obtain for him a Gospel-forgiveness and that for this Reason because there is such a Thing in the Gospel as an eternal Punishment allotted to Sin And as under the last Head we found that Reason did fall in with the Gospel and that they both spake the same thing so also we shall find it here For it is certain that the Punishment of sinful Man can therefore never expiate his Sin because it can never purchase a just Release from Punishment and it is certain that it cannot do that if it may be justly continued to Eternity And that it may be so we may learn from hence because the Law of Grace being God's Law as well as the Law of Works must for that Reason be just And we are assured by this Law as much as Words can assure us that the Punishment which it denounces against those who do not fulâ—â—l the Conditions of it is Eternal And that it shall so prove besides the express Words of the Law we have this farther Reason which is that the suffering the Punishment threatned by the Law to those who neglect to perform the Conditions of the Law can neither in Sense or Reason pass for the Performance of such Conditions so neglected and that the Neglect of this Law shall and that in Reason and Justice be repaid with an additional Vengeance for the refusal of the Mercy offered in it which designs to free us from the Punishment of all our other Sins as well as with that Punishment which is due to such Sins For it is Reason and Justice that a more heinous Sin should be punished with a more grievous Judgment and it is Truth and Reason that a Sinner does then become a more heinous Criminal when to his Desert of Punishment he adds a Neglect or Contempt of the easie Conditions of Pardon And since by the Tenor of the Covenant of Grace such Sinner is to suffer his Punishment after his Resurrection from the Dead that is not only after the Time limited for the Possibility of his Pardon is expired but also after Death it self shall be destroyed as we may from thence conclude the certainty so may we also the eternal Duration of his Punishment For as a Punishment due after the Day of Grace is past will not be remitted so such Punishment when Death is no more cannot be determined By which we may understand that as Death is without a Saviour the just and necessary Wages of Sin as we made it good in our first Chapter so also that when such Death is sure by a Resurrection purchased by a Saviour to be taken away in order to an happy and everlasting Life and that too upon the easie or at worst the very feasible Conditions of the Gospel yet if Men will neglect such Salvation so placed within their reach and so leave the eternal Life purchased for them in order to their Happiness exposed to the Vengeance which is the just and necessary Reward of all their other Sins and of such their Neglect they must impute it to their own Folly if such Vengeance in stead of Happiness be the continued Companion of their eternal Life For in the Case so put the Restoration from Death to Life comes from the Mercy of God the making that Life eternal comes from the Mercy of God the Designing to make that eternal Life happy comes from the Mercy of God The granting Means to Men and those no very hard ones neither of obtaining that Happiness comes from the Mercy of God But foolish Man defeats the Counsel of God by an obstinate and unrelenting Perseverance in Sin and does in this Case as he does in most others turn the Blessing of God into a Curse upon himself that is he makes that Life which was designed for his eternal Happiness an Occasion of the eternity of his Misery One thing more may be added to what has been said upon this Head and then we shall apply it to our present Design and that is That at that time when the Punishment we now speak of shall come to be inflicted our Saviour as the Scriptures tell us will have laid down his Mediatorial Office and so Men must stand the Award of their own Deserts and then if such their Deserts be Evil we may be instructed from what was said in the First Chapter that the Justice which will overtake them will be Justice without Mercy and that pure and unmix'd Vengeance will be their Portion even such Vengeance which will only revenge upon them the Breach of the Covenants of their God but will never so much as pretend to make up such Breach To our present purpose then If the Punishment of Men for their own Sins shall without the Interposition of a Saviour be eternal and if this appear to be so by the Testimony of that very Gospel in which however there is a Possibility of Salvation held forth and if Reason do vouch for the Truth of what the Gospel in this Case teaches and lastly if an Eternity of Punishment be absolutely inconsistent with an Expiation of Sin by such Punishment for the last supposes the Sin to be cancelled and the first supposes it to be continued Then we may conclude that the Punishment of Man for his Sin can no more expâ—ate his Sin under this Head than his Repentance as we there made it good could do so under the last Anâ— then because there is no other possible Way for Mankind to expiate their Sin but by their Repentance or by their Punishment wâ— do conclude that there is no possible Way for them to make any Expiation of it at all 3. As Man cannot expiate his Sin by any Punishment of his own neither by his Repentance nor by his Death whether Temporâ— or Eternal So neither can he expiate his Siâ— by the Death of any other Creature This 〈◊〉 therefore add because we may be apt to surmise that what has been done already may be done again And we can hardly be ignorant that the Lives of other Creatures have been offered to God and that too by his own Appointment for the Expiation of the Sinâ— of Men. And which is yet something more they have not only been offered by Man but they have been also accepted by God as aâ— effectual Expiation And that they have beeâ— so the History of the Jewish Religion recorded in the Bible it self may easily convince us But notwithstanding all this yet he who shall look nearer into the Matter and examine it more nicely will be satisfied 1. That all those Sacrifices tho' instituted by God himself were only Types and Shadows of that great Propitiatory Sacrifice that was to expiate the Sins of the whole World And therefore tho' they may serve to inform us that such a Sacrifice ought to be in order to the Expiation of Sins and because they did prefigure such a Sacrifice they might over and above foretell that such a Sacrifice should be yet because they themselves
it then let the Punishment be what it will yet still it will be just Now where a Person does willingly freely and oâ— his own accord submit to a Punishment there the Punishment tho' he did not by his Crimes deserve it cannot therefore be thought unjust because it would be an odd and unheard-of kind of Injustice to any Person to injure him by sulfilling his own Desires and by gratifying his Choice If then we apply this to our Saviour's Sufferings which he underwent in our stead we may be informed by him himself that he laid down his Life and that no Man took it from him that is he laid it down willingly And because he did so therefore tho' God laid upon him and accepted from him the Vengeance due to our Sins in order to our Acquittance yet he did him no Injury by so doing because he was willing as our Surety and Proxy to undergo and suffer such Vengeance Indeed it is not to dissembled that because the Sin was Ours and not His that God therefore might and that justly too have refused the Punishment to be his and not ours But then withal we must take notice that tho' God might have done so yet that there was no Law of Justice that either did or could oblige him so to do And therefore to clear that or any other Doubt that may arise from what has been spoken upon this Head we add 3. In the third place That where that Person who willingly suffers for another's Crime has an undoubted Right and Title in all those Things and an uncontroulable Power to dispose of all those Things which are either damnified or lost by such his Sufferings In such a Case as there is no Injury done to his Person by reason of his willingness to suffer so neither is there any Violence offered to any Law of Justice by reason of such his undoubted Right and absolute Power Now at once to clear this Matter and to bring it up to the Point we aim at we must take notice that our Saviour tells us himself in the Tenth of St. John and the Eighteenth Verse I have power to lay down my Life and I have power to take it again And Reason tells us the same Thing For because he made the Worlds and because all things were created by him and for him and because for these Reasons alone he is the Almighty God therefore there can be no question but that he may justly challenge to himself that Power which the Supreme God claims as his most undoubted Prerogative I kill and I make alive To which we may likewise add that he is to be Judge both of Quick and Dead as even that Creed which goes by the Name of the Apostles and even our Adversaries too in the present Case do allow Now it cannot in the least seem reasonable that he should have the Power of Damning and Saving who has not the Power of Life and Death For it must needs sound harsh to our Reason to grant him the greater Power and in the mean time to deny him the less Taking it therefore for granted that he had an absolute and uncontroulable Power to dispose of his Life as it seemed best to his own Wisdom if he was pleased so to dispose of such his Life as to lay it down in our stead and for our sakes there could not possibly lie any Obligation of Justice upon God to bind him up from accepting the Offer of such his Sacrifice because such a Power does in it self suppose that there neither is nor can be any Injury that should forbid such an Offering And we know well enough that any thing may be lawfully done against the doing of which there is no just Law And therefore the Case of our Saviour in the present Instance does so far forth differ from all the Cases of all other imaginary Innocents in the World For tho' another Man be supposed to be Innocent yet he has no such Power over his own Life as to dispose of it as he himself shall please And if he should by any Means destroy it without his own Demerit it would be in him Self-murder and that too tho' he should offer it for a Criminal But if he should so order his Life as to deserve Death then that very Crime that forfeits his Life would spoil his Innocence too And therefore should a Magistrate who is invested with the lawful Power of the Sword accept the Life of an Innocent in lieu of the forfeited Life of a Criminal he would therefore become a Criminal himself because in such a Commutation he allows the Innocent Man to become a Criminal by usurping upon the Prerogative of God himself Which may serve to shew the Fraud and Deceit of that way of Arguing which will not therefore allow it to be just that our Saviour should offer his Life as a Sacrifice for Sinners because it cannot be justly allowed that other Innocent Persons should do so Whereas the Life which our Saviour offered in the present Case was entirely his own and absolutely at his own disposal which yet cannot be truly affirmed of the Life of any other Innocent Person in the World if yet we should suppose such a Person from the Days of the Creation to the Consummation of all Things As therefore we learned by the last Head that God might have refused to accept our Saviour's Death in our stead because the Life offered was not the same that was forfeited but another So by what has been spoken under that Head and this we may now perceive that there is no Reason in Law or Justice why he might not accept it For if our Saviour might have become Surety for the Discharge of that Debt which by the Tenor of the Law we owed to Justice by our Transgression of the Law and if upon our Inability to pay such Debt so as to obtain our Acquittance he was willing and fully impowered to lay down his Life in order to our Release and Discharge and if God might in Justice accept the Offering of such his Life for so gracious and merciful a Purpose Then the whole Objection against the Justice of his Suffering in our stead and for our sake vanishes and comes to nothing These Things I have pursued thus far to put the whole Matter in a true Light and to lay it down just as it is Tho' I do frankly confess that I do not think the Objection against our Saviour's Sufferings taken from the Injustice of such Sufferings to be of any force at all no not upon those very Principles upon which they go who make it For they themselves allow our Saviour to be Innocent and by consequence tho' they make Death a Natural Thing which by the way is but an Heathen-Notion of it for it does not in the least agree with what the Scriptures teach us about it But I say they themselves allow our Saviour to be innocent and therefore they must allow that
