among men I answer that we do not pretend in all things to parallel the sufferings of Christ for us with any sufferings of men for one another But yet we add that even among men the punishments inflicted on those who were themselves innocent as to the cause of them may be as exemplary as any other And the greater appearance of severity there is in them the greater terror they strike into all offenders As Childrens losing their estates and honors or being banished for their Parents treasons in which they had no part themselves Which is a proper punishment on them of their Fathers faults whether they be guilty or no and if this may be just in men why not in God If any say that the Parents are only punished in the Children he speaks that which is contradictory to the common sense of mankind for punishment doth suppose sense or feeling of it and in this case the Parents are said to be punished who are supposed to be dead and past feeling of it and the Children who undergo the smart of it must not be said to be punished though all things are so like it that no person can imagine himself in that condition but would think himself punished and severely too If it be said that these are calamities indeed but they are no proper punishments it may easily be shewed that distinction will not hold here Because these punishments were within the design of the Law and were intended for all the ends of punishments and therefore must have the nature of them For therefore the Children are involved in the Fathers punishment on purpose to deter others from the like actions There are some things indeed that Children may fall into by occasion of their Fathers guilt which may be only calamities to them because they are necessary consequents in the nature of the thing and not purposely designed as a punishment to them Thus being deprived of the comfort and assistance of their Parents when the Law hath taken them off by the hand of justice this was designed by the Law as a punishment to the Parents and as to the Children it is only a necessary consequent of their punishment For otherwise the Parents would have been punished for the Childrens faults and not the Children only involved in that which unavoidably follows upon the Parents punishment So that Crellius is very much mistaken either in the present case of our Saviours punishment or in the general reason of exemplary punishments as among men But the case of our Saviour is more exemplary when we consider the excellency of his person though appearing in our nature when no meaner sufferings would satisfie than of so transcendent a nature as he underwent though he were the Eternal Son of God this must make the punishment much more exemplary than if he were considered only as our Adversaries do as a meer man So that the dignity of his person under all his sufferings may justly add a greater consideration to deter us from the practice of sin which was so severely punished in him when he was pleased to be a Sacrifice for our sins From whence we see that the ends of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are very agreeable with the sufferings of Christ considered as a punishment for sin We now consider whether as Crellius asserts supposing Christs death were no punishment it could have these effects upon mens minds or no Yes he saith it might because by his sufferings we might see how severely God would punish wicked and obstinate persons Which being a strange riddle at the first hearing it viz. that by the sufferings of an innocent person without any respect to sin as the cause of them we should discern Gods severity against those who are obstinate in sin we ought the more diligently to attend to what is said for the clearing of it First saith he If God spared not his own most innocent and holy and only Son than whom nothing was more dear to him in Heaven or Earth but exposed him to so cruel and ignominious a death how great and severe sufferings may we think God will inflict on wicked men who are at open defiance with him I confess my self not subtle enough to apprehend the force of this argument viz. If God dealt so severely with him who had no sin either of his own or others to answer for therefore he will deal much more severely with those that have For Gods severity considered without any respect to sin gives rather encouragement to sinners than any argument to deter them from it For the natural consequence of it is that God doth act arbitrarily without any regard to the good or evil of mens actions and therefore it is to no purpose to be sollicitous about them For upon the same account that the most innocent person suffers most severely from him for all that we know the more we strive to be innocent the more severely we may be dealt with and let men sin they can be but dealt severely with all the difference then is one shall be called punishments and the other calamities but the severity may be the same in both And who would leave off his sins meerly to change the name of punishments into that of calamities And from hence it will follow that the differences of good and evil and the respects of them to punishment and reward are but aiery and empty things but that God really in the dispensation of things to men hath no regard to what men are or do but acts therein according to his own Dominion whereby he may dispose of men how or which way he pleases If a Prince had many of his Subjects in open rebellion against him