us because of the correspondency which is so plain in the Epistle to the Hebrews between those Sacrifices and that which was offered up by Christ. We now speak only of those Sacrifices which we are sure were appointed of old for the expiation of sin by God himself As to which the great rule assigned by the Apostle was That without shedding of blood there was no remission If we yield Crellius what he so often urgeth viz. That these words are to be understood of what was done under the Law They will not be the less serviceable to our purpose for thereby it will appear that the means of Expiation lay in the shedding of blood Which shews that the very mactation of the beast to be sacrificed was designed in order to the expiation of sin To an inquisitive person the reason of the slaying such multitudes of beasts in the Sacrifices appointed by God himself among the Iews would have appeared far less evident than now it doth since the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews hath given us so full an account of them For it had been very unreasonable to have thought that they had been meerly instituted out of compliance with the customs of other Nations since the whole design of their Religion was to separate them from them and on such a supposition the great design of the Epistle to the Hebrews signifies very little which doth far more explain to us the nature and tendency of all the Sacrifices in use among them that had any respect to the expiation of sins than all the customs of the Egyptians or the Commentaries of the latter Iews But I intend not now to discourse at large upon this subject of Sacrifices either as to the nature and institution of them in general or with a particular respect to the Sacrifice of Christ since a learned person of our Church hath already undertaken Crellius upon this Argument and we hope ere long will oblige the world with the benefit of his pains I shall therefore only insist on those things which are necessary for our purpose in order to the clearing the Substitution of Christ in our stead for the expiation of our sins by his death and this we say was represented in the Expiatory Sacrifices which were instituted among the Iews If we yield Crellius what he after Socinus contends for viz. That the Sacrifice of Christ was only represented in the publick and solemn Expiatory Sacrifices for the people and especially those on the day of Atonement We may have enough from them to vindicate all that we assert concerning the Expiatory Sacrifice of the blood of Christ. For that those were designed by way of Substitution in the place of the offenders will appear from the circumstances and reason of their Institution But before we come to that it will be necessary to shew what that Expiation was which the Sacrifices under the Law were designed for the not understanding of which gives a greater force to our Adversaries Arguments than otherwise they would have For while men assert that the expiation was wholly typical and of the same nature with that expiation which is really obtained by the death of Christ they easily prove That all the expiation then was only declarative and did no more depend on the sacrifices offered than on a condition required by God the neglect of which would be an act of disobedience in them and by this means it could represent say they no more than such an expiation to be by Christ viz. Gods declaring that sins are expiated by him on the performance of such a condition required in order thereto as laying down his life was But we assert another kind of expiation of sin by vertue of the Sacrifice being slain and offered which was real and depended upon the Sacrifice And this was twofold a Civil and a Ritual expiation according to the double capacity in which the people of the Iews may be considered either as members of a Society subsisting by a body of Laws which according to the strictest Sanction of it makes death the penalty of disobedience Deut. 27. 26. but by the will of the Legislator did admit of a relaxation in many cases allowed by himself in which he declares That the death of the beast designed for a Sacrifice should be accepted instead of the death of the offender and so the offence should be fully expiated as to the execution of the penal Law upon him And thus far I freely admit what Grotius asserts upon this subject and do yield that no other offence could be expiated in this manner but such which God himself did particularly declare should be so And therefore no sin which was to be punished by cutting off was to be expiated by Sacrifice as wilful Idolatry Murther c. Which it is impossible for those to give an account of who make the expiation wholly typical for why then should not the greatest sins much rather have had sacrifices of expiation appointed for them because the Consciences of men would be more solicitous for the pardon of greater than lesser sins and the blood of Christ represented by them was designed for the expiation of all From whence it is evident that it was not a meer typical expiation but it did relate to the civil constitution among them But besides this we are to consider the people with a respect to that mode of Divine Worship which was among them by reason of which the people were to be purified from the legal impurities which they contracted which hindred them from joyning with others in the publick Worship of God and many Sacrifices were appointed purposely for the expiating this legal guilt as particularly the ashes of the red heifer Numb 19. 9. which is there called a purification for sin And the Apostle puts the blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean together and the effect of both of them he saith was to sanctifie to the purifying of the flesh which implies that there was some proper and immediate effect of these sacrifices upon the people at that time though infinitely short of the effect of the blood of Christ upon the Consciences of men By which it is plain the Apostle doth not speak of the same kind of expiation in those sacrifices which was in the Sacrifice of Christ and that the one was barely typical of the other but of a
different kind of expiation as far as purifying the flesh is from purging the Conscience But we do not deny that the whole dispensation was typical and that the Law had a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things i. e. a dark and obscure representation and not the perfect resemblance of them There are two things which the Apostle asserts concerning the Sacrifices of the Law First that they had an effect upon the Bodies of men which he calls purifying the flesh the other is that they had no power to expiate for the sins of the soul considered with a respect to the punishment of another life which he calls purging the Conscience from dead works and therefore he saith that all the gifts and sacrifices under the Law could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the Conscience and that it was impossible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sin So that the proper expiation which was made by them was civil and ritual relating either to corporal punishment or to legal uncleanness from whence the Apostle well proves the necessity of a higher Sacrifice to make expiation for sins as pertaining to the Conscience But that expiation among the Iews did relate to that Polity which was established among them as they were a people under the Government of a body of Laws distinct from the rest of the world And they being considered as such it is vain to enquire whether they had only temporal or eternal promises for it was impossible they should have any other than temporal unless we imagine that God would own them for a distinct people in another World as he did in this For what Promises relate to a People as such must consider them as a People and in that capacity they must be the blessings of a Society viz. peace plenty number of People length of days c. But we are far from denying that the general Principles of Religion did remain among them viz. that there is a God and a rewarder of them that seek him and all the Promises God made to the Patriarchs did continue in force as to another Country and were continually improved by the Prophetical instructions among them But we are now speaking of what did respect the people in general by vertue of that Law which was given them by Moses and in that respect the punishment of saults being either death or exclusion from the publick Worship the expiation of them was taking away the obligation to either of these which was the guilt of them in that consideration But doth not this take away the typical nature of these sacrifices No but it much rather establisheth it For as Socinus argues If the expiation was only typical there must be something in the type correspondent to that which is typified by it As the Brazen Serpent typified Christ and the benefit which was to come by him because as many as looked up to it were healed And Noahs Ark is said to be a type of Baptism because as many as entred into that were saved from the deluge So Corinth 10. the Apostle saith that those things happened to them in types v. 11. because the events which happened to them did represent those which would fall upon disobedient Christians So that to make good the true notion of a Type we must assert an expiation that was real then and agreeable to that dispensation which doth represent an expiation of a far higher nature which was to be by the Sacrifice of the Blood of Christ. Which being premised I now come to pâ—ove that there was a substitution designed of the Beast to be slain and sacrificed in stead of the offenders themselves Which will appear from Levitious 17. 11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it you upon the Altar to make an Atonement for your Souls for it is the blood that maketh an Atonement for the Soul The utmost that Crellius would have meant by this place is that there is a double reason assigned of the prohibition of eating blood viz. that the life was in the blood and that the blood was designed for expiation but he makes these wholly independent upon each other But we say that the proper reason assigned against the eating of the blood is that which is elsewhere given when this Precept is mentioned viz. that the blood was the life as we may see Gen. 9. 4 Levit. 17. 