carnal and profane Creatures A Pride hateful to God and Man and such which has constantly betrayed it self to come from that proud Spirit which is the great Deceiver by the detected Falsities Forgeries and Villanies of its most celebrated Pretenders Let us therefore have a care that we be sober and humble Let us not be high-minded but fear And seeing there remaineth a Rest for the People of God let us labour to enter into that Rest lest any of us fall short by reason not only of our Unbelief but of our Confidence also CHAP. IX Whos 's that Perfect Obedience is in Consideration of which Eternal Happiness is given to Man That it is our Saviour's Some Objections answered and the Doctrine of the Imputation asserted 1. Against those who acknowledge the Expiation 2. Against those who deny it This Doctrine agreeable to the Scriptures HAving laid it down in the former Chapter that those who shall be rewarded with Eternal Happiness shall be entitled to a Perfect Obedience in order to such their Reward Our next Business is to enquire Whos 's that Perfect Obedience is to which they shall be so entitled and whether they can obtain such Title according to the Rules of Reason and the Laws of Justice 1. And to satisfie this Enquiry we lay it down first That as the Obedience of our Saviour to the Law while he was in the Flesh and so under the Law does alone in Justice deserve that Eternal Happiness which is promised in the Gospel so the Imputation of such his Righteousness to Believers is the only true and just Reason why they shall be made Partakers of such Eternal Happiness When the Apostle tells us in the Fourth to the Galatians the Fourth and Fifth Verses That God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law he seems to insinuate at least that our Saviour's being under the Law was in such Saviour a requisite Condition in order to his working out of Man's Salvation Now had our Saviour been such a Man as other Men are the Reward it is confessed had only concerned his own Obedience But because by taking upon him the Nature of Man he obliged himself to obey that Law which God had given to Man and because he took upon himself the Nature of Man when he might have refused so to do and lastly because he took it upon himself for Man's sake alone and not for his own therefore for Man's sake alone and not for his own he put himself under an Obligation of obeying the Law From all which the least that can be inferred is that Man was to reap some considerable Benefit and Advantage from such his Obedience It is usually alledged in this Place That had he not obeyed the Law himself he could not have been qualified to make an Expiation by his Death for the Transgression of others And we may take notice that they who offer this Allegation do in effect tell us that his persect Obedience to the Law was nothing more in order to Man's Salvation than a previous Condition to sit and capacitate him to make such Expiation 2. And therefore we offer it to Consideration in the second place That the Reward promised in a Saviour to those who do confessedly pay but an imperfect Obedience to the Law is greater than that Reward which was promised to Adam's perfect Obedience without a Saviour It is true there is not in the Law given to Adam any express Promise at all But then it is as true that there is an implied Promise For when the Law does threaten his Transgression with Death it does as good as promise Life to his Obedience And indeed there was no Occasion much less any Necessity that the Promise of the Reward which was Life should be express because the Law being given to Man in his Innocence that is while he was in actual Possession of the Reward he was by the Tenor of the Law secure of such Possession if he did not forfeit it by his Transgression Now we therefore say that the Reward promised in a Saviour to those who do confessedly pay but an imperfect Obedience to the Law is greater than that Reward which was promised to Adam's perfect Innocence because we are assured by the Gospel that Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor can it enter into the Heart of Man to conceive the Reward which God has prepared for those who in a Saviour shall be saved But we are sure that no such Things can be truly said of the Reward promised to Man in his Innocence For he knew his Reward experimentally and therefore it could not be to him Inconceivable Put we the Question then How comes the Reward promised in the New Covenant so far to differ from and to exceed the Reward promised in the Old For no doubt there is therefore a good Reason for such Difference because all God's Words and Actions proceed if I may be allowed so to speak from Essential Reason And it is as certain that they all proceed from Justice Now neither Justice nor Reason do tell us that an Immense and Inconceivable Reward can be assigned to a broken and imperfect Obedience and in the mean while a less Reward be assigned to a perfect Obedience Since therefore a less Reward was proposed to Adam's Obedience had such his Obedience been perfect than what in a Saviour is proposed to a Christians imperfect Obedience it is notorious that such different Rewards can neither in Justice nor Reason be assigned to the different Obediences as such but that the Reward to the Christian must derive from his Saviour's Merits as the Reward of Adam must have derived from his own If therefore it be demanded upon what Grounds the Christian's Reward does derive from his Saviour the only Answer that can be given is That it must derive either from his Saviour's Sufferings in his stead or from his Saviour's Obedience in his stead And then because we have already made it out that it cannot either in Justice or Reason or indeed in Common Sense derive from his Saviour's Sufferings which do and can and that too in Nature only relate to his Punishment but not at all to his Reward therefore we do at last conclude that that immense Reward which the Gospel assigns to the believing Christian it does assign to him only in Consideration of his Saviour's Obedience Before we go any farther we may from what has been said observe That the immense Value of our Saviour's Person and Dignity does shew forth it self as well in the immense Value of his Obedience as in the immense Value of his Death and Sufferings For as it is evident that the Reward of his Obedience is inconceivably greater than the Reward of Adam's had been had Adam been obedient so for the same Reason it is infinitely greater than the Obedience of any other Man were that other only such a Man as Adam was
general that it is founded in our Saviour all the Debate at present is Whether the Promise of the Gospel-Reward be founded in that Saviour's Obedience or in his Death or in other Words Whether the Promise of the Reward be not so grounded upon our Saviour's Obedience as the Promise of Pardon is upon his Expiatory Sacrifice And if those Reasons which we have already or shall hereafter offer do prove that in Justice and Reason it is so then the Objection vanishes I may add That the Objection only speaks to the Matter of Fact that there is a Promise made in the Gospel to an Imperfect Obedience which no one so far as I know denies But it does not speak as to the Matter of Right and Justice how such a Promise can be justly and reasonably made without any Violence offered to the Law of Works which is God's Law as well as the Gospel is so And we may be sure that God's Laws do not either contradict each other or controul any the Laws or Rules of true Justice or Reason That then which is the only Thing which is at present maintained is That the Promise of the Reward in the Gospel to an Imperfect Obedience had never been made to Man at all because it could not have been made justly if the Law of Works given to Man had never been fulfilled by Man and that the Gospel-Promise was granted in Consideration that our Saviour fulfilled that Law And to this the Objection so called is really no Objection at all It is confessed indeed that the Eternal Life promised to Believers in the Gospel will be attended with an Happiness inconceivably greater than the Eternal Life promised in the Law to Adam and it may be thereupon surmised that the Reward promised in the Gospel has no Eye to the Obedience required in the Law and if it has not that then the Eternal Happiness of Believers cannot be the Purchase of our Saviour's Obedience to the Law To which I shall say no more at present than this viz. That it is agreed that our Saviour by his Death took away Death the Curse of the Law and made good such his Atchievement by a Resurrection Now the Life after the Resurrection is a Life in a Spiritual Body not in a Natural I speak the Apostle's Words And our Natural Reason tells us that a Life in a Spiritual Body is a more refined and exalted Life than a Life in a Natural Body and that in multitudes of Circumstances it must needs differ from it perhaps in so many that it may be as inconceivable to us now as the future Happiness of the Saints And yet this refined and exalted Life is no good Argument that it was not purchased by our Saviour's Death nor that such his Death had no Eye to the Law of Works in such Purchase And so say we Tho' the Happiness of the Blessed be greater vastly greater than what was by the Law of Works promised to Adam upon his Obedience yet that can never make it out that such Happiness is not the Purchase of our Saviour's Obedience or that such his Obedience was not an Obedience to the Law of Works It may indeed convince us of the super-eminent Dignity of his Person and of the inconceivable Value of that Reward which by being purchased by him derives such its Value from such his Dignity as we observed before and which is directly to our present purpose it may furthermore convince us that the Reward of Believers is the Reward of their Saviour's Obedience made over to them but not a Reward that does or can belong to their own at the very best Imperfect Righteousness I know very well that this Doctrine is denied by many Divines and other Learned Men and those too not only such who do utterly deny that God bestows Salvation upon Men in consideration of their Saviour's Merit and Purchase but even by the generality of those who yet do ascribe the Salvation of Man to such Purchase and Merits What Reasons they offer for such their Denial we shall speak to hereafter But in the mean time we shall go on to make good the Imputation against each Party that denies it and after that shall shew that the Reasons of such their Denial have not that weight which they seem to have 1. And first we shall speak to them who do not barely acknowledge but even contend that the Salvation of Man is obtained in Consideration of the Merits that is in Consideration of the Death of our Saviour And the Men of whom we now speak do maintain That in order to Man's Redemption our Saviour died for Man's Sin and that by such his Death he puchased for Man a Freedom from that Vengeance which is the just Wages of such Sin Now what they so maintain we believe to be true and are ready to join Hands with them to make it good against all the Adversaries of the Cross of Christ So far therefore we are agreed But then it may be demanded How our Saviour can possibly suffer for Man's Sin if the Sin of Man be not imputed to him For in order to his suffering for Man's Sin he must take upon him such Sin and the taking upon him Man's Sin is the having Man's Sin accounted as his own that is in effect and in other Words the having Man's Sin imputed to him And then on the other Side how can Man have any Pretence of Benefit from his Saviour's Sufferings if the Merit of such Sufferings be not imputed to Man For without such Imputation the Merit be it what it will can only belong to the Saviour himself It is evident therefore by what has been said in short but might be made out in more Words that they who assert the Expiation of Sin by our Saviour's suffering in Man's stead do therefore entitle Man to the Benefit of such Expiation because Man's Sin was imputed to his Saviour and the Merit of his Saviour's Sufferings at least imputed to Man Things therefore standing thus in the Case of the Expiation it may be reasonably and further demanded Why our Saviour's Righteousness or Obedience may not as warrantably be imputed to Man as Man's Sin may be imputed to his Saviour or Why the Eternal Happiness which is assigned as the Reward of Obedience by the Law may not be bestowed upon Man in Consideration that the Merit of his Saviour's Obedience is imputed to Man as well as a Release from Punishment may be granted to Man in Consideration that the Merits of his Saviour's Punishment are imputed to Man For there is the very self-same Reason why the Obedience of our Saviour should be imputed to Man in order to Man's Salvation that there is that the Sin of Man should be imputed to our Saviour in order to such Saviour's Condemnation And there is the self-same Reason why the Merit of our Saviour's Obedience should be imputed to Man in order to Man's obtaining Eternal Life as there is
the Law had promised to such Obedience 1. Now in order to our making good our first Proposition we must examine what Qualifications are absolutely necessary in order to fit any one to make such Purchase and then enquire farther Whether such Qualifications either do or can belong to any other besides our Saviour alone 1. Now the first and leading Qualification in him who shall be fitted for the Purchase of a Release from the Penalty of the Law which they have incurred who transgress the Law is that he who makes such a Purchase must be one of the same Kind with them to whom the Law was given that is in the present Case must be a Man For the Law was given to Man was broke by Man and therefore also the Breach of it in the Congruity of Things and by the Laws of Common Sense and Justice is to be punished in Man Now tho' our Saviour was not the only Person in the World who had this Qualification for every Man besides is as real a Man as he was yet he was the only Man among all Mankind who by this Qualification was fitted for the effectual enterprising and bring to pass those other Things which are absolutely necessary for the Purchase of the Release spoken of 2. For secondly The next Qualification of him who is fitted for the Purchase of a Release from the Penalty of the Law is that he must be an Innocent Man He was to be a Lamb without Spot or Blemish and to answer to the Paschal Lamb which in this as in several other Things was a Type of that Lamb of God which should take away the Sins of the World For he who is qualified to suffer for others in order to release those others from the Penalty of Sin must not therefore be a Sinner himself because if he be so then he must by the Laws of Justice and even according to the Tenor of that Law which assigns such Penalty suffer the Penalty for his own Sin And he who suffers the Penalty of the Law for his own Sin cannot therefore suffer the Penalty of the Law for the Sin of others at least in the present Case he cannot because the Penalty of the Law upon the Transgression of it being the loss of Life his own Penalty exhausts the whole Stock or Possibility of his so suffering For he who has but one Life and no Man has more can pay that Life but once And therefore if he lays it down for his own Sin he must for that Reason have nothing remaining to lay down for the Sin of others 3. He who is duely qualified to purchase for Mankind a Release from the Penalty of their Sins must be a Man whose Life is of more value than the Lives of all the rest And the Reason for it is plain and obvious because we know that the Lives of all the rest can make no such Purchase And the Lives of all the rest cannot therefore make any such Purchase because the Death of no single Man can make such a Purchase for himself For what no single Man's Death can do for himself that the Death of all Men cannot do for all For there is just the same Proportion between all Men and the Death of all that there is between one Man and the Death of one Besides supposing a Man to be a Transgressor of the Law it looks very absurd to affirm that the Death of such a Man which is the Punishment of his Transgression can be the Purchase of his Release from such Punishment For then the self-same Thing and that is his Death will bear a quite contrary Character for it will be both the Wages of his Sin and the Purchase of his Ransom that is it will be the Vengeance of the Law and the meritorious Cause of his Freedom from the same Vengeance Every Sinner therefore against the Law must be a Sufferer under the Vengeance of the Law and that Law which adjudges those who transgress it to Death does not by so doing design to return them to Life For if it did then by inflicting its Sentence it must design to revoke that Sentence and by making the Punishment a Release from the Punishment must look like Trifling and not like Justice The Loss of no Sinner's Life then is of Value sufficient to put a Period to the Execution of that Sentence which the Law pronounces against those who do transgress it And every Man's Death in the Course of the Law had been eternal were there nothing else to remove it but his own Strength that is in the present Case but his own Death For if the Death of a dead Man can do nothing for him we are sure that no other of his Powers or Merits can For in the Case before us he can have no other Merits of his own to restore him to Life but the Merits of his Death and the Merits of his Death as we have seen are none at all And to expect any Relief from a dead Man's Powers is to expect Relief from no Powers at all for Death crushes all the Powers of all Men whom it seizes Now this being the Condition of all Men who die because they are Sinners we may from hence safely conclude That if any Man who is not a Sinner shall undertake by his own Death to make good the Ransom of all the rest from Death and after that shall make good his Undertaking I say if any Man shall do this we may be sure that his Death or his Life which you will is therefore of more Value than the Life or Death of all the rest because he does by it make that Purchase which all the rest could not do by theirs For in the present Case the Value of the Thing may be truly and justly estimated by the Possibility of the Purchase it can make because the Possibility of the Purchase depends upon the Allowance of the Great and Just God And then when God is willing to release Man from Death in Consideration of the Death of his Innocent Saviour and when he is not so in Consideration of sinful Man 's own Death and when he does professedly declare such his Will in many Places of his Word and by the repeated Attestations of Matter of Fact whereby several People have been raised from the Dead in the Name and by the professed Power of the Saviour I say when we find all these Things to be so as we do or at least easily may find them so to be we may from the Whole conclude That the Death of our Saviour is of more Value than the Death of all Mankind because it can do that which the Death of all the rest cannot do and that too by the Allowance of God himself Now from these Propositions so laid down we may therefore conclude That there is not Salvation in any other but only in our Saviour set forth in the Gospel 1. Because it was absolutely necessary in Justice that the