and he should at that time make his most obedient and beloved Son to be publickly exposed to all manner of indignities and be dishonoured and put to death by the hands of those rebels could any one imagine that this was designed as an exemplary punishment to all rebels to let them see the danger of rebellion No but would it not rather make them think him a cruel Prince one that would punish innocency as much as rebellion and that it was rather better to stand at defiance and become desperate for it was more dangerous to be beloved than hated by him to be his Son than his declared Enemy So that insisting on the death of Christ as it is considered as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for of that we speak now there is no comparison between our Adversaries hypothesis and ours but saith Crellius the consequence is not good on our side if Christ suffered the punishment of our sins therefore they shall suffer much more who continue in sin for Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world but they suffer only for their own and what they have deserved themselves To which I answer that the argument is of very good force upon our hypothesis
often doth yet he is sure not to do it in the life to come but Communities of men can never be punished but in this World and therefore the Justice of God doth often discover it self in these common calamities to keep the World in subjection to him and to let men see that neither the multitude of their Associates nor the depth of their designs nor the subtilty of their Councils can secure them from the omnipotent arm of Divine Justice when he hath determined to visit their transgressions with rods and their iniquities with stripes But when he doth all this yet his loving kindness doth he not utterly take from them for in the midst of all his Judgements he is pleased to remember mercy of which we have a remarkable instance in the Text for when God was overthrowing Cities yet he pluckt the Inhabitants as firebrands out of the burning and so I come from the severity of God 2. To the mixture of his mercy in it And ye were as a fire-brand pluckt out of the burning That notes two things the nearness they were in to the danger and the unexpectedness of their deliverance out of it 1. The nearness they were in to the danger quasi torris cujus jam magna pars absumpta est as some Paraphrase it like a brand the greatest part of which is already consumed by Fire which shews the difficulty of their escaping So Ioshua is said to be a brand pluckt out of the fire Zech. 3. 2. And to this St. Hierom upon this place applies that difficult passage 1 Cor. 3. 15. they shall be saved but so as by Fire noting the greatness of the danger they were in and how hardly they they should escape And are not all the Inhabitants of this City and all of us in the suburbs of the other whose houses escaped so near the flames as Firebrands pluckt out of the burning When the fire came on in its rage and sury as though it would in a short time have devoured all before it that not only this whole City but so great a part of the Suburbs of the other should escape untouched is all circumstances considered a wonderful expression of the kindness of God to us in the midst of so much severity If he had suffered the Fire to go on to have consumed the remainder of our Churches and Houses and laid this City even with the other in one continued heap of ruines we must have said Iust art thou O Lord and righteous in all thy judgements We ought rather to have admired his patience in sparing us so long than complain of this rigour of his Justice in punishing us at last but instead of that he hath given us occasion this day with the three Children in the fiery Furnace to praise him in the midst of the flames For even the Inhabitants of London themselves who have suffered most in this calamity have cause to acknowledge the mercy of God towards them that they are escaped themselves though it be as the Iews report of Ioshua the High-Priest when thrown into the fire by the Chaldeans with their cloaths burnt about them Though their habitations be consumed and their losses otherwise may be too great yet that in the midst of so much danger by the flames and the press of people so very few should suffer the loss of their lives ought to be owned by them and us as a miraculous Providence of God towards them And therefore not unto us not unto us but to his holy Name be the praise of so great a preservation in the midst of so heavy a Judgement 2. The unexpectedness of such a deliverance they are not saved by their own skill and counsel nor by their strength and industry but by him who by his mighty hand did pluck them as fire-brands out of the burning Though we own the justice of God in the calamities of this day let us not forget his mercy in what he hath unexpectedly rescued from the fury of the flames that the Royal Palaces of our Gratious Soveraign the residence of the Nobility the Houses of Parliament the Courts of Iudicature the place where we are now assembled and several others of the same nature with other places and habitations to receive those who were burnt out of their own stand at this day untouched with the fire and long may they continue so ought chiefly to be ascribed to the power and goodness of that God who not only commands the raging of the Sea and the madness of the People but whom the winds and the flames obey Although enough in a due subordination