14. but to confirm the reason given that the blood was the life he adds that God had given them that upon the Altar for an Atonement for their Souls So the Arabick Version renders it and therefore have I given it you upon the Altar viz. because the blood is the life And hereby a sufficient reason is given why God did make choice of the blood for atonement for that is expressed in the latter clause for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the Soul why should this be mentioned here if no more were intended but to give barely another reason why they should not eat the blood what force is there more in this clause to that end than in the soregoing for therein God had said that he had given it them for an Atonement If no more had been intended but the bare prohibition of common use of the blood on the account of its being consecrated to sacred use it had been enough to have said that the blood was holy unto the Lord as it is in the other instances mentioned by Crellius of the holy Oyntment and Perfume for no other reason is there given why it should not be profaned to common use but that it should be holy for the Lord if therefore the blood had been forbidden upon that account there had been no necessity at all of adding that the blood was it that made atonement for the Soul which gives no peculiar reason why they should not eat the blood beyond that of bare consecration of it to a sacred use but if we consider it as respecting the first clause viz. For the life of the flesh is in the blood then there is a particular reason why the blood should be for atonement viz. because the life was in that and therefore when the blood was offered the life of the Beast was supposed to be given instead of the life of the offender According to that of Ovid Hanc animam vobis pro meliore damus This will be yet made clearer by another instance produced by Crellius to explain this which is the forbidding the eating of fat which saith he is joyned with this of blood Levit. 3. 17. It shall be a perpetual Sâ—atute for your Generations throughout all your dwellings that ye eat neither fat nor blood To the same purpose Levit. 7. 23 25 26. Now no other reason is given of the prohibition of the
person who detains because the reason of his detaining was the expectation of the price to be pald but in the latter the detainer is meerly the instrument for execution of the Law and the price of redemption is not to be paid to him but to those who are most concerned in the honour of the Law But Crellius objects that the price can never be said to be paid to God because our redemption is attributed to God as the author of it and because we are said to be redeemed for his use and service now saith he the price can never be paid to him for whose service the person is redeemed But all this depends upon the former mistake as though we spake all this while of such a redemption as that is of a Captive by force in whom the detainer is no further concerned than for the advantage to be made by him and in that case the price must be paid to him who detains because it would otherwise be unsuccessful for his deliverance but in case of captivity by Law as the effect of disobedience the Magistrate who is concerned in the life of the person and his future obedience may himself take care that satisfaction may be given to the Law for his redemption in order to his future serviceableness From hence we see both that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is proper in this case of our redemption and that it is not a meer commutation of a price for a person but a commutation of one persons suffering for others which suffering being a punishment in order to satisfaction is a valuable consideration and therefore a price for the redemption of others by it Which price in this sense doth imply a proper substitution which was the thing to be proved Which was the first thing to be made good concerning the death of Christ being a sacrifice for sin viz. that there was a substitution of Christ in our stead as of the sacrifices of old under the Law and in this sense the death of Christ was a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or price of redemption for us Nothing then can be more vain than the way of our Adversaries to take away the force of all this because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes taken for a meet deliverance without any price which we deny not but the main force of our argument is from the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is mentioned and then we say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when applied to sins signifies expiation as Heb. 9. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but when applied to persons it signifies the deliverance purchased by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not to be considered as a bare price or a thing given but as a thing undergone in order to that deliverance and is therefore not only called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too which Crellius confesseth doth imply a commutation and we have shewed doth prove a substitution of Christ in our place CHAP. V. The notion of a sacrifice belongs to the death of Christ because of the Oblation made therein to God Crellius his sense of Christs Oblation proposed Against him it is proved that the Priestly office of Christ had a primary respect to God and not to us Expiatory Sacrifices did divert the wrath of God Christ not a bare Metaphorical High-Priest Crellius destroys the Priesthood of Christ by confounding it with the exercise of his Regal Power No proper expiation of sin belongs to Christ in Heaven if Crellius his Doctrine be true Ephes. 5. 2. proves the death of Christ an Expiatory Sacrifice and an Oblation to God The Phrase of a sweet-smelling savour belongs to expiatory Sacrifices Crellius his gross notion of it His mistakes about the kinds of Sacrifices Burnt-offerings were Expiatory Sacrifices both before and under the Law A new distribution of sacrifices proposed What influence the mactation of the Sacrifice had on Expiation The High-Priest only to slay the Sin-offering on the day of Atonement from whence it is proved that Christs Priesthood did not begin from his entrance into Heaven The mactation in Expiatory Sacrifices no bare preparation to a Sacrifice proved by the Iewish Laws and the customs of other Nations Whether Christs Oblation of himself once to God were in Heaven or on Earth Of the proper notion of Oblations under the Levitical Law Several things observed from thence to our purpose All things necessary to a legal Oblation concur in the death of Christ His entrance into Heaven hath no correspondency with it if the blood of Christ were no sacrifice for sin In Sin-offerings for the People the whole was consumed no eating of the Sacrifices allowed the Priests but in those for private Persons Christs exercise of Power in Heaven in no sense an Oblation to God Crellius his sense repugnant to the circumstances of the places in dispute Objections answered THE Second thing to prove the death of Christ a Sacrifice for sin is the Oblation of it to God for that end Grotius towards the conclusion of his book makes a twofold oblation of Christ parallel to that of the Sacrifices under the Law the first of Mactation the second of Representation whereof the first was done in the Temple the second in the Holy of Holies so the first of Christ was on Earth the second in Heaven the first is not a bare preparation to a Sacrifice but a Sacrifice the latter not so much a Sacrifice as the commemoration of one already past Wherefore since appearing and interceding are not properly sacerdotal acts any further than they depend on the efficacy of a sacrifice already offered he that takes away that Sacrifice doth not leave to Christ any proper Priesthood against the plain authority of the Scripture which assigns to Christ the office of a Priest distinct from that of a Prophet and a King To which Crellius replies That the expiation of sin doth properly belong to what Christ doth in Heaven and may be applyed to the death of Christ only as the condition by which he was to enjoy that power in Heaven whereby he doth expiate sins but the Priest was never said to expiate sins when he killed the beast but when the blood was sprinkled or carried into the Holy of Holies to which the Oblation of Christ in Heaven doth answer but mactation saith he was not proper to the Priests but did belong to the Levites also And Christ was not truly a Priest while we was on Earth but only prepared by his sufferings to be one in Heaven where by the perpetual care he takes of his People and exercising his Power for them he is said to offer up himself and intercede for them and by that means he dischargeth the Office of a High-Priest for them For his Priestly Office he saith is
efficacy of the blood shed for expiation otherwise the High-Priest might have entred with the same effect into the Holy of Holies with any other blood besides that which was shed on purpose as a sin-offering for expiation of the sins of the people which it was unlawful for him to do And from hence it is that the Apostle to the Hebrews insists so much on the comparison between the blood of Christ and the blood of the legal sacrifices and the efficacy of the one far above the other in its power of expiation which he needed not to have done if the shedding of his blood had been only a preparation for his entrance on his Priesthood in Heaven So that the proper notion of a Sacrifice for sin as it notes the giving the life of one for the expiation of the sins of another doth properly lye in the mactation though other sacrificial acts may be consequent upon it So it was in the animales hòstiae among the Romans in which saith Macrobius Sola anima Deo sacratur of which he tells us Virgil properly speaks in those words Hanc tibi Eryx meliorem animam pro morte Daretis And that we may the better understand what he means by the anima here he saith elsewhere as Macrobius and Servius observe out of his excellent skill and accuracy in the Pontifical rites Sanguine placastis ventos virgine caesa Cum primum Iliacas Danai venistic ad oras Sanguine quaerendi reditus animaque litaendum Argolica Which shews that the expiation was supposed to lye in the blood which they called the Soul as the Scripture doth And the Persians as Strabo tells us looked upon the bare mactation as the Sacrifice for they did not porricere as the Romans called it they laid none of the parts of the Sacrifice upon the Altar to be consumed there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For God regarded nothing but the Soul in the sacrifice which words Eustathius likewise useth upon Homer of the Sacrifices of the Magi. And Strabo affirms of the ancient Lusitani that they cut off nothing of the Sacrifice but consumed the entrals whole but though such Sacrifices which were for divination were not thought expiatory and therefore different from the animales hostiae yet among the Persians every Sacrifice had a respect to expiation of the whole people For Herodotus tells us that every one that offers Sacrifice among them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prays for good to all Persians and the King But thus much may serve to prove against Crellius that the mactation in an Expiatory Sacrifice was not a meer preparation to a Sacrifice but that it was a proper Sacrificial act and consequently that Christ acted as High-Priest when he gave himself for us an offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour But this will further appear from those places wherein Christ is said to offer up himself once to God the places to this purpose are Heb. 7. 