our Saviour who as we have shewed had an absolute and uncontroulable Power to dispose of his own Life as he himself pleased did put himself in our stead became a Sacrifice for us and so in his own Person suffered that Death which we by our Sins had deserved But then to the making good of our present Proposition we add That as he suffered Death for the Expiation of our Sins so if he had not finished and compleated such Expiation he had not rose again For so long as the Guilt remained so long the Punishment was and that too in Justice to be continued For in such Case there had been the same Reason for the Continuation of the Punishment that there was for its first Infliction And therefore as it was first inflicted for a Guilt so it must have been continued for the Continuation of such Guilt From which we do infer That if he was justly acquitted from the Continuation of the Punishment then he was also acquitted from the Guilt and if he was justly acquitted from the Guilt that then he had by his Punishment made a sufficient Expiation for it And that he was acquitted from the Punishment due to the Guilt and that he was justly acquitted too the Resurrection singly and by it self will make out an undoubted and uncontroulable Argument For our natural and common Sense does assure us that a Resurrection to Life is an Acquittance and Discharge from Death And Reason will tell us that because a Discharge from Death can only come from God and because God cannot but be just therefore that Acquittance and Discharge that is made by a Resurrection must needs be just too And therefore from the Whole we may infer That the Resurrection of our Saviour from that Death which he suffered as the Punishment of our Sins was a demonstrative Argument and Proof that by his Death he had paid a sufficient Ransom and had made a sufficient Expiation for such Sins So that strictly speaking in his Death consisted the Punishment of our Sins in the Infinite Value of his Death consisted the Expiation of our Sins and in the Resurrection appears the full Proof and Evidence of such his Expiation Before we part with this Head it may not be improper to take notice that because his Death was of infinite Value that therefore there was a sufficient Ransom paid for our Sins by that Death so soon as it was suffered For it must be confessed that the Ransom was then made when the Debt was paid And because that is Truth and Justice we do from thence infer That our Saviour might and that justly too have resumed his Life so soon as he had laid it down And so he might for any thing that Justice can offer to the contrary have descended alive from the Cross after he had once died upon it Nor needed his Resurrection in point of Justice to have been deferred to the third Day but might had God so pleased have been caused on the first But tho' it might justly have been done so yet we do not find that it was actually so done for the Scriptures tell us that he did not rise till the third Day From whence we observe That as he died to save Man from Sin so he did for some time continue in a State of Death to satisfie and assure us that he did so die And so as his Death had a regard to God's Justice so his Continuance so long under the Power of Death had a regard to our Faith The first was the Purchase of our Salvation The last was our Assurance of and therefore also our Comfort in such a Purchase By which we may understand that his Love was expressed to us even in the Grave and tho' as the Psalmist speaks no Man remembreth God in the Pit yet we may hence learn that even in the Pit our God both can and has remembred us We may also under this Head take notice That as our Saviour had never died at all as we observed before because he himself was perfectly Innocent if he had not by his own Choice put himself in the stead and so exposed himself to the Punishment of the Guilty so we may be confident that he whose Innocence was so singular and illustrious as not to be in the least tarnished whilst he inhabited in mortal Flesh and Blood must now that Flesh and Blood is spiritualized see the First to the Corinthians chap. 15. ver 44. be rather the more free if that were possible from all possibility of Stain or Guilt And we may be secure that if his glorified Body shall ever live free from Sin it shall for that single Reason if yet there were no other live free from Death too So true is that of the Apostle in the Sixth to the Romans ver 9. that Christ being raised from the Dead dieth no more Death hath no more Dominion over him and that in the Revelations I am he that was dead and am alive and live for evermore So that the Victory which our Saviour obtained over Death by his Resurrection cannot so well be looked upon as a single Conquest since it is to extend it self to all Successions of Ages and Time and is to last when Time shall be no more that is for ever and ever 3. As our Saviour by his Resurrection did so far subdue Death as to obtain to himself a future and secure Immortality so also he did by the same Resurrection so far subdue Death as to secure a future and glorious Resurrection to all those who are so far planted into the likeness of his Death as to be dead to Sin and alive to God For if we live to him while we live here we may from his Resurrection have a comfortable Assurance that notwithstanding we die for a time as he did yet we shall be raised again and live with him for evermore To this purpose we must recollect that when he died he did not die for his own Sins but for ours And then if in his Death he laid down his Life in our stead we may be easily satisfied that it was in our stead that he took it up again at his Resurrection For if our Guilt had not been cancelled and so our Debt discharged by his Death then his Death as we observed under the last Head had been continued still And as then we did conclude that he had therefore satisfied the Debt because he was released from the Penalty so now we do conclude that because the Debt so discharged was ours and not his own therefore the Benefit of the Release must redound to us as well as to him For it must needs be unjust in the Creditor to detain us in Prison for that Debt which our Surety has paid And because we know that the Creditor in the present Case is God himself and because we know also that such a Creditor can do no Injustice therefore we know that as when our Saviour laid down his
were but Types and Shadows it is notorious for that very Reason that they were not the Reality and Substance and that therefore the Expiation did not belong to them Take what we say in the Apostle's Words and so it may be more satisfactory in the Tenth to the Hebrews and the beginning For the Law having a Shadow of good Things to come and not the very Image of the Things can never with these Sacrifices which they offered Year by Tear continually make the Comers thereunto perfect And after some other things to the same purpose he concludes in the Fourth Verse that it is impossible that the Blood of Bulls and Goats should take away Sins And therefore tho' it be freely granted that a Remission of Sin did usually follow upon the offering of those Legal and Ritual Sacrifices yet from what has been said it must be granted also that such Remission did not proceed from the Consideration of any real Expiation that was made by those Sacrifices but only from that Expiation of which they were the Types viz. from the Expiation made by the Lamb of God which was slain from the Foundation of the World that is the Merit of whose Death does extend it self from the Fall of Adam to the Consummation of a Things 2. But secondly The Lives of the Creatures offered to God as an expiatory Sacrâ—fice for Sin can never make the Expiatiâ— designed because all those Lives are his as tecedent to such Offering To attempt therâ— fore to expiate our Sins by them is no betteâ— than to offer to God what is his own already or for our Sins are in the Gospel calleâ— Debts it is to pay our Debts to God wiâ—â— his own Money which rightly considereâ— is so far from bringing us out of debt that really increases our Debt by the folly if no also by the mockery of the Attempt This 〈◊〉 God's own Argument to his People the Jewâ— in the Fiftieth Psalm I will take no Bullock oâ— of thine House nor He-goat out of thy Folds for every Beast of the Forest is mine and 〈◊〉 are the Cattel upon a thousand Hills witâ— more to the same purpose relating to thâ— Insufficiency of their Legal Sacrifices for thâ— Expiation of Sins 3. The Lives of the Creatures offered tâ— God for the Expiation of the Sins of Men can never make such Expiation because the are of far less Value and that too not only in the Nature of the Thing but also in thâ— Estimation of those that offer them than thâ— Lives of those for whom they are offered Now it can never answer to the Rules of Justice to pay our Creditor only an hundreâ— Pence when we owe him an hundred Pounds And he who shall think that he can so discharge his Debt may by the same Measures come in time to reckon that he may discharge it for nothing I have spoken something the larger to these Things tho' perhaps it may seem needless partly because they have been a Part of God's own Instituted Worship partly because they are a Part of the Religious Worship of many Nations at this Day but chiefly because they have a Relation to that great Sacrifice which is the main Design of all our Discourse And this our Design will still be farthered if we consider in the 4. Fourth place That as neither Man for himself nor the Creatures that are inferior to him can make any Expiation for his Sins so neither can the Creatures above him Now the most exalted Creatures that Revelation has acquainted us with and we know nothing in this Case but what we have from Revelation are the Angels and Archangels And we may be therefore satisfied that those glorious Beings can never make an Expiation for the Sin of Man because it appears by the Revelations of God that they can never make an Expiation for their own Sins And therefore as we are told in such Revelations that some of them have sinned so we are in the same told that those that have so done are reserved in everlasting Chains to the Judgment of the great Day Now our Natural Reason tells us that no Creature can be so in love with Misery and surely everlasting Chains and a fearful expectation of Judgment do imply Misery for the Devils believe and tremble But I say our Natural Reason tells us that no Creature can be so in love with Misery as not to free it self from it were it in its power so to do And therefore the same Natural Reason does tell us that the true Reason why the faln Angels do not do so is because they cannot do so And if they cannot expiate their own Sins we may be pretty well satisfied that they cannot expiate Sin at all And we may be the rather so satisfied because we are as sure that they would in the Case employ their best Endeavours for themselves as we are sure that they love themselves best Besides we know that in the Case of Mankind Death is threatned as the Penalty for the Breach of the Law And we may be pretty well satisfied that without Death no Expiation can be made For without Blood there is no Remission But on the other side we have some Reason to believe that Angels are not liable to Death at least not to such a Death to which Man is obnoxious and therefore for this Reason as well as the former we may pretty rationally conclude That the Angels are in no Capacity to expiate the Sins of Mankind and that therefore they cannot do it One thing more I would add to this Head before I leave it and that is this That tho' the Angels are very glorious and exalted Creatures and by the Account we have of them in the Scriptures are placed in a much higher Scale in the Creation than Man and so are far above him yet still because they are Creatures they are therefore at as great a distance from God as Man himself is For their Distance from him is infinite and there are we know no Degrees in Infinity Now because the Expiation of Sin is to be made to God and to God alone and because there is an infinite Distance between God and Angels as well as there is between God and Man I say for these Reasons we can no more think the Interposition of an Angel effectual for making an Atonement and Expiation for Sin than we can think the Interposition of a Man to be so And if we should suppose a sort of Creatures a thousand nay ten thousand or more times as much above Angels as Angels are above Men yet because after such a Supposition even this sort of Creatures are as much below God as Man is and because the Expiation of Sin if attempted by such Creatures is to be made to God therefore we cannot think that the Dignity of their Station can contribute any thing at all towards the making their attempted Expiation effectual And we know and that too by unquestionable Proof