to Divine Providence can never be attributed to the mighty care and industry of our most Gracious Soveraign and his Royal Holiness who by their presence and incouragement inspired a new life and vigour into the sinking spirits of the Citizens whereby God was pleased so far to succeed their endeavours that a stop was put to the fury of the fire in such places where it was as likely to have prevailed as in any parts of the City consumed by it O let us not then frustrate the design of so much severity mixed with so great mercy let it never be said that neither Judgements nor Kindness will work upon us that neither our deliverance from the Pestilence which walks in darkness nor from the flames which shine as the noon-day will awaken us from that Lethargy and security we are in by our sins but let God take what course he pleases with us we are the same incorrigible people still that ever we were For we have cause enough for our mourning and lamentation this day if God had not sent new calamities upon us that we were no better for those we had undergone before We have surfeited with mercies and grown sick of the kindness of Heaven to us and when God hath made us smart for our fulness and wantonness then we grew sullen and murmured and disputed against providence and were willing to do any thing but repent of our sins and reform our lives It is not many years since God blessed us with great and undeserved blessings which we then thought our selves very thankful for but if we had been really so we should never have provoked him who bestowed those savours upon us in so great a degree as we have done since Was this our requital to him for restoring our Soveraign to rebel the more against Heaven Was this our thankfulness for removing the disorders of Church and State to bring them into our lives Had we no other way of trying the continuance of Gods goodness to us but by exercising his patience by our greater provocations As though we had resolved to let the world see there could be a more unthankful and disobedient people than the Iews had been Thus we sinned with as much security and confidence as though we had blinded the eyes or bribed the justice or
Kingdom of God among them to consist 3. That which they thought gave them the greatest title to the being Gods peculiar people was the solemn worship of him at the Temple But what is become of all the glory of that now where are all the pompous Ceremonies the numerous sacrifices the magnificent and solemn Feasts which were to be constantly observed there how is it then possible for them to observe the Religion now which God commanded them since he likewise forbid the doing these things any where but in the Place which himself should appoint So that they are under an unavoidable necessity of breaking their Law if they do them not they break the Law which commands them to be done if they do them they break the Law which forbids the doing them in any other place but at the Temple at Hierusalem And this I am apt to think was one of the greatest grounds among them after the destruction of the Temple of their setting up traditions above the written Law for finding it impossible to keep the written Law if they could gain to themselves the Authority of interpreting it they were not much concerned for the Law it self And this is one of the strongest holds of their infidelity at this day For otherwise we might in reason have thought that their infidelity would have been buried in the ashes of their Temple when they had such plain predictions that the Messias was to come during the second Temple that the prediction of Christ concerning the destruction of this Temple was so exactly fulfilled that all attemps for the rebuilding of it were vain and fruitless Of all which none promissed so fair as that in Iulians time who out of spight to the Christians and particularly with a design to contradict the prophecy of our Saviour gave all encouragement to the Iews to build it he provided at his own charge all materials for it and gave command to the Governour of the Province to take particular care in it and the Jews with great joy and readiness set about it but when they began to search the ground in order to the laying the Foundations the earth round about trembles with a horrible earthquake and the flames of a sudden break out which not only consumed the undertakers but a great multitude of spectators and the materials prepared for the building In so much that an universal astonishment seized upon them and the rest had rather leave their work than be consumed by it This we have delivered to us not by persons at a great distance of time from it but by such who lived in the same age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are all witnesses saith St. Chrysost. of the truth of these things not by one or two but the concurrent Testimony of the writers of that age Not only by St. Chrysost. But Gregorius Nazianzenus Ambrose Ruffinus Socrates Sozomen Theodoret. And lest all these should be suspected of partiality because Christians we desire no more to be believed concerning it than what is recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus a Heathen Historian of that time who was a souldier under Iulian in his last expedition and he asserts the substance of what I have said before And what a strange difference do we now find in the building of a third and a second Temple In the former though they met with many