27. Who needeth not daily as those High-Priests to offer up Sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the Peoples for this he did once when he offered up himself Heb. 9. 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your Conscience from dead works to serve the living God V. 25 26 27 28. Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the High-Priest entreth into the holy place every year with the blood of others for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the World but now once in the end of the World hath he appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself And as it is appointed to men once to dye but after this the Iudgement so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation Heb. 10. 10 11 12. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Iesus Christ once for all And every High-Priest standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sate down on the right hand of God To these places Crellius gives this answer That the name of Oblation as applyed to Christ primarily signifies Christs first entrance into Heaven and appearance before the face of God there but consequently the continuance of that appearance so that when a thing is once actually exhibited and presented it is said to be once offered although being offered it always remains in the same place and so may be said to be a continual Oblation But this first appearance saith he hath a peculiar agreement with the legal Oblation and therefore the name of Oblation doth most properly belong to that because Christ by this means obtained that power on which the perfect remission of our sins depends but although the continuance of that appearance seems only consequentially to have the name of Oblation belonging to it yet in iâ—s own nature it hath a nearer conjunction with the effect of the Oblation viz. the remission of sins or deliverance from punishment and doth of it self confer more to it than the other doth And therefore in regard of that Christ is said most perfectly to exercise his Priesthood and to offer and intercede for us from the time he is said to sit down at the right hand of God Against this answer I shall prove these two things 1. That it is incoherent and repugnant to it self 2. That it by no means agrees to the places before mentioned 1. That it is incoherent and repugnant to it self in two things 1. In making that to be the proper Oblation in correspondency to the Oblations of the Law which hath no immediate respect to the expiation of sins 2. In making that to have the most immediate respect to the expiation of sins which can in no tolerable sense be called an Oblation For the first since Crellius saith that the proper notion of Oblation is to be taken from the Oblations in the Levitical â—aw we must consider what it was there and whether Christs first entrance into Heaven can have any correspondency with it An Oblation under the Law was in general any thing which was immediately dedicated to God but in a more limited sense it was proper to what was dedicated to him by way of Sacrifice according to the appointments of the Levitical Law We are not now enquiring what was properly called an Oblation in other Sacrifices but in those which then were for expiation of sin And in the Oblation was first of the persons for whom the Sacrifice was offered So in the Burnt-offering the person who brought it was to offer it at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation i.
e. as the Iews expound it at the entrance of the Court of the Priests and there he was to lay his hands upon the head of it and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him This Offering was made before the Beast was slain after the killing the beast then the Priests were to make an Offering of the blood by sprinkling it round about the Altar of Burnt-offerings the rest of the blood say the Iews was poured out by the Priests at the South-side of the Altar upon the foundation where the two holes were for the passage into the Channel which conveyed the blood into the valley of Kidron thus the blood being offered the parts of the beast were by the Priests to be laid upon the Altar and there they were all to be consumed by fire and then it was called an Offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord. The same rites were used in the Peace-offerings and Trespass-offerings as to the laying on of hands and the sprinkling the blood and consuming some part by fire and in the sin-offerings there was to be the same imposition of hands but concerning the sprinkling of the blood and the way of consuming the remainders of the Sacrifice there was this considerable difference that in the common sin-offerings for particular persons the blood was sprinkled upon the horns of the Altar of Burnt-offerings but in the sin-offerings for the High-Priest and the Congregation or all the People he was to carry the blood within the Sanctuary and to sprinkle of it seven times before the Vail of the Sanctuary and some of the blood was to be put upon the horns of the Altar of Incense but the remainder of the blood and the same things which were offered by fire in Peace-Offerings were to be disposed of accordingly on the Altar of Burnt-offerings And withal there was this great difference that in other sin-offerings the Priests were to eat the remainder of the sacrifice in the Holy place but in these there was nothing to be eaten by them for the whole Bullock was to be carried forth without the Camp and there he was to be burned till all were consumed For it was an express Law That no sin-offering whereof any of the blood is brought into the Tabernacle of the Congregation to reconcile withal in the Holy-place shall be eaten it shall be burnt in the fire All the difference that was on the great day of Atonement was this that the High Priest himself was to slay the Sin-offerings and then to carry the blood of them into the Holy of Holies and there was to sprinkle the blood with his finger towards the Mercy-seat seven times after which and the sending away the scape-goat the ceremonies were the same for the Atonement of the people which were at other solemn sin-offerings for the Priest or the people From all which being thus laid together we shall observe several things which are very material to our purpose 1. That in the oblations which were made for expiation of sins the difference between the mactation and the oblation did arise from the difference between the Priest and the Sacrifice For the Priests Office was to atone but he was to atone by the Sacrifice on which account although the Priest were to offer the Sacrifice for himself yet the oblation did not lie in the bare presenting himself before God but in the presenting the blood of that Sacrifice which was shed in order to expiation If we could have supposed that the High-Priest under the Law instead of offering a Goat for a Sin-offering for the people on the day of Atonement should have made an oblation of himself to God by dying for the expiation of their sins In this case his death being the Sacrifice and himself the Priest the mactation as it relates to his own act and his oblation had been one and the same thing For his death had been nothing else but the offering up himself to God in order to the expiation of the sins of the people and there can be no reason why the oblation must be of necessity something consequent to his death since all things necessary to a perfect oblation do concur in it For where there is something solemnly devoted to God and in order to the expiation of sins and by the hand of a Priest there are all things concurring to a legal oblation but in this case all these things do concur and therefore there can be no imaginable necessity of making the oblation of Christ only consequent to his Ascension since in his death all things concur to a proper oblation In the Law we grant that the oblation made by the Priest was consequent to the death of the beast for Sacrifice but the reason of that was because the beast could not offer up it self to God and God had made it necessary that the Priest should expiate sins not by himself but by those Sacrifices and therefore the oblation of the blood was after the Sacrifice was slain neither could this have been solved barely by the Priests slaying of the Sacrifices for this being an act of violence towards the beasts that were thus killed could not be a proper oblation which must suppose a consent antecedent to it All which shewed the great imperfection of the Levitical Law in which so many several things were to concur to make up a sacrifice for sin viz. The first offering made by the party concerned of what was under his dominion viz. The beast to be sacrificed at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation but the beast not being able to offer up it self it was necessary for the offering up its blood that it must be slain by others and for the better understanding not only of the efficacy of the blood but the concurrence of the Priest for expiation he was to take the blood and sprinkle some of it on the Altar and pour out the rest at the foundation of it But since we assert a far more noble and excellent Sacrifice by the Son of God freely offering up himself to be made a Sacrifice for the sins of the world why may not this be as proper an oblation made unto God as any was under the Law and far more excellent both in regard of the Priest and the Sacrifice why should his oblation of himself then be made only consequent to his death and resurrection Which â—latter being by our Adversaries made not his own act but Gods upon him and his entrance into Heaven being given him as they assert as a reward of his sufferings in what tolerable sense can that be called an oblation of himself which was conferâ—ed upon him as a reward of his former sufferings From whence it follows that upon our Adversaries own grounds the death of Christ may far more properly be called the oblation of himself than his entrance