And if he does correct his Children with Rods and we may be sure that he never does that but he does it with Justice too then for the same Reason we may believe that he will chastise his Enemies with Scorpions And upon this Account we should take care to hear the Rod and who has appointed it and should make such good use of the Miseries which we suffer in this World as to let them put us in mind to flee from the Wrath to come For if we will not hearken to God's Voice when he chides us we shall at last when he comes to smite us sink under the weight of his Hand and if we neglect his Displeasure we shall fall under his Fury and Indignation 3. If God in the greatest and highest Instance of his Mercy with which he has acquainted us in his Gospel has not allowed us an Absolute Pardon but has even in that his Covenant of Grace required Conditions of us in order to our being made Partakers of that Pardon which is the Purchase of our Saviour then it does highly concern us that we take care to perform the Conditions on our Part that so we be not excluded from the Benefits of such Purchase For tho' it be most certain that we shall not be saved by our Repentance alone yet it is as certain that we shall not be saved without it No! He who has purchased our Ransom has in such his Purchase provided for God's Honour as well as for our Safety and notwithstanding his Purchase has taught us that we shall forfeit the last if we take no care of the first Let us therefore look upon our selves as we are in our selves that is as forlorn miserable Wretches Let us acknowledge our selves such to God Let us quit our Sins which have made us such And as we have by such our Sins hitherto rebelled against him let us for the future resolve to comply with his Will that is to the uttermost of our Power to obey his Laws Let us be heartily sorry that we have been so foolish as ever to have done otherwise And when we have done all this then let us joyfully accept and thankfully acknowledge the Designs of his Pity towards us and the Provisions that he has made for our Safety in a Saviour For this is the Way to bring that Salvation which he has prâ—â—â—ded for Mankind I say to bring it home to our selves and to make it our own And I may add that this is the only way for us to do so For as there is not Salvation in any other but in Jesus Christ alone so there is not any possible Way for us to make our selves Partakers of this Salvation but by Repentance 4. Lastly Because we have seen that the Condition of the faln Angels is forlorn and desperate for want of a Saviour to expiate their Sins therefore this Consideration should enhance and magnifie our Praise to God that whereas he has in his Severity passed by those glorious and exalted Creatures and so has left them to the Stroke of pure and unrelenting Justice yet he has not dealt so with us Men weak and sinful Dust and Ashes Lord what is Man that thou art thus mindful of him or the Son of Man that thou so regardest him Therefore Blessing and Praise and Honour and Glory be to him that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb for evermore CHAP. IV. That Person to whom alone the Expiation of Sin is by the Scriptures ascribed is by the same Scriptures set forth to us 1. As God 2. As Man 3. As God and Man united in one Person or God Incarnate No Man a competent Judge of all possible Unions The Incarnation agreeable to the Sentiments of Mankind and variously foretold prefigured and suggested in the Scriptures Some Practical Inferences somewhat enlarged HAving seen in the foregoing Chapter that an Expiation for our Sin could neither be made by our selves nor by any other Creature and that therefore he who could make good such an Expiation must be more than a mere Creature It will be our next Business to search the Scriptures in which as we shall see more fully hereafter the Expiation of Sin is set forth and there to see what Character they give of him who made such Expiation For by that Means only we are likely to come to any true Knowledge and Information in this great Affair 1. Now in such Scriptures we find first that That Person to whom this Expiation is there ascribed is called God the Son of God the Word the Only Begotten of the Father That he is there said to be with his Father before the World began That he laid the Foundations of the Earth and that the Heaven are the Work of his Hand That he createâ— all Things that are in Heaven and that are iâ— Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities oâ— Powers That all Things were created 〈◊〉 him and for him That he is before alâ— Things and that by him all Things consist That to him is given all Power in Heaveâ— and Earth with much more to the same Import and Purpose which we need not repeâ— at present because if we believe so much and we all at least pretend to believe it foâ— the Word of God we may from thence satisfie our selves that he who has such a Character from God must be the True anâ— Everlasting God For so is the Maker oâ— Heaven and Earth and so is he who haâ— all Power in Heaven and Earth For such 〈◊〉 Description does imply in it Omniscience anâ— Omnipotence and such other Attributes bâ— which we do tho' in other Words describâ— the True God both to our selves and to alâ— others But we shall pursue this no farther here because it is not our professed Business at present For we have only mentioned it and confirmed it with some few Texts of Scripture without quoting the Places in order to our full and clear Explication of that Expiation which was made by our Saviour And when we come to do that we shall then more plainly perceive that the Deity of our Saviour and the Expiation made by him do mutually prove and establish each other 2. The Scriptures do acquaint us That that very Person to whom they do ascribe the Expiation of Sin was a true and real Man For they give us an Account of his Conception Nativity Life and Death They acquaint us with his Conversation and Manner of Life with his Natural Actions and Passions and each of them such which are undoubted Arguments of an Humane Nature and Condition Such are his Discourses his Eating Drinking Sleeping Grieving and the like By which Account of his Person we may be as well satisfied of his Humanity under this Head as we may be of his Deity under the last And I may add that if we do with Simplicity and Sincerity receive the Account of his Person and Character that the Scriptures give us
pulled upon himself by his Enmity towards his Deliverer And this is the Case of sinful Man with Relation to his Saviour For our Sins had not only deserved but had also provoked the Plagues of Justice they were Acts of Hostility against God and carried in them Malice as well as Ingratitude And in such a Case Reason and Justice will teach us to expect that abused Omnipotence should vindicate it self with Severity of Vengeance But the Condescension and Mercy of our Saviour has taught us otherwise and may easily convince us that the Hostilities of impotent Creatures do not always extinguish the Love of him that made them that he pities the Peevishness and even Wilfulness of his Children and that he so considers their Weaknesses and Imperfections that in commiseration to their feeble Condition he lets his Pity take place of his Severity and is so far from dealing with them according to their Deserts that he interposes for their Rescue for their Rescue from the Folly and from the Vengeance of Sin and even stoops to the Lowness of their Condition as Creatures that he may save them from the Misery of their Condition as Sinners And because in doing so he does many ways make the Wonder of his Love and Condescension appear still greater and greater therefore it will be our Duty more and more to magnifie him for such his Condescension and for such his Love 4. We ought to praise God our Saviour as that for our Redemption he was pleased to condescend to our Condition by being clothed with our Flesh so also in that by being so clothed he passed the faln Angels and took not their Nature upon him It is a Remark made by the Author to the Hebrews that he took not on him the Nature of Angels but he took on him the Seed of Abraham I know well enough that it is objected That the Original imports that he took not hold of the Angels but he took hold of the Seed of Abraham and it is confessed that the Greek will admit and approve such an Interpretation and which is more the Interpretation is close and proper so far as concerns the Language but then it is not full so far as concerns the Context For when we are told before that he took part of the Flesh and Blood whereof his Children were made and when we are told immediately after the Words that in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful High-Priest we may easily allow that he took on him the Nature of such his Children and of such his Brethren But that by the by to assert and make good the Propriety and Validity of our English Translation against the Adversaries of the Incarnation But more directly to our purpose Since the Son of God the Saviour of Mankind was pleased to interpose for the Redemption of faln Man but did not do so for the Redemption of faln Angels it must be confessed that the lost and forlorn Condition of the one when compared to the restored Condition of the other must needs afford a weighty Argument of Praise and Thanksgiving to Man when he finds his own Safety and Welfare preferred by the Saviour to that of Angels and has not only a Possibility but also the comfortable Hopes and if it be not his own Fault an Assurance of that Salvation of which they must for ever despair Now Natural Reason might perhaps incline us to think that the Rescue of the faln Angels by a Saviour might therefore have been a more honourable Purchase because the Angels are a more noble Creature and the Dignity of such a Creature might seem to countenance the preference of such a Purchase But in these Things our Reason is short-sighted and we may easily judge amiss because we judge in the Dark Thus much however to our present purpose we are sure of and that is that it is a greater Condescension to stoop to the Relief of an inferiour Creature and that where there is such a Condescension there that Creature is obliged to the greater Gratitude And this is confessedly our Case and therefore such Gratitude is undoubtedly our Duty Let us therefore with Heart and Voice rejoice in this miraculous Salvation of our God the Salvation which old Simeon saw and embraced before his Death the Salvation which St. John the Beloved Disciple tells us was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our Eyes which we have looked upon and our Hands have handled of the Word of Life That is in a few Words The Word of Life the Son of God the Saviour of the World by his Incarnation made manifest to our Senses and by the same Incarnation qualified to be our Sacrifice our High-Priest our Redeemer To him therefore be Glory and Praise in all Churches of the Saints Amen But that we may learn to praise him aright both for the Greatness and Condescension of his Mercy too let us take these few and following Rules to guide us in our Practice of such Praises For a verbal Thanksgiving is too poor an Offering for so superlative a Blessing and to praise God who searches the Heart with our Lips when we do not do it with our Hearts is in deed and truth to mock him That we may not therefore increase our Sins when we pretend to perform our Duty we may do well to guide our Gratitude in the Case by these following Directions And 1. Did our God condescend to take upon him our Flesh that he might by his Instructions by his Example by his Life and by his Death purchase to himself a peculiar People zealous of good Works and so from a sinful and degenerous Condition exalt us to a State of Holiness and by consequence of Happiness Then we ought to meet our God in such his gracious Design and by lifting our Hearts towards Heaven and so by setting them upon Heavenly Things to endeavour to be holy as he is holy It is a noble Ambition and complies with the Counsel and Design of his Incarnation For it will engage our Souls in higher Flights of Duty and render us fit Inhabitants of that Place where Holiness is both the greatest Happiness and the greatest Ornament For tho' some of God's Attributes are so peculiar to himself that they are utterly incommunicable to any of his Creatures such are his Omnipotence his Omniscience and the like yet there are others which he has not only proposed to our Imitation but which also he has commanded us to imitate and such are his Love his Mercy his Justice in one Word his Holiness And therefore he does require us to be holy because he is holy And it would be no hard matter to make it out that his Holiness is his prime and leading Attribute such as guides and conducts all the rest And therefore tho' he be Omnipotent yet for all that he cannot do any thing that is unjust because he is holy