troubles and difficulties yet God carried them through all and prospered their endeavours with great success Now they had all humane encouragements and God only opposes them and makes them desist with the loss of their workmen and materials and perpetual dishonour to themselves for attempting to fight against God in building him a Temple against his will From which we see that in all the senses the Jews understood the Kingdom of God it was remarkably taken from them within so many years after Christ the true Passover was slain by them as had passed from their first Passover after their going out of Aegypt to their entrance into Canaan The difficulty will be far less and the concernment not so great as to the Jews to prove that the Kingdom of God in the sense our Saviour meant it for the Power of the Gospel was taken from them For the event it self is a clear proof of it In stead of that therefore I shall now prove that this taking away the Kingdom of God from them was the effect of their sin in crucifying Christ. Therefore I say c. To make this clear I shall proceed by these following steps 1. That it is acknowledged by the Jews themselves that these great calamities have happened to them for some extraordinary sins For to these they impute the destruction of the City and Temple their oppressions and miseries ever since and the deferring the coming of the Messias For some of them have confessed that all the terms prefixed for the coming of the Messias are past long ago but that God provoked by their great sins hath thus long deferred his appearance and suffered them in the mean while to lye under such great calamities 2. The sin ought to be looked on as so much greater by how much heavier and longer this punishment hath been than any inflicted upon them before For if God did in former captivities punish them for their sins when they were brought back again into their own land after 70. years we must conclude that this is a sin of a higher nature which hath not been expiated by 1600. years captivity and dispersion 3. The Jews have not suffered these calamities for the same sins for which they suffered before For then God charged them with Idolatry as the great provoking sin and it is very observable that the Jews were never freer from the suspicion of this sin than under the second Temple and particularly near their destruction They generally pretended a mighty zeal for their Law and especially opposed the least tendency to Idolatry in so much that they would not suffer the Roman Ensigns to be advanced among them because of the Images that were upon them and all the History of that time tells us of the frequent contests they had with the Roman Governours about these things and ever since that time they have been perfect haters of Idolatry and none of the least hindrances of their embracing Christianity hath been the infinite scandal which hath been given them by the Roman Church in that particular 4. It must be some sin which their Fathers committed and continues yet unrepented of by them to this day Their Fathers committing it was the meritorious cause of the first punishment their Children not repenting of it is the cause why that judgement lies still so heavy upon them And now what sin can we imagine this to be but putting to death the true Messias which they will acknowledge themselves to be a sin that deserves all the miseries they have undergone and it is
punishment and afterwards when Grotius urgeth that though it be essential to punishment that it be inflicted for sin yet it is not that it be inflicted upon him who hath himself sinned which he shews by the similitude of rewards which though necessary to be given in consideration of service may yet be given to others besides the person himself upon his account All this Crellius acknowledgeth who saith They do not make it necessary to the nature but to the justice of punishment that it be inflicted upon none but the person who hath offended So by his own Confession it is not against the nature of punishment that one man suffer for anothers faults From whence it follows that all Socinus his arguments signifie nothing which are drawn from the impossibility of the thing that one man should be punished for anothers faults for Crellius grants the thing to be possible but denies it to be just yet not absolutely neither but with some restrictions and limitations For 6. It is not but that there may be sufficient causes assigned in some particular cases wherein it may be just for God to punish some for the sins of others For Crellius himself hath assigned divers When there is such a neer conjunction between them that one may be said to be punished in the punishment of another as Parents in their Children and Posterity Kings in their Subjects or the body of a State in its Members either in the most or the most principal though the fewest but we are to consider how far he doth extend this way of punishment of some in others 1. At the greatest distance of time if they have been of the same Nation for he extends it to the utmost degree of Gods patience towards a people For saith he God doth not presently punish as soon as they have sinned but spares for a great while and forbears iu expectation of their repentance in the mean while a great many guilty persons die and seem to have escaped punishment But at last the time of Gods patience being past he punisheth their Posterity by exacting the fu l punishment of their