into Heaven and that there is no necessity of making the oblation of Christ consequent to his death there being so great a difference between the Sacrifice of Christ and that of the Sacrifices for sin under the Levitical Law 2. We observe That the oblation as performed by the Priest did not depend upon his presenting himself before God but upon the presenting the blood of a Sacrifice which had been already slain for the expiation of sins If the Priest had gone into the Holy of Holies and there only presented himself before the Mercy-seat and that had been all required in order to the expiation of sins there had been some pretence for our Adversaries making Christs presenting himself in Heaven to be the oblation of himself to God but under the Law the efficacy of the High-Priests entrance into the Holy of Holies did depend upon the blood which he carried in thither which was the blood of the Sin-offering which was already slain for the expiation of sins And in correspondency to this Christs efficacy in his entrance into Heaven as it respects our expiation must have a respect to that Sacrifice which was offered up to God antecedent to it And I wonder our Adversaries do so much insist on the High-Priests entring into the most holy place once a year as though all the expiation had depended upon that whereas all the promise of expiation was not upon his bare entrance into it but upon the blood which he carried along with him and sprinkled there In correspondency to which our Saviour is not barely said to enter into Heaven and present himself to God but that he did this by his own blood having obtained Eternal Redemption for us 3. We observe That there was something correspondent in the death of Christ to somewhat consequent to the oblation under the Law and therefore there can be no reason to suppose that the oblation of Christ must be consequent to his death for that destroys the correspondency between them Now this appears in this particular in the solemn Sacrifices for sin after the sprinkling of the blood which was carried into the Holy place to renconcile withal all the remainder of the Sacrifice was to be burnt without the Camp and this held on the day of Atonement as well as in other Sin-offerings for the Congregation Now the Author to the Hebrews tells us That in correspondency to this Iesus that he might sanctifie the people with his own blood suffered without the gate What force is there in this unless the blood of Christ did answer to the Sin-offerings for the people and his oblation was supposed to be made before and therefore that he might have all things agreeable to those Sin-offerings the last part was to be compleated too viz. That he was to suffer without the gate which after the peoples settlement in Ierusalem answered to the being burnt without the Camp in the Wilderness 4. We observe That the Oblation in Expiatory Sacrifices under the Law by the Priest had always relation to the consumption of what was offered Thus the offering of the blood in token of the destruction of the life of the beast whose blood was offered for no blood was to be offered of a living creature nor of one killed upon any other account but for that end to be a sacrifice for sin and after the sprinkling and pouring out of the blood the inwards of some and all of the other were to be consumed by fire And it is observable that the greater the Sacrifice for sin was always the more was consumed of it as appears plainly by the forementioned difference of the Sin-offerings for private persons and for the people of the former the Priests were allowed to eat but not at all of the latter And so it was observed among the Egyptians in the most solemn Sacrifices for expiation nothing was allowed to be eaten of that part which was designed for that end For Herodotus gives us an account why the Egyptians never eat the head of any living Creature which is That when they offer up a Sacrifice they make a solemn execration upon it that if any evil were to fall upon the persons who Sacrificed or upon all Egypt it might be turned upon the head of that beast And Plutarch adds that after this solemn execration They cut off the head and of old threw it into the River but then gave it to strangers From which custom we observe that in a solemn Sacrifice for expiation the guilt of the offenders was by this rite of execration supposed to be transferred upon the head of the Sacrifice as it was in the Sacrifices among the Jews by the laying on of hands and that nothing was to be eaten of what was supposed to have that guilt transferred upon it From hence all Expiatory Sacrifices were at first whole Burnt-offerings as appears by the Patriarchal Sacrifices and the customs of other Nations and among the Jews themselves as we have already proved in all solemn offerings for the people And although in the sacrifices of private persons some parts were allowed to be eaten by the Priests yet those which were designed for expiation were consumed So that the greater the offering was to God the more it implied the Consumption of the thing which was so offered How strangely improbable then is it That the Oblation of Christ should not as under the Law have respect to his death and sufferings but to his entrance into Heaven wherein nothing is supposed to be consumed but all things given him with far greater power as our Adversaries suppose than ever he had before But we see the Apostle parallels Christs suffering with the burning of the Sacrifices and his blood with the blood of them and consequently his offering up himself must relate not to his entrance into Heaven but to that act of his whereby he suffered for sins and offered up his blood as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world From all which it appears how far more agreeably to the Oblations under the Law Christ is said to offer up himself for the expiation of sins by his death and sufferings than by his entrance into Heaven For it is apparent that the Oblations in expiatory Sacrifices under the Law were such upon which the expiation of sin did chiefly depend but by our Adversaries own confession Christs oblation of himself by his entrance into Heaven hath no immediate respect at all to the expiation of sin only as the way whereby he was to enjoy that power by which he did expiate sins as Crellius saith now let us consider what more propriety there is in making this presenting of Christ in Heaven to have a correspondency with the legal Oblations than the offering up himself upon the Cross. For 1. on the very same reason that his entrance into Heaven is made an Oblation his death is so
too viz. Because it was the way whereby he obtained the power of expiation and far more properly so than the other since they make Christs entrance and power the reward of his sufferings but they never make his sitting at the right hand of God the reward of his entrance into Heaven 2. His offering up himself to God upon the Cross was his own act but his entrance into Heaven was Gods as themselves acknowledge and therefore could not in any propriety of speech be called Christs offering up himself 3. If it were his own act it could not have that respect to the expiation of sins which his death had for our Adversaries say that his death was by reason of our sins and that he suffered to purge us from sin but his entrance into Heaven was upon his own account to enjoy that power and authority which he was to have at the right hand of God 4. How could Christs entrance into Heaven be the way for his enjoying that power which was necessary for the expiation of sin when Christ before his entrance into Heaven saith that all power was given to him in Heaven and earth and the reason assigned in Scripture of that power and authority which God gave him is because he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the Cross So that the entrance of Christ into Heaven could not be the means of obtaining that power which was conferred before but the death of Christ is mentiâ—ned on that account in Scripture 5. If the death of Christ were no expiatory Sacrifice the entrance of Christ into Heaven could be no Oblation proper to a High-Priest for his entrance into the Holy of Holies was on the account of the blood of the sin-offering which he carried in with him If there were then no Expiatory Sacrifice before that was slain for the sins of men Christ could not be said to make any Oblation in Heaven for the Oblation had respect to a Sacrifice already slain so that if men deny that Christs death was a proper Sacrifice for sin he could make no Oblation at all in Heaven and Christ could not be said to enter thither as the High-Priest entred into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the Sacrifice which is the thing which the Author to the Hebrews asserts concerning Christ. 