that know that they all came from one single Fountain that is from one single Man and so that they are all but so many Rivulets from that Fountain And when moreover we are assured that our Saviour is One of those Rivulets For tho' our Saviour was only to be made of the Woman yet because the Woman was made out of the Man therefore our Saviour did by the Woman derive from the same one single Person with the rest of Mankind I say when we consider all this methinks it is no hard matter to conceive that God himself does in his Word lay the Ground-work of Man's Redemption by a Saviour if I may be allowed so to word my self in that near and intimate Relation which our Saviour by becoming Man has to all Mankind besides and that the Intimacy of such Relation consists in this that the Saviour and all Mankind do derive from one single and common Fountain And hence we are told in one Place that as by Man came Death there is the Sin of Adam and the Wages of such Sin by Man came also the Resurrection of the Dead there is the Redemption of our Saviour and his Purchase And more expresly still to our present Purpose speaks the same Apostle in the same Chapter the Fifteenth of the First to the Corinthians For as in Adam all died so in Christ shall all be made alive And to the same purpose again in the Fifth to the Romans and the Eighteenth Verse Therefore as by the Offence of one Judgment came upon all Men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of one the Free-gift came upon all Men unto Justification of Life In all which Texts and several others that might be named it is notorious that the Redemption of Mankind is so ascribed to the second Adam the Man Christ Jesus as the Sin and Death of Mankind is ascribed to the first Man Adam And I do not at all question but that those Hints which the Scriptures do frequently offer to us of our Saviour's taking the Humane Nature in order to our Redemption of his taking Part of the same Flesh and Blood with us of his being our Brother and the like I say I do not at all question but that when seriously considered they may mightily assist and facilitate both our Conceptions and Belief of the Wisdom Justice Reasonableness and Congruity of our Saviour's Incarnation Death Resurrection in one Word of that Redemption which he by being made one with Mankind by taking their Nature upon himself has purchased form them And may mightily conduce to the Removing of those Difficulties which the Enemies of the Cross of Christ have thrown as so many Stumbling-blocks in the Way of plain and honest Christians 4. The Wisdom Justice Reasonableness and Congruity of our Saviour's Incarnation in order to his Purchase of Man's Redemption does yet farther appear in that by becoming Man he put himself into a Capacity of suffering Death that is of suffering that Punishment which the Law had denounced against those that should transgress it For it is a gross Mistake and does indeed bring a Scandal upon God's Veracity to affirm That he threatens greater Vengeance in any Law before the Transgression of it than he will execute after the Transgression that so he may the more effectually prevent such Transgression For God never yet threatned any peremptory and unconditional Punishment in any Law which he has not or when the Time comes he will not as certainly execute In the Day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die says God The Threatning we see is peremptory and the Execution we find is so too and therefore all Sinners die And I cannot in the least doubt but that for the same Reason an eternal Punishment will be the certain Vengeance upon a final Impenitence But that is not so direct to my present purpose and therefore here I pass it by But to confirm what I am now upon I say that God does not pardon the Death threatned in his Law against Sin no not in Consideration of the Death of our Saviour and therefore notwithstanding his Death and that too in our stead we see that all Men and even those who hope for Salvation by such his Death do yet die What therefore our Saviour in this Case has puchased for us is not a Freedom but a Release from Death And therefore that Redemption from Death which is the Purchase of his Blood is to be accomplished after we have been dead by a Resurrection A Resurrection then is to make good the Purchase of his Death and therefore his Death purchased for us not a Freedom but a Release from our Death by such Resurrection Now as his Death was necessary for such a Purchase so his Incarnation was necessary in order to such his Death And he was therefore made of the same Blood with all Mankind that by shedding that Blood for Mankind he might after his own Resurrection restore the Lives of all Men which had been forfeited by Adam's Transgression So that as his Death was the meritorious Expiation of Sin and as a Resurrection is the Fruit and Effect of such his Expiation So his Incarnation was a necessary Forerunner of such his Death and therefore before he could possibly die for Man and so purchase a Redemption of Man from Death it was agreeable to the Laws of Wisdom Justice and Reason that he should become Man himself But then how his Death came to be of so valuable a Price as to make so glorious a Purchase we must leave to farther Enquiry For by that it will appear that as it was necessary that he should die the Death of a Man so it was necessary that such his Humanity should be united to the Divinity And by both it will appear that God was manifested in the Flesh to destroy the Works of the Devil and that therefore when the Scriptures tell us so much they tell us no more than what is agreeable to Wisdom Justice and Reason CHAP. VI. The Divinity of the Son of God necessary for the Expitation of Man's Sin as well as his Humanity Some Doctrinal Inferences A general Proof That as our Saviour did actually die so that he might justly die for the Expiation of Sin HAving therefore seen that our Lord Jesus Christ was qualified by his Incarnation to make an Expiation for Sin by the Sacrifice of himself and that such his Qualification is agreeable to the Laws of Justice and to the Rules of Reason and Wisdom Our next Enquiry must be How such his Sacrifice came to be of such a Value as to be justly sufficient to make good such an Expiation For because the Death of an Innocent Man if he be no more than a mere Man is but the Death of a Creature and because no Creature can by its Punishment in another Creature 's stead expiate the Sin of that other Creature for if it could then a Creature might by its own Punishment
expiate its own Sin both which we have already shewed to be impossible Therefore it was necessary that as our Saviour in order to his undertaking the Expiation of Sin should be a real Man a Creature so that he should be more than a Creature in order to the accomplishing of such his Undertaking For tho' by becoming Man he did accommodate his Condition to his Design of undertaking an Expiation as we have just now seen yet for all that his Humanity had sunk under but but had not taken away the Burden had it not been supported by his Divinity For that that crushes both Angels and Men and that too while they cope against it only with their own Strength beyond the possibility of a Recovery must for the same Reason have crushed him also when once he had put himself in Man's stead and by consequence into Man's Condition had he not been endowed with a Power superiour to both to enable him to subdue and conquer it And what Power but that of God can we think sufficient to conquer Sin and Death and that too when they had got to such an heighth as to have infected and over-run the whole Race of Mankind Can we think that when the Contagion and Mischief had spread it self so wide that even the best of Men and those whose Graces are chiefly celebrated by the Spirit of God himself could not preserve themselves from the overflowing Inundation I say can we think that in such a Case any one single Man were he no more than a Man could have saved himself from the universal Mischief by the Strength of his own Resolution or Vertue And if in Reason we must think that he could not then how can we in Reason think that his Strength should be sufficient to rescue and save all the Rest No! Such Salvation belongs only to the Arm of God and He who can save from Sin Death and Hell and can over and above extend such Salvation over all the Earth and that too through all the successive Generations of Mankind that ever did or ever shall live upon the Earth must be God and God alone The Extensive Merit therefore of the Death and Sufferings of the Man Christ Jesus derives it self from the Infinite Dignity of Jesus the Son of God For had not this Jesus been the Son of God as well as the Son of Man he had never been the Saviour of Man And if there be not Salvation in any other as in effect the whole Book of God does tell us it may seem inconceivable how this Seed of the Woman should extend this Salvation and so break the Serpent's Head from the Days of Adam to the Consummation of all Things unless all Things were in his Disposal that is unless he were God No! He who considers the Thing seriously and wisely may be satisfied not only by the Scriptures but by his own Reason also that there is the same Mercy and the same Power required to redeem sinful Man that was required to make Man and that He only who did the first can do the last And therefore as we are taught by God that all Things were made by his Word so are we also that this Word was made Flesh and that by being so made he became to us after we were dead in Trespasses and Sins the Word of Life From all which and a great deal more that might be offered both from Reason and from Revelation some of which Things we have already spoken to and some of which we shall have occasion to speak to hereafter we may be not only informed but assured That the great Merit of our Saviour's Expiation made for Sin by his Death and Passion did arise from hence that his Divinity was personally united to that Body which underwent such Death or that nothing less than the Death of the Son of God could expiate that Death which the Law had denounced against the Sin of Man But because these Thing will appear in a more full and clear Light in the farther Prosecution of our Design therefore we here leave them for a while and proceed For it having appeared as to Matter of Fact and that too by most express Declarations of Scripture that our Saviour was made an Expiatory Sacrifice for Sin and it having also appeared that he did by his Incarnation accommodate his Condition to the making good of such Expiation and that too in a Way very agreeable to our Natural Sense and Reason The next Thing to be spoken to is the Matter of Right or whether or no he could make such Expiation in Justice But before we proceed to speak to That it will be proper that we make some Inferences of weight and moment from what has been already spoken And 1. By what has been said it appears plainly That tho' our Saviour made good the Purchase of our Redemption by his Death and Resurrection yet that such his Purchase shall not be fully made over to us till our own Resurrection That he made good the Purchase his Resurrection is a Demonstration For because the Wages of Sin is Death and because he died for our Sins and not for his own and because after such his Death he rose again and because such his Resurrection was a Discharge from the Penalty of those Sins for which he died I say from all these Things it is evident that he accomplished his designed Purchase that is he made good his Expiation by his Death and Resurrection But then on the other side because it is most certain that we are not redeemed from the Curse or Penalty of the Law till we are redeemed from Death and because we are not redeemed from Death till we rise from the Dead that is till our own Resurrection therefore it is as evident that till such our Resurrection we are not put into the Possession of such his Purchase And therefore strictly speaking no Man be he who he will is â—actually justified in this Life For because every Man that lives shall certainly die and because Death is the Penalty threatned to Sin by the Law it therefore grates too hard upon our common Sense to tell us that any Man is then justified when he is not only liable to the Vengeance of the Law but when he is also sure in a little time to undergo such Vengeance If therefore any Man be according to a Gospel-estimate of Righteousness a righteous or good Man we may upon that Account say and we shall say true that he is in a justifiable Condition but we cannot truly say that he is a justified Person Justification then in the Execution belongs to a future Life and not to this And when we shall come to discourse on the second Thing contained in a Gospel-Salvation which is a Restitution to Holiness and the Consequent of it the Gift of Eternal Life we shall then be more fully satisfied that Justification cannot belong to any Man in this World because no Man in this
World is restored to that Holiness which was lost by the Transgression of the Law and because no Man shall be compleatly and actually justified till he be so restored 2. Because the Expiation of our Sin by our Saviour and by consequence the Pardon of Sin by God is not Absolute but Conditional and because some of those Conditions upon which such Pardon does depend are to be performed by us such are our Repentance Conversion and the like and because lastly our Condition in this World is such that there will of necessity be required Time for our Performance of such Conditions Therefore we do conclude that as our Saviour has purchased for us such Conditions in order to our Redemption so has he also purchased for us a longer Term in which we may perform such Conditions For it is evident that the Denunciation of the Law upon the Transgression of it is In the Day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die And in strict Justice and Reason the Punishment is then to be inflicted when it becomes due and it then becomes due so soon as the Law is broken For were it not due then it would never become due at all Now because we find and that too by Experience that notwithstanding not only Adam's Sin but our own Sins too we do not presently die but that God waits our Return that he may be gracious to us and because we know that such his Patience and Forbearance is therefore extended to us that we may by our Repentance qualifie our selves to be made Partakers of that Expiation which is made by our Saviour for there is not Salvation in any other therefore we do at last conclude that the Grant of a Space for Repentance is the Purchase of our Saviour For it would have been the same thing for our Saviour to have made no Purchase for us at all if such his Purchase had been clogged with such Conditions on our Part which it was utterly impossible for us to perform And it had been utterly impossible for us to make out our Repentance and Amendment if we had not been allowed a competent Time to make them out in And what we have said concerning God's allowing of a competent Time in which Sinners may perform the Conditions of the Covenant purchased by the Saviour that we say also concerning the Means which are necessary for such their Performance Such are his Word the Succours and Assistance of his Spirit his Sacraments and whatever else does usually come under the Title of Means of Grace For it is not conceivable that our Saviour should purchase for us the End and yet leave us without the Means which are necessary for the bringing about such End But yet because the Means to enable us to perform the Conditions required of us in order to our Salvation are not nor indeed can possibly be that very Salvation for which they are designed or employed as means and because while we live in this World we are required and it is necessary in it self that we always have and also employ such Means to the purpose of our Justification and lastly because it is so far from being necessary that it is neither proper no nor wise to employ any Means for any End already attained therefore what we observed under our last Head will still remain true and that is That no Man is actually justified in this Life 3. From what has been said we take notice That tho' Afflictions in this Life are undoubtedly the Executions of Justice yet which is owing to our Saviour's Purchase there are always couched in such Afflictions Designs of Mercy For tho' as they look backward they have an Eye to our Sins yet as they look forward they have an Eye to our Amendment or at least to our Restraint For had we died for our Sins according to the Law we had been both immediately punished for our Sins past and had by the same Means been prevented from ever sinning for the time to come For a Death without a Resurrection had proved a sure and everlasting Prevention But as we have seen our Life being continued in consideration of our Saviour's Purchase tho' Afflictions are laid upon us during the Reprieve and tho' such Afflictions do confessedly come