sins upon them and by this means punisheth their Ancestors tâ—o and punisheth their sins in their punishment for saith he all that people are reckoned for one one man of several Ages and that punishment which is taken of the last may be for the sins of the first for the conjunction and succession of them of which we have an example saith he in the destructiof Hierusalem By which we see a very remote conjunction and a meer similitude in comparing a succession of Ages in a people with those in a man may when occasion serves be made use of to justifie Gods punishing one Generation of men for the sins of others that have been long before 2. When sins are more secret or less remarkable which God might not punish unless an occasion were given from others sins impelling him to it but because God would punish one very near them he therefore punisheth them that in their punishment he might punish the other Or in case sins spread through a Family or a people or they are committed by divers persons at sundry times which God dot◠〈◊〉 severally punish but sometimes then when the Head of a People or Family hath done something which remarkably deserves punishment whom he will punish in those he is related to and therefore generally punisheth the whole Family or People 3. That which may be a meer exercise of dominion as to some may be a proper punishment to others as in the case of Infants being taken away for their Parents sins For God as to the Children he saith useth only an act of dominion but the punishment only redounds to the Parents who lose them and though this be done for the very end of punishment yet he denies that it hath the nature of Punishment in any but the Parents 4. That punishment may be intended for those who can have no sense at all of it as Crellius asserts in the case of Sauls sons 2 Sam. 21. 8 14. that the punishment was mainly intended for Saul who was aheady dead From these concessions of Crellius in this case we may take notice 1. That a remote conjunction may be sufficient for a translation of penalty viz. from one Generation to another 2. That sins may be truly said to be punished in others when the offenders themselves may escape punishment thus the sins of Parents in their Children and Princes in their Subjects 3. That an act of dominion in some may be designed as a proper punishment to others 4. That the nature of punishment is not to be measured by the sense of it Now upon these concessions though our Adversaries will not grant that Christ was properly punished for our sins yet they cannot deny but that we may very properly be said to be punished for our sins in Christ and if they will yield us this the other may be a strife about words For surely there may be easily imagined as great a conjunction between Christ and us as between the several Generations of the Iews and that last which was punished in the destruction of Hierusalem and though we escape that punishment which Christ did undergo yet we might have our sins punished in him as well as Princes theirs in their Subjects when they escape themselves or rather as Subjects in an innocent Prince who may suffer for the faults of his people if it be said that these are acts of meer dominion as to such a one that nothing hinders but granting it yet our sins may be said to be punished in him as well as Parents sins are punished properly in meer acts of dominion upon their Children if it be laid that can be no punishment where there is no sense at all of it that is fully taken off by Crellius for surely we have as great a sense of the sufferings of Christ as the first Generation of the Iews had of the suffering of the last before the fatal destruction of the City or as Saul had of the punishment of his Sons after his death So that from Crellius his own concessions we have proved that our sins may very properly be said to be punished in Christ although he will not say that Christ could be properly punished for our sins nay he and the rest of our Adversaries not only deny it but earnestly contend that it is very unjust to suppose it and repugnant to the rectitude of Gods nature to do it And so we come to consider the mighty arguments that are insisted on for the proof of this which may be reduced to these three viz. 1. That there can be no punishment but what is deserved but no man can deserve that another should be punished 2. That punishment flows from revenge but there can be no revenge where there hath been no fault 3. That
was the reason of punishment his own or his fathers sins If his own then he was punished only for his own sins if his fathers then the punishment may be just which is inflicted without consideration of proper desert of it for no man say they can deserve to be punished but for his own sins But it 's said that the sins of Fathers are only an impulsive cause for God to punish the Children according to the desert of their own sins which he might otherwise have forborn to punish Then the sins of the Fathers are no reason why the Children should be punished but their own sins are the reason and their Fathers the bare occasion of being punished for them But in Scripture the reason of punishment is drawn from the Fathers sins and not from the Childrens For then the words would have run thus if the Children sin and deserve punishment by their own iniquities then I will take occasion from their Fathers sins to visit their own iniquities upon them Whereas the words refer to the