2. There is as great an inconsistency in making the exercise of Christs power in Heaven an Oblation in any sense as in making Christs entrance into Heaven to be the Oblation which had correspondency with the Oblations of the Law For what is there which hath the least resemblance with an Oblation in it Hath it any respect to God as all the legal Oblations had no for his intercession and power Crellius saith respects us and not God Was there any Sacrifice at all in it for expiation how is it possible that the meer exercise of power should be called a Sacrifice What analogy is there at all between them And how could he be then said most perfectly to exercise his Priesthood when there was no consideration at all of any Sacrifice offered up to God so that upon these suppositions the Author to the Hebrews must argue upon strange similitudes and fancy resemblances to himself which it was impossible for the Iews to understand him in who were to judge of the nature of Priesthood and Oblations in a way agreeable to the Institutions among themselves But was it possible for them to understand such Oblations and a Priesthood which had no respect at all to God but wholly to the People and such an entrance into the Holy of Holies without the blood of an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the people But such absurdities do men betray themselves into when they are forced to strain express places of Scripture to serve an hypothesis which they think themselves obliged to maintain We now come to shew that this interpretation of Crellius doth not agree with the circumstances of the places before mentioned which will easily appear by these brief considerations 1. That the Apostle always speaks of the offering of Christ as a thing past and once done so as not to be done again which had been very improper if by the Oblation of Christ he had meant the continual appearance of Christ in Heaven for us which yet is and will never cease to be till all his enemies be made his foot-stool 2. That he still speaks in allusion to the Sacrifices which were in use among the Iews and therefore the Oblation of Christ must be in such a way as was agreeable to what was used in the Levitical Sacrifices which we have already at large proved he could not do in our Adversaries sense 3 That the Apostle speaks of such a Sacrifice for sins to which the sitting at the right hand of God was consequent so that the Oblation antecedent to it must be properly that Sacrifice for sins which he offered to God and therefore the exercise of his power for expiation of sins which they say is meant by sitting at the right hand of God cannot be that Sacrifice for sins Neither can his entrance into Heaven be it which in what sense it can be called a Sacrifice for sins since themselves acknowledge it had no immediate relation to the expiation of them I cannot understand 4. The Apostle speaks of such an Offering of Christ once which if it had been repeated doth imply that Christs sufferings must have been repeated too For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the World but the repeated exercise of Christs power in Heaven doth imply no necessity at all of Christs frequent suffering nor his frequent entrance into Heaven which might have been done without suffering therefore it must be meant of such an offering up himself as was implyed in his death and sufferings 5. He speaks of the offering up of that body which God gave him when he came into the World but our Adversaries deny that he carried the same Body into Heaven and therefore he must speak not of an offering of Christ in Heaven but what was performed here on Earth But here our Adversaries have shewn us a tryal of their skill when they tell us with much confidence that the World into which Christ is here said to come is not to be understood of this World but of that to come which is not only contrary to the general acceptation of the word when taken absolutely as it is here but to the whole scope and design of the place For he speaks of that World wherein Sacrifices and Burnt-offerings were used and the Levitical Law was observed although not sufficient for perfect expiation and so rejected for that end and withal he speaks of that World wherein the chearful obedience of Christ to the will of his Father was seen for he saith Lo I come to
accept of this Sacrifice as an expiation for them and so charge not on them the innocent blood c. and upon doing of this it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the blood shall be expiated i. e. as the Vulgar Latin explain it the guilt of the blood shall be taken from them But how then should the expiating sin upon a Sacrifice slain in order thereto destâ—oy that satisfaction which we assert by the blood of Christ being shed in order to the expiation of our sins Nay it much rather sheweth the consistency and agreeableness of these one with another For we have before proved that the Sacrifice here did expiate the sin by a substitution and bearing the guilt which could not have been expiated without it But Crellius further urgeth that God himself is here said to expiate and therefore to expiate cannot signifie to attone or satisfie in which sense Christ may be said to expiate too not by atoning or satisfying but by not imputing sins or taking away the punishment of them by his power To which we need no other answer than what Crellius himself elsewhere gives viz. that Socinus never denyes but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie to appease or atone which is most eviâ—ently proved from the place mention'd by Grotius Gen. 32. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expiabo faciem ejus in munere saith the interlineary Version placabo illum muneribus the Vulg. Lat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the LXX and all the circumstances of the place make it appear to be meant in the proper sense of appeasing the anger of a person by something which may move him to shew favour And if Crellius will yield this to be the sense of expiation as applyed to the Sacrifice of Christ he need not quarrel with the word satisfaction But why should he rather attribute that sense of expiation to Christ which is alone given to God wherein the expiation is attributed to him that receives the Sacrifice rather than to him that offers the sacrifice in order to the atonement of another since it is acknowledged that Christ did offer a sacrifice and therefore there can be no reason why that sense of expiation should not belong to him which was most peculiar to that which we shall now shew to be of the same kind with what is here mentioned viz. an appeasing by a gift offered up to God So we find the word used to the same sense 2 Sam. 21. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and wherewith shall I make the Atonement i. e. wherewith shall I satisfie you for all the wrong which Saul hath done unto you and we see afterwards it was by the death of Sauls sons In which place it cannot be denyed but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only signifies to appease but such a kind of satisfaction as is by the death of some for the faults of others and so comes home not only to the importance of the expiation belonging to a Sacrifice in general but to such a kind of expiation as is by the suffering of some in the place of others Which though it be more clear and distinct where one man suffers for others yet this was sufficiently represented in the sacrifices under the Law in which we have already proved that there was a substitution of them in the place of the offenders And in this sense the Iews themselves do understand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. such an expiation as is made by the substitution of one in the place of another Of which many instances are collected by Buxtorf wherein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken by the Rabbinical Writers for such an expiation whereby one was to undergo a punishment in the place of another So when in the title Sanhedrin the people say to the High-Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simus nos expiatio tua let us be for an expiation for you the Gloss explains it thus hoc est in nobis fiat expiatio tua nosque subeamus tuo locò quicquid tibi evenire debet And when they tell us how Children ought to honour their Parents after their death they say when they recite any memorable speech of their Fathers they are not barely to say My Father said so but my Lord and Father said so would I had been the expiation of his death i. e. as they explain it themselves would I had undergone what he did and they give this general rule Where ever it is said behold I am for expiation it is to be understood behold I am in the place of another to bear his iniquities So that this signifies the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a price of redemption for others Hence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken for a price of redemption of the life of another and rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exod. 21. 30. 30. 12. Numb 35. 31 32. where we render it satisfaction and by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal. 48. 7. and thereby we fully understand what our Saviour meant when he said that he gave his Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransome for many and to this day the Iews call the Cock which they kill for Expiation on the day of Atonement by the name of Cappara and when they beat the Cock against their heads thrice they every time use words to this purpose Let this Cock be an exchange for me let him be in my room and be made an Expiation for me let death come to him but to me and all Israel life and happiness I insist on these things only to let us understand that the Iews never understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense our Adversaries contend for when applyed to an Expiatory Sacrifice but as implying a Commutation and a Substitution of one in the place of another so as by the punishment of that the other in whose room he suffers may obtain deliverance Which is the sense we plead for But the utmost which Socinus and Crellius will allow to the Sacrifices in order to Expiation is barely this That the offering of them is to be considered as a meer condition that hath no other respect to the expiation of sins than the paring a mans nails would have had if God had required it upon which slight obedience the pardon of some light sins might be obtained But can any one imagine that this was all that was designed by the Sacrifices of old who considers the antiquity and universality of them in the world in those elder times before the Law the great severity by which they were required under the Law the punctual prescriptions that were made in all circumstances for them the vast and almost inestimable expence the people were at about them but above all the reason that God himself assigns in the Law That the blood was given for expiation because it was the life and the correspondency so clearly expressed