from the Hand of Justice yet they are never laid on without a Design and Mixture of Mercy And therefore as they are the Punishments of Sins past so they are designed as Means of Grace for the time to come And by the wise Counsel of our merciful and gracious God are employed chiefly indeed for our future Reformation but at least for our future Restraint and so are one and a great Branch too of what we call Restraining Grace As therefore we took notice under our last Head that the Reprieve of Man from the immediate Execution of the Sentence of the Law was the Purchase of our Saviour and that so Man's Life came to be continued notwithstanding his Transgression so under this Head we may observe that tho' Sin during such Continuance of Life cannot be restrained by Death yet the Just Merciful and All-wise God has not even in such Circumstances left it without all Restraint but has by Afflictions fitted such a Curb for it which notwithstanding the Saviour's Purchase is an irrefragable Proof of his Justice But tho' it be so does in no wise encroach upon such Purchase but rather promotes the Design of it For a Life continued in order to the Performance of those Conditions by the Performance of which Man in and through his Saviour may obtain Salvation A Life I say continued to such a Purpose is more likely to answer to such Purpose if its Attempts after sinful Commissions be restrained than it could be were such Attempts left free and at large For which Reason such Restraint tho' it be caused by Afflictions does rather fall in with than controul the Design of our Saviour's Purchase And tho' it be confessed that such Restraint is not so efficacious for the Prevention of future Sins as Death without any Reprieve had been for in the last Case the Prevention had been necessary whereas in the first it is at the most but possible yet it must be confessed also that it is most wisely suited to the Circumstances of those about whom it is employed and that for this Reason Because all Restraint being designed either to keep or to make them Good it is necessary in order to either that it be left to their own Choice whether they will improve it to either or both Designs or no For there can be no Goodness at all without such Freedom By all which we may at last understand that tho' Afflictions as well as Death are the Wages of Sin and tho' God does not let the reprieved Life of a Sinner pass on without the Tokens of his Displeasure that is in the present Case without Afflictions yet that it is owing to our Saviour that all such Afflictions are employed
as Means of Preventing Grace Whereas otherwise the Prevention of Sin by a Death without a Reprieve that is a Death without a Saviour and so without a Resurrection had been no Means of Grace at all but only pure and mere Punishment 4. Lastly From what has been said I take notice that our Saviour by his Expiation of Sin did not purchase for us an Absolute Freedom from Death so that by vertue of such his Expiation we should not die at all but only a Release from Death so that after our Death we should be raised to Life again This I spake to before and the thing is as certain as it is certain that all Men do die and therefore I shall speak no farther to it at present Only one Quaere I would make upon it and that is this Whether because the Law required Death as the Punishment of Sin and because our Saviour for the Purchase of our Redemption and for the fulfilling of the Law was necessitated in his own Person to undergo Death I say Whether upon this Account God by a Mixture of Mercy and Severity might allow his Expiation to extend no farther than only to release us from Death after we had suffered it but not to prevent us from suffering it at all But as I said before I leave this as a Quaere because the Scripture speaks nothing to it and so the Resolution of it lies in the dark Only I thought it not amiss to mention it because it may help to instruct us in the very great Malignity of Sin As most undoubtedly that must be very pernicious to God's Creatures which is downright Enmity to him who made them and which is not wholly expiated by our Saviour himself However the Wisdom and Harmony of God's Truth Justice and Mercy do seem to me from what has been said to shine forth very conspicuously in his Counsel for the Redemption of Mankind For tho' God executes that Death upon Man fatally which upon his Transgression of the Law he threatned peremptorily and so notwithstanding the Death of our Saviour makes good the Truth of his Threat by the Execution of the Penalty Yet for all that he does not so execute such Penalty but that he first allows Man a Reprieve for a time to make himself a fit Subject for his Saviour's Purchase and secondly he grants him a Release from Death by a Resurrection to capacitate him to be put into the actual Possession of such Purchase Again tho' the Life of Man continued in Consideration of his Saviour's Merits be ever and anon overcast with Afflictions and tho' such Afflictions are a Punishment for his Sins and so a Proof of God's Justice Yet still those very Afflictions are in Consideration of his Saviour turned into Means of Grace and so are a merciful Discipline to secure him from those Mischiefs which otherwise might retard or defeat his Pursuit after the purchased Pardon and Inheritance These Remarks being left by the way we proceed to the next thing proposed and that is Whether our Saviour as he did in Fact so also might in Justice and Right die for the Sins of Mankind For because the Scriptures do lay down the Matter of Fact not only in express Terms but also in great variety of Expressions and because those who deny the Doctrine of the Expiation do in this Case as they do in most others oppose Reason to Revelation Therefore as by what has been said already we have made it out that our Saviour did die for our Sins so in what is to follow we shall endeavour to make it out also that he might so die For if the Matter of Fact be found to be the Declaration of God we may be sure that it will have the Approbation of Justice For Justice and Truth can never clash nor interfere But however before we begin I cannot but take notice in the 1. First place That the Redemption of Mankind by our Saviour is one of those Things of God which no Man knoweth but the Spirit of God and that upon that Account it is not so proper a Subject for the Deliberations of Humane that is of short-sighted Reason And my Warrant for so judging I therefore take to be good because it was a Thing as the Scriptures themselves tell us that was hid from Principalities and Powers from Ages and Generations till it was made known by God to his Church that is to those who were chiefly and as to their own Persons only concerned in it And therefore we are very sure that no Man by the Sagacity of his own Reason could ever have made any Discoveries of it 2. I cannot but be satisfied in the second place that any Man of an ordinary or of an extraordinary Understanding who is willing in honesty and sincerity of Heart to receive the Scriptures as the Revelations of God I say I cannot but persuade my self that such a Man and that too by the bare Conduct of his Common Sense would readily acknowledge and accept it for a Truth in those Scriptures revealed that our Saviour suffered and died to expiate the Sins of Mankind For the Texts that assert it are so often repeated and when compared do so mutually not only confirm each others Truth but also explain each others Meaning and the Management of the whole Thing is so exactly accounted for and that through all the Stages and Periods of it till our Saviour comes to offer his Sacrifice to God in the Heavens the Place of his more peculiar Residence and Abode as the High-Priest did typically in the like Case do in the Holy of Holies the more peculiar Discovery of God's Residence among the Jews under the Law I say all these Things are so categorically asserted and explained and so critically accounted for in the Revelations of God that I cannot as yet persuade my self that Common Sense and Common Sincerity will not oblige those to receive and believe them who are willing to receive those Books in which they are so laid down for the Word of God 3. Neither can I persuade my self that Reason if it be not spun too fine and what is so may easily break but I say I cannot persuade my self that Reason upon a sober Examination of the Matter as it is laid down in the Scriptures can in any wise call in question the Justice of it For as it is there laid down there are only three Persons more especially concerned in it and those are God our Saviour and Man Let us therefore take the Sum of the Business in these Three Propositions and then see if our honest and natural Reason can discover any Injustice in it And First God does forgive our Sins in Consideration of our Saviour's Sufferings Secondly Our Saviour did suffer in our stead in order to the obtaining of such Forgiveness Thirdly We do obtain such Forgiveness in Consideration of such his Suffering Now if we set our plain and honest Reason on work to examine
he did not deserve that Death which he suffered But then they tell us that God did therefore permit him to undergo such a cruel and hard Treatment that he might be an Example of Patience Submission and Resignation to all Men in any Circumstances under which they should be brought by God's Providence and that he was slain a Sacrifice to ratifie and establish the New-Covenant that God then made with Man in order to the Pardon of Sin By which it is notorious that they endeavour to vindicate God's Justice from those Ends and Designs of his Providence or Mercy for which God delivered up his Son to a cruel and bloody Death tho' he did not deserve such Death 1. Now we are very well assured in the first place that our Saviour was delivered up to be crucified and slain by the determinate Counsel and Foreknowledge of God For so St. Peter expresly tells us in the Second of the Acts and the Twenty third Verse And again we are told in the Fourth of the Acts the Twenty seventh and Twenty eighth Verses that Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the People of Israel were gathered together to do to him whatsoever God's Hand and Counsel determined before to be done We know also that his Crucifixion was prophesied in the Old Testament and that in sundry Places and that he himself does both foretell it in the New Testament and does there also tell us that it was plentifully foretold in the Old And we know lastly that what was foretold some thousand Years before it was brought to pass and then was so actually brought to pass as it was foretold must be foretold by God The Certainty of the Event in such a Case being a Demonstration that Omniscience gave forth the Prediction 2. We are assured in the second place that our Saviour being perfectly Innocent as having never transgressed the Law could not possibly deserve the Death of the most hainous Malefactors a Death attended with Agony and Torment tho' he did suffer such a Death 3. It is agreed in the third place between us and our Adversaries That because our Saviour did willingly submit to the Counsel and Determination of God in suffering such a Death that thereby God's Justice is sufficiently assoiled and vindicated to which we spake more largely just now and that by such his Submission he gave an Example to Mankind under any Affliction of an entire Resignation to the Counsel and Will of God in all Cases whatsoever 4. But then in the last place it may be reasonably demanded how it comes to pass that these self-same Sufferings this self-same Death of our Saviour do then become unjust when they are affirmed to have been undergone by him for the Expiation of Man's Sin They were just because he underwent them willingly and they were honourable because they were exemplary and we are sure they were merciful and charitable if they were expiatory And then shall what is just in it self and honourable because it is designed for an Example or for any other End I say shall such a Thing therefore become unjust because it is over and above designed for a Charity and a Mercy The same Thing we know may be directed to more Ends and Purposes than one and those several Ends and Purposes may all be good and warrantable and where they are so there if the Thing be good and just in it self we may in Reason rest satisfied that one of those good Endswill no more vitiate and corrupt it than any other End will If therefore the Death of our Saviour were just without being design'd for an Expiation it will remain just still tho' it be design'd for aâ— Expiation For Mercy and Compassioâ— which are undoubtedly included in such Expiation are most undoubtedly just and good Things when they are designed and brought to pass by just and lawful Means And therefore when the Adversaries of the Expiation do tell us that the Death of our Saviour was just and lawful they do with the same Mouth-full of Breath contradict their own Objection against the Justice of the Expiation and do as good as tell us that the Expiation is just and lawful too When therefore Secinus and his Followers do in very tragical Expressions and some of those Expresnons so indecent and irreverent to say no worse as not fit to be mentioned exclaim against the Injustice of the Expiation it is notorious that they quit their Reason and fly to Harangue that is they hope in this Case to prevail by their Rhetorick rather than by their Arguments For I can hardly persuade my self to believe them so short-sighted as not to perceive that any Argument against the Justice of the Expiation does not contradict such their own Positions which maintain the Justice of our Saviour's Death and Passion One Thing more I would remark and then I shall proceed and that is That because the Objection under this Head is only laid against the Justice but not at all against the Value Merit or extensive Influence of our Saviour's Death therefore I have precisely stuck to the Matter of the present Objection without mixing other Things with it relating to the Expiation that is I have here only asserted the Justice of our Saviour's Death in order to the Expiation of the Sins of Mankind 2. The second Objection against our Saviour's Expiation of our Sins by his Death stands thus and that is That tho' it should be granted that he had Power over his own Life that he was willing to lay down that Life and that God was willing to accept it yet all this will amount but to part of Payment For first the Death that we deserved by our Sins was Eternal but that which he suffered in our stead was but Transient and Temporal It is confessed that as the Socinians do deny the Expiation so do they also an Eternâ—ty of Punishment But yet that does not at all take off from the â—orce of the Objection because if they who maintain the Doctrine of the Expiation do also assert an Eternity of Punishment it is sufficient for their Confutation to shew that their several Doctrines do contradict and so overthrow each other The Objection then being so far laid right it goes on further thus The Sins of Mankind are the Sins of Many of Thousands of Millions of Myriads nay of Multitudes of Myriads but the Death of our Saviour was only the Death of One So that if either we consider the Extent of our Guilt or the Malignity of it it will by no means seem reasonable and therefore neither just that the single Death of our Saviour should be looked upon as a proportionats Expiation of it Nor indeed would it according to those who make the Objection who tho' the Apostle tells us in one Place that in him dwells all the Fulness of the Godhead bodily and in another Place that being in the Form of God he thought it no Robbery to be equal