Fathers sins as the reason of the Childrens punishment So in the words of the Law wherein the reason of punishment ought to be most expresly assigned it is not I will certainly punish the Children if they continue in the Idolatry of their Fathers but I will visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth Generation of them that hate me If it were only because of imitation of the Fathers sins by the Children there could be no reason for the limitation to the third and fourth Generation for then the reason of punishment would be as long as the imitation continued whether to the fourth or tenth Generation And as Alphonsus à Castro observes If the reason of punishment were the imitation of their Fathers sins then the Children were not punished for their Fathers sins but for their own for that imitation was a sin of their own and not of their Fathers Besides if the proper reason of punishment were the sins of the Children and the Fathers sins only the occasion of it then where it is mentioned that Children are punished for their Parents sins the Childrens sins should have been particularly expressed as the proper cause of the punishment But no other reason is assigned in the Law but the sins of the Fathers no other cause mentioned of Canaans punishment but his Fathers sin nor of the punishment of the people in Davids time but his own sin Lo I have sinned and I have done wickedly but these sheep what have they done Which is no hyperbolical expression but the assigning the proper cause of that judgement to have been his own sin as the whole Chapter declares Nor of the hanging up of Sauls sons by the Gibeonites but that Saul their Father had plotted their destruction And in an instance more remarkable than any of those which Crellius answers viz. the punishment of the people of Iudah for the sins of Manasses in the time of Iosias when a through Reformation was designed among them the Prince being very good and all the places of Idolatry destroyed such a Passover kept as had not been kept before in the time of any King in Israel yet it then follows Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Iudah because of all the provocations wherewith Manasses had provoked him withal Who can say here that the sins of Manasseh were only the occasion of Gods punishing the people in the time of Iosias for their own sins when their sins were much less in the time of Iosias than in any time mentioned before after their lapse into Idolatry Nay it is expresly said That Iosiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the Children of Israel and made all that were present in Isreal to serve even to serve the Lord their God And all his days they departed not from following the Lord God of their Fathers To say that this was done in hypocrisie and bare outward compliance is to speak without book and if the reason of so severe punishments had been their hypocrisie that ought to have been mentioned but not only here but afterwards it is said that the reason of Gods destroying Iudah was for the sins of Manasseh viz. his Idolatries and Murther which it is said the Lord will not pardon And if he would not pardon then he did punish for those sins not barely as the occasion but as the meritorious cause of that punishment What shall we say then Did the people in Iosiah's time deserve to be punished for the sins of Manasseh Grandfather to Iosiah Or was God so highly provoked with those sins that although he did not punish Manasseh himself upon his repentance yet he would let the world see how much he abhorred them by punishing those sins upon the people afterwards although according to the usual proportion of sins punishments the sins and of the people in that age did not exceed the sins of others ages as much as the punishments they suffered did exceed the punishments of other ages which is necessary according to Crellius his Doctrine for if God never punisheth by occasion of their Fathers sins the Children beyond the desert of their own sins then it is necessary that where judgements are remarkably greater the sins must be so too the contrary to which is plain in this instance By which we see that it is not contrary to the Justice of God in punishing to make the punishment of some on the account of others sins to exceed the desert of their own measuring that desert not in a way common to all sin but when the desert of some sins is compared with the desert of others For it is of this latter we speak of and of the method which God useth in punishing sin here for the demonstration of his hatred of it according to which the greatest punishments must suppose the greatest sins either of their own or others which they suffer for But hath not God declared That he will never punish the Children for the Fathers sins for the soul that sinneth it shall dye the son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father c. To which I answer These words are to be considered as an answer to a complaint made by the Iews soon after their going into Captivity which they imputed to Gods severity in punishing them for their Fathers sins Now the complaint was either true or false if it were true then though this was looked upon as great severity in God yet it was no injustice in him for though God may act severely he cannot act unjustly If it was false then the answer had been an absolute denial of it as a thing repugnant to the Justice of God Which we do not find here but that God saith