in the New Testament between the Sacrifice of Christ and those Levitical Sacrifices Can any one I say imagine upon these considerations that the Sacrifices had no other respect to the expiation of sin than as they were a slight testimony of their obedience to God Why were not an inward sorrow for sin and tears and prayers rather made the only conditions of Expiation than such a burthensome and chargeable service imposed upon them which at last signified nothing but that a command being supposed they would have sinned if they had broken it But upon our supposition a reasonable account is given of all the expiatory Sacrifices viz. That God would have them see how highly he esteemed his Laws because an expiation was not to be made for the breach of them but by the sacrificing of the life of some Creature which he should appoint in stead of the death of the Offender and if the breach of those Laws which he had given them must require such an expiation what might they then think would the sins of the whole world do which must be expiated by a Sacrifice infinitely greater than all those put together were viz. The death and sufferings of the Son of God for the sins of men But if the offering Sacrifice had been a bare condition required of the person who committed the fault in order to expiation Why is it never said That the person who offered it did expiate his own fault thereby For that had been the most proper sense for if the expiation did depend on the offering the Sacrifice as on the condition of it then the performing the condition gave him an immediate right to the benefit of the promise If it be said That his own act was not only necessary in bringing the Sacrifice but the Priests also in offering up the blood This will not make it at all the more reasonable because the pardon of sin should not only depend upon a mans own act but upon the act of another which he could not in reason be accountable for if he miscarried in it If the Priest should refuse to do his part or be unfit to do it or break some Law in the doing of it how hard would it seem that a mans sins could not be expiated when he had done all that lay in his own power in order to the expiation of them but that another person whose actions he had no command over neglected the doing his duty So that if the Sacrifice had no other influence on expiation but as a part of obedience in all reason the expiation should have depended on no other conditions but such as were under the power of him whose sins were to be expiated by it But Crellius urgeth against our sense of Expiation That if it were by Substitution then the Expiation would be most properly attributed to the Sacrifices themselves whereas it is only said that by the Sacrifices the Expiation is obtained but that God or the Priest do expiate and to God it belongs properly because he takes away the guilt and punishment of sin which is saith he all meant by expiation to the Priest only consequently as doing what God requires in order to it and to the Sacrifices only as the conditions by which it was obtained But if the Expiation doth properly belong to God and implies no more than bare pardon it is hard to conceive that it should have any necessary relation to the blood of the Sacrifice but the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us that Remission had a necessary respect to the shedding of blood so that without that there was no remission How improperly doth the Apostle discourse throughout that Chapter wherein he speaks so much concerning the blood of the Sacrifices purisying and in correspondency to that the blood of Christ purging our Consciences and that all things under the Law were purified with blood Had all this no other significatiâ—n but that this was a bare condition that had no other importance but as a meer act of obedience when God had required it why doth not the Apostle rather say without Gods favour there is no remission than without the shedding of blood if all the expiation did prâ—perly belong to that and only very remotely to the blood of the Sacrifice What imaginable necessity was there that Christ must shed his blood in order to the expiation of our sins if all that bloâ—d of the Legal Sacrifices did signifie no more than a bare condition of pardon though a slight part of obedience in it self Why must Christ lay down his life in correspondency to these Levitical Sacrifices for that was surely no slight part of his obedience Why might not this condition have been dispensed with in him since our Adversaries say that in it self it hath no proper efficacy on the expiation of sin And doth not this speak the greatest repugnancy to the kindness and Grace of God in the Gospel that he would not dispense with the ignominious death of his Son although he knew it could have no influence of it self on the expiation of the sins of the world But upon this supposition that the blood of Sacrifices under the Law had no proper influence upon Expiation the Apostles discourse proceeds upon weak and insufficient grounds For what necessity in the thing was there because the blood of the Sacrifices was made a condition of pardon under the Law therefore the blood of Christ must be so now although in it self it hath no proper efficacy for that end But the Apostles words and way of Argumentation doth imply that there was a peculiar efficacy both in the one and the other in order to Expiation although a far greater in the blood of Christ than could be in the other as the thing typified ought to exceed that which was the representation of it From hence we see that the Apostle attributes what Expiation there was under the Law not immediately to God as belonging properly to him but to the blood of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean Which he had very great reason to do since God expresly saith to the Iews that the blood was given them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad expiandum to expiate for their souls for the blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall expiate the soul. Than which words nothing could have been more plainly said to overthrow Crellius his assertion that Expiation is not properly or chiefly attributed to the Sacrifices but primarily to God and consequentially to the Priest who is never said to expiate but by the Sacrifice which he offered so that his Office was barely Ministerial in it But from this we may easily understand in what sense God is said to expiate sins where it hath respect to a Sacrifice which is that we are now discoursing of and not in any larger or more improper use of the word for since God himself
procuring it And in that sense we acknowledge That the death of Christ was a declaration of Gods will and decree to pardon but not meerly as it gave testimony to the truth of his Doctrine for in that sense the blood of the Apostles and Martyrs might be said to purge us from sin as well as the blood of Christ but because it was the consideration upon which God had decreed to pardon And so as the acceptance of the condition required or the price paid may be â—aid to declare or manifest the intention of a person to release or deliver a Captive So Gods acceptance of what Christ did suffer for our sakes may be said to declare his readiness to pardon us upon his account But then this declaration doth not belong properly to the act of Christ in suffering but to the act of God in accepting and it can be no other ways known than Gods acceptance is known which was not by the Sufferings but by the Resurrection of Christ. And therefâ—re the declaring Gods will and decree to pardon doth properly belong to that and if that had been all which the Scripture had meant by purging of sin by the blood of Christ it had been very incongruously applied to that but most properly to his Resurrection But these phrases being never attributed to that which most properly might be said to declare the will of God and being peculiarly attributed to the death of Christ which cannot be said properly to do it nothing can be more plain than that these expressions ought to be taken in that which is confessed to be their proper sense viz. That Expiation of sin which doth belong to the death of Christ as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world But yet Socinus and Crellius have another subterfuge For therein lies their great art in seeking rather by any means to escape their enemies than to overcome them For being sensible that the main scope and design of the Scripture is against them they seldom and but very weakly assault but shew all their subtilty in avoiding by all imaginable arts the force of what is brought against them And the Scripture being so plain in attributing such great effects to the death of Christ when no other answer will serve turn then they tell us That the death of Christ is taken Metonymically for all the consequents of his death viz. His Resurrection Exaltation and the Power and Authority which he hath at the right hand of his Father But how is it possible to convince those who by death can understand life by sufferings can mean glory and by the shedding of blood sitting at the right hand of God And that the Scripture is very far from giving any countenance to these bold Interpretations will appear by these considerations 1. because the effect of Expiation of our sins is attributed to the death of Christ as distinct from his Resurrection viz. Our reconciliation with God Rom. 5. 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life To which Crellius answers That the Apostle doth not speak of the death of Christ alone or as it is considered distinct from the consequences of it but only that our Reconciliation was effected by the death of Christ intervening But nothing can be more evident to any one who considers the design of the Apostles discourse than that he speaks of what was peculiar to the death of Christ for therefore it is said that Christ dyed for the ungodly For scarcely for a righteous man will one dye but God commâ—ndeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved through him upon which those words follow For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son c. The Reconciliation here mentioned is attributed to the death of Christ in the same sense that it is mentioned before but there it is not mentioned as a bare condition intervening in order to something farther but as the great instance of the love both of God and Christ of God in sending his Son of Christ in laying down his life for sinners in order to their being justified by his blood But where is it that St. Paul saith that the death of Christ had no other influence on the expiation of our sins but as a bare condition intervening in order to that power and authority whereby he should expiate sins what makes him attribute so much to the death of Christ if all the benefits we enjoy depend upon the consequences of it and no otherwise upon that than meerly as a preparation for it what peculiar emphasis were there in Christs dying for sinners and for the ungodly unless his death had a particular relation to the expiation of their sins Why are men said to be justified by his blood and not much rather by his glorious Resurrection