reckoned a Reward And if that Obedience to which such Reward is by the Law assigned were entirely their own then that Person whom yet the Scriptures call their Saviour could in no Sense be truly so called because in such Case their Salvation would be their own legal Purchase as being the Reward of their own Obedience And lastly to suppose the Saviour to be therefore their Saviour because he bestows upon them Salvation in Consideration of an Imperfect Obedience that is an Obedience which is so far from deserving Salvation that it does indeed stand in need of a Pardon is to suppose him to bestow the Reward there where the Law does not lay it that is upon Supposition that such Law is Just it is to suppose him to be Unjust From all which the Conclusion at last must be That since their Saviour must save them for their exact Obedience to the Law if he save them justly and since we are sure that he does save them justly tho' they have paid no such Obedience that therefore the Method in which he saves them is by entitling them to a perfect Obedience Now how that is done will be our Business to make out as also that the Manner of his doing it is just and righteous and therefore reasonable By which it will appear that our present Way of Reasoning does not want its Weight tho' perhaps it may at present seem too light to demand an Assent But before we proceed to that we shall offer a few Practical Reflections upon what has been already laid down 1. And first From what has been said we may easily perceive that God is not so fond of our Persons or of our future and everlasting Happiness as to provide for such our Happiness by his own Neglect of his own Law For Heaven and Earth shall pass away but one Tittle of his Law shall not do so Tho' therefore we can easily allow our selves to break his Law and make light of his Commands yet we may therefore be sure that he will not do so because his Commands and his Laws are Holy For it is a foolish and vain Imagination to think that essential Justice and Holiness that is in other Words that God will put Slights upon himself to gratifie those with Impunity and much less with Glory and Immortality who put Slights upon Holiness by sinning against his Laws The truth of it is because we are fond of our selves and very desirous of our own Happiness we are ay! and the very best of us too too apt to think that God is so too and in this Case we are foolishly inclined to think him to be altogether such an one as our selves And this makes us to entertain soft and easie Thoughts of his Mercy and in the mean time to have no due Regard to his Justice But if we would but consider that both his Mercy and his Justice are guided by his Holiness and that as he will not punish us without our Demerit so neither will he reward us unless we become righteous I say if we would but seriously consider this it might be an effectual Means to engage us to look better to our Ways lest whilst we think we are on our Journey towards Happiness we be found by Mistake to tread in the broad Road that leads to Destruction 2. From what has been said we may learn where to seek and to find what we do all naturally desire and that is Happiness I say we may learn that it is only to be sought wisely and to be found certainly in the Ways of Holiness For tho' our Sins may be expiated by the Death of our Saviour yet when we have made our selves Sinners we are not sure that we shall be made Partakers of such Expiation and so we are not sure of the Pardon of such our Sins and we are sure that without returning to the Paths of Holiness we shall not be made Partakers of such Expiation and that therefore we shall only enjoy the Benefit of it when we are found in such Paths The most certain Means therefore of making our selves happy will be by keeping our selves holy For so long as we do so we keep our selves within the reach of the Gospel-Promises and tho' our Holiness be not in this World perfect yet as we shall see shortly God will provide a way to make that and our Happiness perfect in another World 3. By what has been said we may learn how it comes to pass that we have no sincere and entire Happiness in this World and that is because we have not here any sincere and entire Holiness For were we freed from all Sin we should be also freed from all Misery For we mistake if we do not think that Crosses Losles Pains Sickness and Death are all of them the Effects of our Sins And we may be sure that they therefore are so because we are sure that when our Sins are done away all these Miseries shall be taken away too No! Sin is mixed with our Life That spots stains and corrupts it and so Affliction and Misery come to be mixed with it too And therefore were Sin once banished out of this lower World and true Righteousness planted in its Place were God's Will done in Earth as it is done in Heaven his Kingdom would presently come and the Glories and Beatitudes of Heaven would certainly flow in upon all those who have arrived to a perfect that is to an Heavenly Holiness Since therefore we may be so easily satisfied that it is Sin and Sin alone that impairs our Happiness and that too that Happiness which most of us love so well our Happiness in this World one would think that this Consideration single and by its self should engage us to hate Sin as much as we love such our Happiness and therefore also to endeavour to encrease our Happiness by destroying our Sins 4. If our Good Works are so full of Flaws and Imperfections that in order to our Salvation it will be necessary that we be entitled to a Perfect Obedience then this may instruct us not to trust in them alone for our Salvation For tho' it be true that we cannot be saved without them yet it is as true that we cannot be saved by them alone because an Imperfect Cause can never produce a Perfect Effect Such Salvation then as the Gospel has taught us to hope and expect God in our Saviour only can bestow but we can never by our Good Works deserve And therefore even he who has wrought out such Salvation for us has taught us when we have done the best we can still to confess our selves unprofitable Servants 5. Lastly If no Man's Obedience be perfect in this World then it will but ill become us to boast of our Perfection here Which in this latter Age has been the known Practice of several proud Seducers and Enthusiasts who have therefore despised all other Christians but those of their own Cast or Sect as
that the Merits of our Saviour's Sufferings should be imputed to Man in order to Man's Release from Death That is Imputation is as reasonable and as justifiable in one Case as in the other for they both stand upon one and the same Foot and for that Reason he who throws down one throws down both And therefore whoever rejects the Doctrine of the Imputation of our Saviour's Righteousness to Man does by so doing reject the Imputation of Man's Sin to our Saviour and all the Consequences of it Or in other Words he who rejects the Doctrine of the Imputation does by so doing reject the Doctrine of the Expiation likewise 2. Those Men who do so far maintain Man's Salvation to depend upon the Merits of our Saviour's Death alone as to deny Imputed Righteousness to have any thing to do in the Purchase of Salvation do not seem to me sufficiently to consider that there are Two Things contained in the Death of our Saviour 1. The Death it self and 2. His Obedience to the Will of his Father in submitting himself to such a Death Now because Death is properly speaking what he underwent for the Expiation of Man's Sin for the Vindictive Part of the Law does expresly assign Death as the Punishment of Sin hence it is as I conceive that most of those who have discoursed of Man's Redemption for the Sake and Merit of our Saviour's Death have placed the Merit of the Purchase only in such Death and in the mean time have wholly laid aside all Consideration of the Merit of that Obedience which attended it But because the Scriptures in the Case speak otherwise and because we must needs be best instructed out of them in any thing which concerns our Saviour therefore laying aside at present all Schemes of Humane Reasoning or Contrivance we shall entirely apply our selves to them for such Instruction Take we notice therefore that they inform us that our Saviour was delivered to death by the determinate Counsel and Foreknowledge of God So St. Peter tells us in the Second of Acts and Twenty third Verse and so we are told in other Places From which we infer that the Sufferings and Death of our Saviour was an Act of Obedience to the Will and Counsel of God All which St. Paul gives us in a few Words but those very full to our present Purpose when he tells us in the Second to the Philippians the Eighth Verse that Jesus Christ being found in fashion as a Man humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross Since therefore our Saviour's Death was at least one Branch of his Obedience to the Will of his Father that is since his Obedience in the Scripture-Account was shewed in his Death as well as in his Life and therefore Both when in Conjunction were one and the self-same thing I would desire to know upon what Ground or by what Warrant it can be imagined and much less defended that Man is saved for the sake of his Death but that he is not saved for the sake of his Obedience And I would so much the rather insist upon this Inquiry because tho' it should be granted that our Saviour's Death was meritorious of Man's Everlasting Happiness and that is the present Case then if we must make an Opposition between his Death and his Obedience and to ascribe Man's Happiness to his Death but not to his Obedience does make such an Opposition but I say if there must be an Opposition made between them it seems much more agreeable to Reason nay indeed to common Sense to ascribe such Merit to the Obedience of his Death than to his Death For it is the Voice of Natural Justice that Duty and Obedience may deserve a Reward but it is a Strain beyond Conceit that Punishment should do so too For if that were allowed then the suffering of Punishment for the Breach of the Law might be justly meritorious of a Reward as well as Obedience to the Command of the Law and so at long run it would come to the same Event to break the Law as to keep it But because that cannot be allowed therefore if People will have an Opposition in the Case where the Scripture has made none we should rather ascribe Man's Eternal Happiness to the Obedience of our Saviour's Death than to the Death it self And then if our Eternal Happiness may be ascribed to the Merit of our Saviour's Obedience in one Case why may it not be so in more For for the same Reason that a Believer may be interessed in the Obedience of his Death he may be interessed in the Obedience of his Life too Since then in the present Case it is allowed that a Believer has his Interest by Imputation in the first Case it will follow that he may and considering what has already been said that he must have it so in the last That is in a few Words That the Obedience of our Saviour both in his Life and in his Death must purchase for Man that Happiness which by the Tenor of Justice is the proper and appropriated Reward of Obedience It being evident then that for the same Reason for which the Merits of our Saviour's Death may belong to Believers the Merits of his Obedience may do so too and that both the one and the other do therefore belong to them because they are imputed to them Our next Business must be with those Men who deny all Imputation whatsoever and therefore neither allow the Merits of his Life or Death to have any thing to do in the Purchase of Man's Salvation And because we have already and largely discoursed of the Purchase made by his Death Our only Business at present will be to enquire concerning the Purchase made by his Obedience And because the Men we have now to do with do deny all Imputation of what our Saviour did or suffered whatsoever therefore we shall lay down and attempt the Proof of this following Proposition That that Righteousness by which Believers shall be judged and in consideration of which they shall obtain Salvation at the Resurrection and the Great Day shall be the Obedience of their Saviour while he lived in the Flesh imputed to such Believers 1. In order to this we take notice in the first place That the Scriptures do tell us That all Men shall be judged according to their Works that is according to their Obedience or Disobedience in this Life 2. We lay it down in the second place That all those who shall be adjudged to enjoy an Eternal Happiness must in order to that blessed Sentence be first entitled to a perfect Righteousness This we reckon is proved before 3. We take notice in the third place That no Man tho' never so righteous yet ever did does or shall arrive at a perfect Righteousness in this Life The Question then that remains to be resolved is How any Man shall come to be entitled to a perfect Righteousness