if the blood of Christ be only considered as antecedent to the other And that would have been the great demonstration of the love of God which had the most immediate influence upon our advantage which could not have been the death in this sense but the life and glory of Christ. But nothing can be more absurd than what Crellius would have to be the meaning of this place viz. that the Apostle doth not speak of the proper force of the death of Christ distinct from his life but that two things are opposed to each other for the effecting of one of which the death of Christ did intervene but it should not intervene for the other viz. it did intervene for our reconciliation but it should not for our life For did not the death of Christ equally intervene for our life as for our reconciliation was not our eternal deliverance the great thing designed by Christ and our reconciliation in order to that end what opposition then can be imagined that it should be necessary for the death of Christ to intervene in order to the one than in order to the other But he means that the death of Christ should not intervene anymore what need that when it is acknowledged by themselves that Christ dyed only for this end before that he might have power to bestow eternal life on them that obey him But the main force of the Apostles argument lies in the comparison between the death of Christ having respect to us as enemies in order to reconciliation and the life of Christ to us considered as reconciled so that if he had so much kindness for enemies to dye for their reconciliation we may much more presume that he now living in Heaven will accomplish the end of that reconciliation in the eternal salvation of them that obey him By which it is apparent that he
speaks of the death of Christ in a notion proper to it self having influence upon our reconciliation and doth not consider it metonymically as comprehending in it the consequents of it 2. Because the expiation of sins is attributed to Christ antecedently to the great consequents of his death viz. his sitting at the right hand of God Heb. 1. 3. When he had by himself purged our sins sate down on the right hand of his Majesty on high Heb. 9. 12. But by his own blood he entred in once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal redemption for us To these places Crellius gives a double answer 1. That indefinite particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned with Verbs of the praeterperfect tense do not always require that the action expressed by them should precede that which is designed in the Verbs to which they are joyned but they have sometimes the force of particles of the present or imperfect tense which sometimes happens in particles of the praeterperfect tense as Matth. 10. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and several other instances produced by him according to which manner of interpretation the sense he puts upon those words Heb. 9. 12. is Christ by the shedding of his blood entred into the Holy of Holies and in so doing he found eternal redemption or the expiation of sins But not to dispute with Crellius concerning the importance of the Aorist being joyned with a Verb of the praeterperfect tense which in all reason and common acceptation doth imply the action past by him who writes the words antecedent to his writing of it as is plain in the instances produced by Crellius but according to his sense of Christs expiation of sin it was yet to come after Christs entrance into Heaven and so it should have been more properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not I say to insist upon that the Apostle manifests that he had a respect to the death of Christ in the obtaining this eternal redemption by his following discourse for v. 14. he compares the blood of Christ in point of efficacy for expiation of sin with the blood of the Legal Sacrifices whereas if the expiation meant by him had been sound by Christs Oblation of himself in Heaven he would have compared Christs entrance into Heaven in order to it with the entrance of the High-Priest into the Holy of Holies and his argument had run thus For if the High-Priest under the Law did expiate sins by entring into the Holy of Holies How much more shall the Son of God entring into Heaven expiate the sins of Mankind but we see the Apostle had no sooner mention'd the redemption obtained for us but he presently speaks of the efficacy of the blood of Christ in order to it and as plainly asserts the same v. 15. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Why doth the Apostle here speak of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the expiation of sins by the means of death if he had so lately asserted before that the redemption or expiation was found not by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and withal the Apostle here doth not speak of such a kind of expiation as wholly respects the future but of sins that were under the first Testament not barely such as could not be expiated by vertue of it but such as were committed during the time of it although the Levitical Law allowed no expiation for them And to confirm this sense the Apostle doth not go on to prove the necessity of Christs entrance into Heaven but of his dying v. 16 17 18. But granting that he doth allude to the High-Priests entring into the Holy of Holies yet that was but the representation of a Sacrifice already offer'd and he could not be said to find expiation by his entrance but that was already found by the blood of the Sacrifice and his entrance was only to accomplish the end for which the blood was offer'd up in sácrifice And the benefit which came to men is attributed to the Sacrifice and not to the sprinkling of blood before the Mercy-seat and whatever effect was consequent upon his entrance into the Sanctuary was by vertue of the blood which he carried in with him and was before shed at the Altar Neither can it with any reason be said that if the redemption were obtained by the blood of Christ there could be no need of his entrance into Heaven since we do not make the Priesthood of Christ to expire at his death but that he is in Heaven a merciful High-Priest in negotiating the affairs of his People with God and there ever lives to make intercession for them Crellius answers That granting the Aorist being put before the Ver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should imply such an action which was antecedent to Christs sitting at the right hand of God yet it is not there said that the expiation of sins was made before Christs entrance into Heaven for those saith he are to be considered as two different things for a Prince first enters into his Palace before he sits upon his throne And therefore saith he Christ may be said to have made expiation of sins before he sate down at the right hand of his Father not that it was done by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and offering himself to God there by which means he obtained his sitting on the right hand of the Majesty on high and thereby the full Power of remission of sins and giving eternal life To which I answer 1. That the Sripture never makes such a distinction between Christs entrance into Heaven and sitting at the right hand of God which latter implying no more but the glorious state of Christ in Heaven his entrance into Heaven doth imply it For therefore God exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour and the reason of the power and authority given him in Heaven is no where attributed to his entrance into it as the means of it but our Saviour before that tells us that all power and authority was committed to him and his very entrance into Heaven was a part of his glory and given him in consideration of his sufferings as the Apostle plainly asserts and he became obedient to death even the death of the Cross wherefore God hath highly exalted him c. There can be then no imaginable reason to make the entrance of Christ into Heaven and presenting himself to God there a condition or means of obtaining that power and authority which is implyed in his sitting at the right hand of God 2. Supposing we should look on these as distinct there is
as little reason to attribute the expiation of sin to his entrance considered as distinct from the other For the expiation of sins in Heaven being by Crellius himself confessed to be by the exercise of Christs power and this being only the means to that power how could Christ expiate sins by that power which he had not But of this I have spoken before and shewed that in no sense allowed by themselves the expiation of sins can be attributed to the entrance of Christ into Heaven as distinct from his sitting at the right hand of God Thus much may suffice to prove that those effects of an Expiatory Sacrifice which do respect the sins committed do properly agree to the death of Christ. I now come to that which respects the person considered as obnoxious to the wrath of God by reason of his sins and so the effect of an Expiatory Sacrifice is Atonement and Reconciliation By the wrath of God I mean the reason which God hath from the holiness and justice of his nature to punish sin in those who commit it by the means of Atonement and Reconciliation I mean that in consideration of which God is willing to release the sinner from the obligation to punishment he lyes under by the Law of God and to receive him into favour upon the terms which are declared by the Doctrine of Christ. And that the death of Christ was such a means of Atonement and Reconciliation for us I shall prove by those places of Scripture which speak of it But Crellius would seem to acknowledge That if Grotius seem to contend for no more than that Christ did avert that wrath of God which men had deserved by their sins they would willingly yield him all that he pleads for but then he adds That this deliverance from the wrath to come is not by the death but by the power of Christ. So that the question is Whether the death of Christ were the means of Atonement and Reconciliation between God and us and yet Crellius would seem willing to yield too that the death of Christ may be said to avert the wrath of God from us as it was a condition in order to it for in that sense it had no more influence upon it than his birth had but we have already seen that the Scripture attributes much more to the death and blood of Christ in order to the expiation of sin We do not deny that the death of Christ may be called a condition as the performance of any thing in order to an end may be called the condition upon which that thing is to be obtained but we say that it is not a bare condition but such a one as implies a consideration upon which the thing is obtained being such as answers the end of him that grants it by which means it doth propitiate or atone him who had before just reason to punish but is now willing to forgive and be reconciled to them who have so highly offended him And in this sense we assert that Christ is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a propitiation for our sins 1 John 2. 2. 4. 10. which we take in the same sense that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken for the Sin-offering for Atonement Ezek. 44. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall offer a sin-offering for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies and in the same sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken Ezek. 45. 19 and the Ram for Atonement t s call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Numb 5. 8. And thence the High-Priest when he made an Atonement is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Maccab 3. 33. which is of the greater consequence to us because Crellius would not have the sense either of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be taken from the common use of the word in the Greek Tongue but from that which some call the Hellenistical use of it viz. That which is used in the Greek of the New Testament out of the LXX and the Apocryphal Greek in both which we have found the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a sense fully correspondent to what we plead for But he yet urges and takes a great deal of pains to prove that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not alwayes signifie to be appeased by another but sometimes signifies to be propitious and merciful in pardoning and sometimes to expiate and then signifies the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which if it be granted proves nothing against us having already proved that those words do signifie the aversion of the wrath of God by a Sacrifice and that there is no reason to recede from that signification when they are applyed to the blood of Christ. And we do not contend that when the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is applyed to him that doth forgive it doth imply appeasing but the effect of it which is pardoning but that which we assert is that when it is applyed to a third person or a thing made use of in order to forgiveness then we say it signifies the propitiating him that was justly displeased so as by what was done or suffered for that end he is willing to pardon what he had just reason to punish So Moses is said to make Atonement for the people by his prayers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exod. 34. 14. and we may see Verse 11. how much God was displeased before And Moses besought the Lord his God and said Why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people and Verse 12. Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people and then it is said Verse 14. The Lord was atoned for the evil which he thought to do unto his people I would therefore willingly know why Moses might not here properly be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore since it is so very often said in the Levitical Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the accusative case scarce ever put but in two cases viz. When these words are applyed to inanimate things as the Altar c. or when to God himself implying forgiveness what reason can we assign more probable for this different construction than that when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used the verb hath a respect to the offended party as the accusative understood as Christ is said in the places mentioned to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which ought in reason to be understood as those words after Moses his intercession 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Crellius asks Why then do we never read once concerning the Priest that he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but we read that he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and
God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To this I answer 1. That the reason why the person propitiated is not expressed is because it was so much taken for granted that the whole Institution of Sacrifices did immediately respect God and therefore there was no danger of mistaking concerning the person who was to be atoned 2. I wonder Crellius can himself produce no instance where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used with respect to the Sacrifices and the persons whose offences are remitted by the Atonement but where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath a relation to that it is still joyned with a Preposition relating either to the person or to the offences if no more were understood when it is so used than when God himself is said to do it why is not the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well said of the Priest as it is of God From whence Grotius his sense of Hebr. 2. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is far more agreeable to the use of the phrase in the Old Testament than that which Crellius would put upon it Therefore since the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is attributed to Christ we ought to take it in the sense proper to a Propitiatory Sacrifice so it is said by Moses where God is left out but is necessarily understood after the people had provoked God by their Idolatry Ye have sinned a great sin And now I will go up unto the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That I may make an Atonement for your sin What way could Moses be said to make this Atonement but by propitiating God yet his name is not there expressed but necessarily understood So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in the most proper sense for appeasing the anger of a person Gen 32. 20. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Sam. 21. 3. which places have been already insisted on in the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that those places wherein Christ is said to be a propitiation for our sins are capable of no other sense will appear from the consideration of Christ as a middle person betwen God and us and therefore his being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot be parallel with that phrase where God himself is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Christ is here considered as interposing between God and us as Moses and the Priests under the Law did between God and the people in order to the averting his wrath from them And when one doth thus interpose in order to the Atonement of the offended party something is alwayes supposed to be done or suffered by him as the means of that Atonement As Iacob supposed the present he made to his Brother would propitiate him and David appeased the Gibeonites by the death of Sauls Sons both which are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the shedding of the blood of Sacrifices before and under the Law was the means of atoning God for the sins they committed What reason can there be then why so received a sense of Atonement both among the Iews and all other Nations at that time when these words were written must be forsaken and any other sense be embraced which neither agrees with the propriety of the expression nor with so many other places of Scripture which make the blood of Christ to be a Sacrifice for the Expiation of sin Neither is it only our Atonement but our Reconciliation is attributed to Christ too with a respect to his Death and Sufferings As in the place before insisted on For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son and more largely in the second Epistle to the Corinthians And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Iesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him And to the Ephesians And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by his Cross having slain the enmity thereby To the same purpose to the Colossians And having made peace through the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself by him I say whether they be things in Heaven or in Earth and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death Two things the substance of Crellius his answer may be reduced to concerning these places 1. That it is no where said that God was reconciled to us but that we are reconciled to God and therefore this reconciliation doth not imply any averting of the anger of God 2. That none of these places do assert any reconciliation with God antecedent to our conversion and so that the Reconciliation mention'd implyes only the laying aside our enmity to God by our sins I begin with the first of these concerning which we are to consider not barely the phrases used in Scripture but what the nature of the thing implyes as to which a difference being supposed between God and man on the account of sin no reconciliation can be imagined but what is mutual For did man only fall out with God and had not God just reason to be displeased with men for their Apostasie from him If not what made him so severely punish the first sin that ever was committed by man what made him punish the old World for their impieties by a deluge what made him leave such Monuments of his anger against the sins of the World in succeeding Ages what made him add such severe sanctions to the Laws he made to the people of the Iews what made the most upright among them so vehemently to deprecate his wrath and displeasure upon the sense of their sins what makes him declare not only his hatred of the sins of men but of the persons of those who commit them so far as to express the greatest abhorrency of them Nay what makes our Adversaries themselves to say that impiety is in its own nature hateful to God and stirrs him up to anger against all who commit it what means I say all this if God be not angry with men on the account of sin Well then supposing God to be averse from men by reason of their sins shall this displeasure always continue or not if it always continues men must certainly suffer the desert of their sins if it doth not always continue then God may be said to be reconciled in the same sense that an offended party is capable of being reconciled to him who hath provoked him Now there are two ways whereby a party justly offended may be