that so he may be entitled to Eternal Happiness And because no Man can warrantably say how he shall not be unless he do assign some Way how he shall be so entitled therefore they who in this Case deny all Imputation whatsoever do tell us that a perfect Holiness shall be bestowed by God upon Believers by Infusion that is for so they must mean God shall by his Mercy and Free-Grace bestow such a Stock of Holiness upon Believers as shall cleanse and fill all their Capacities and so make them perfectly holy and by consequence capable of Eternal Happiness 1. Now tho' it be freely granted that God will in the next World bestow such an holy God-like and eternally-durable Frame of Spirit upon all those who shall be saved as we shall discourse more fully hereafter yet it is not in Consideration of such Holiness that Believers do obtain that Eternal Happiness which is the promised Reward of the Gospel For by what is to follow it will we presume appear that Salvation obtained in Consideration of our Saviour's Obedience imputed is First Better accommodated to the Rules of Reason and the Laws of Justice than Salvation obtained in Consideration of an Holiness infused after a Resurrection And Secondly That as it is better accommodated to the Rules of Reason and to the Laws of Justice so that it is so also to that Account which the Scripture gives us of this Matter 1. For the Obedience by which Believers are to be judged at the last Day is that Obedience which was required of them in this World And accordingly as Men have behaved themself here so they shall receive the Reward of such their Behaviour there So St. Paul in the Second to the Corinthians chap. 5. ver 10. We shall all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ that every one may receive the Things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad By which we may understand that the Distributions to be made by Justice upon a Resurrection have an Eye to the Lives of Men before their Death And from thence we may infer that they are not to be guided by an infused Holiness which does even by those who plead for it not take place till after the Resurrection For it is agreed on all Hands that no Man's Holiness is perfect in this Life Now it does not look altogether so rational nor so agreeable to the Measures of Justice or the Revelations of Scripture that a Man should be judged according to what he has done in the Body before his Death and yet that he shall by the last Judicial Sentence be everlastingly rewarded for an Holiness infused by God after his Resurrection And therefore if we will adhere to Reason Justice and Revelation we must conclude that Believers do not after this Life obtain an everlasting Happiness in consideration of such an infused Holiness 2. And secondly we may do well to take notice that the Obedience of our Saviour to the Law was the Obedience which was required of Man and which was also paid by Man in this Life and that because such his Obedience was perfect therefore the Reward assigned by the Law to Obedience was in strictness of Law and Justice due to such his Obedience If therefore his Obedience while he was in the Flesh may by any Means be so made over to Believers as to be justly accounted theirs then there can be no doubt but that their Right to the Reward appointed to such Obedience will be just and good too And that it may be justly accounted theirs we have as we believe made it good already But an Holiness infused by God after a Resurrection can in no Sense nor in any Congruity be accounted and much less can it be an Obedience paid by Man while in the Body to the Law and therefore it cannot in any Sense or in any Congruity be such an Holiness to which the Reward allotted only to Obedience can belong And therefore neither can Eternal Happiness be bestowed upon Believers in consideration of such an infused Holiness In one Word Infused Holiness in order to Man's Salvation does in no wise agree to that Account which the Scriptures give us of the Last Judgment and tho' it pretends to magnifie God's Mercy yet it takes no care in the mean while to assert and vindicate his Justice but makes the whole Process of that great Assize to be arbitrary and illegal whilst it opens a Way to Man's Happiness by an Holiness which has nothing to do with the Cause upon which alone his Trial depends For a Reward conferr'd in another World upon an Holiness infused in another World does in no wise look back to or pass a Judgment upon the Life that was led in this World But because we know assuredly and that by many express Testimonies of Scripture that that will be the Work of the Last Day therefore for that Reason alone if yet there were no other we cannot ascribe a future Happiness the happy just and final Sentence of that Day to such an infused Holiness No! the Holiness for which we are to be rewarded in a future Life must be an Obedience practised in this Life The Duty is laid upon Man by the Law here and the Reward stands engaged to the Performance of such Duty And if the Righteousness of Man at the Resurrection be not an Obedience paid to the Law then when the Law required such Obedience the Reward promised by the Law can in no wise belong to such Righteousness And therefore to fansie a Reward for an Holiness in which the Law is not at all concerned as it is not in an infused Holiness is to have no regard to the Law at all For Happiness bestowed in consideration of an infused Holiness may as well be granted without the Law as with it nay indeed much better Because had there been no Law at all then such a Management had not affronted the Law Whereas the Law having been once setled to bestow the Reward promised by the Law upon an Holiness which has no Eye to the Law as an infused Holiness has not is to slight and overlook the Law for it allows the Law to have nothing to do in the Allotment of such a Reward It may be plausibly objected in this Place That while I vindicate the Cause which I undertake against one Adversary I give it up to another Because while I assert That every Man shall at the last Day be judged according to his Behaviour in this World I do in effect refer the Reward that shall then be adjudged to Believers to such their Behaviour that is in the present Case to their Obedience in this World And that because I do so I therefore pull down with one Hand that which before I had set up with another viz. the Imputation of their Saviour's Righteousness in order to their Salvation 1. But this Objection is grounded upon a Mistake which Mistake is
use of at that Time by the most celebrated Laws but also in Consideration of our Saviour's Purchase I say when we find Things so and that too in the Book of God wrote professedly on this Subject does it become us to think that the Holy Ghost the Indicter of these Things did only word himself at random Or ought we not rather to think that in so doing he had a Regard to those Legal Ways of Conveyances which were established by Man's Reason and Sense of Justice in those Laws which were then most current in the World We cannot I am sure we cannot rationally think so For why are we told that we are bought with a Price Why are we told that our Saviour purchased us with his Blood Why are we told that we are redeemed not with corruptible Things as Silver and Gold but with the precious Blood of Christ but that our Redemption and Salvation did as to the Justice and Equity of it answer to those Legal Ways of transferring of Rights from Man to Man For our Redemption was purchased by our Saviour so it is expresly worded and by him therefore conveyed and made over to us because otherwise it could in no Sense be called our Redemption Indeed a Purchase does in the very import of the Word imply the Acquisition of a Thing in a Legal way and by so doing does in the Nature of the Thing imply also a Legal Power of making over such Thing to another For he can only legally sell or otherwise give or convey who has a Legal Right in the Thing sold given or conveyed And he can only legally purchase who pays a Legal Price When therefore the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures does so word the Manner of God's bestowing and our receiving Salvation in and by our Saviour as to do it in such Terms which were at that time Terms of the most celebrated Law next to his own that ever yet was or perhaps ever will be in the World and when he does so frequently and almost constantly it would become us to believe and think that he designed and that too even by his manner of expressing the Thing to insinuate to us that the Salvation he all along speaks of was bestowed in a way of Conveyance at that time familiar among Mankind in such a way as was established both by their own Laws and by their own Practice in such a way that their best Reason granted to them by himself had set on foot And that upon this Account his way of doing it so as is by him expressed and that too all along in that very Book where he affords us the Discoveries of it is just equitable and legal I do but run over these Things and in a manner glance at them because I rather design to give an Hint to others more able so to do than to pursue them my self For if a Man well-studied in the Civil Law a Law that will weigh with Mankind so long as good and sound Reason has a free Passage in the World But I say would such a Man so throughly acquaint himself with the New-Covenant the Covenant of Grace in Jesus Christ as to be able exactly to compare it with that Law which is the Business of his Profession I do not at all question but that such a Comparison judiciously managed would go a great way in removing those Doubts which have been started by People of all Parties concerning Man's Redemption And because several Learned Men I know are very well versed in both those Laws I do the rather hope that God will put it into the Heart of some of them to bless the World with such a Christian and beneficial Piece of Learning But this by the by In the mean time from what has been said in short we may learn thus much That the Salvation of Man is the Purchase of the Son of God that the Benefit at least of such Purchase is by the Purchaser made over to Man that in Consideration of that Intimate Union that is between him and Man by his taking upon him the same Flesh and Blood with Man and by affording to Man the Communications of his Spirit a Way is opened as for the more congruous and equitable Way of such Conveyanee on the one Side so on the other Side for the more congruous and equitable Way of Man's entring upon the Possession of such Purchase and that when the whole Thing is strictly sifted and examined it will be found to be agreeable to the just and equitable Rules of Law as well as to the express and plain Revelations of the Gospel But I desist Only I would offer an Inference or two that may relate to our Practice before I do so 1. And first If God spared not his own Son when he had put himself into the Place of Sinners we may from thence conclude that neither will he spare us when we our selves are Sinners and that too by our own default For besides that he was and was so proclaimed by God himself his only Son in whom he was well pleased I say besides that the Generosity Charity and Candor of such an Undertaking as our Saviour's was by which he shewed more Tenderness to others than to himself may be thought to be a very considerable Motive even to Justice it self so far as is possible to remit to him a great deal of that Rigour and Severity which Sin does deserve And then if notwithstanding such his Undertaking yet he was fain to pay the uttermost Farthing that is to die how can we hope to escape if we the Original and therefore also the Principal Sinners come under the Severity of so exact a Justice We may be sure that the Portion of Vengeance allotted to us in such a Case will not be less severe For if God so treated his Beloved because interposing Son how do we think he will treat avowed and professed Rebels Or as our Saviour himself speaks in the like Case If these things are done in the green Tree what shall be done in the dry 2. And as this Consideration may serve us for Caution so the next that is the second may serve us for Consolation And I shall give it in the Words of the Apostle in the Eighth to the Romans ver 32. He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all Things For his delivering up his Son for our sakes to become Man to lead an hard and uncomfortable Life and to die a miserable and scandalous Death that both by his Life and Death he might work out our Salvation is such an exalted Evidence of God's Love to us that Imagination it self can hardly conceive that any thing can extinguish it but our Ingratitude for it And our Natural Reason and Common Sense may easily instruct us that he whosoever he be that is ready and willing and that too even to Performance to do us the
whereof we are capable does so too And we are moreover sure in Reason that God will more freely bestow his best Gift there where it is most heartily desired and therefore also most kindly received And we are the more sure that he will do so in the present Case because the Will of Man must in this Case concur with the Grace of God or else it is impossible that the Holiness to be bestowed should ever become his own For no Man can in Reason or Nature be holy against his own Will He then who by the Means of Grace has advanced so far as to hunger and thirst after Righteousness shall be sure to be filled We have his Promise for it who is able to make it good and we have his Promise for it whose Promise cannot fail And then we cannot but be sensible that he who is filled with Righteousness cannot want that Holiness which accompanies Salvation And truly when I consider how these lower good Things the Blessings of Nature which are confessedly the Bounties of the God of Nature do freely flow in upon all his Creatures where their natural Appetites or Wants do desire or require them and where their Powers and Faculties are such in pursuit of such their Desires they endeavour to obtain them it mightily inclines me to think that his Blessing of Holiness will also there flow in where the moral Appetites of his Rational Creatures do sincerely desire it and where they are so sensible of their Want of it as to endeavour after it 4. We proceed and add in the fourth place That we are instructed both by God's Word and by our own Experience that tho' a perfect Holiness may be heartily desired and sincerely endeavoured after yet that it is never attained by any Man in this Life and therefore so neither is a perfect Happiness The Evidence for the first is because all Men in this World are Sinners and the Evidence for the last is because all Men in this World are Mortal Now as Sin is an infallible Confutation of a perfect Holiness so Mortality is an infallible Confutation of a perfect Happiness We are therefore at last arrived thus far that no Man shall arrive at a perfect Holiness till he is translated to another World And because it is difficult if not impossible to conceive how any Man should arrive at a perfect Holiness in the Grave therefore we may go one Step farther and add that no Man shall attain to such an Holiness till the Resurrection And we may very fairly and rationally conjecture I may say infer That then the Faithful shall For we know that by the Resurrection we shall be released from the Curse of the Law on the one Hand and shall enter upon the Reward of Obedience and Holiness on the other 5. And then lastly Because that Happiness which our Saviour has purchased for Believers is an eternal Happiness and because as we have seen it is impossible that there should be any such Thing as an eternal Happiness without an eternal Holiness and because to pretend to bestow an everlasting Happiness upon Man and not an everlasting Holiness without which such an Happiness is impossible is to mock Man and not to save him and because lastly we cannot without Blasphemy and Absurdity tax the Counsels and Purposes of our Saviour in the Business of Man's Salvation of such gross Prevarication therefore we do at last conclude That God in our Saviour will endow Believers at or upon their Resurrection with an Inherent Immutable and Eternal Holiness Now we have observed before That the Punishment threatned by the Gospel against those who shall refuse their Salvation by the Neglect of the Conditions of the Gospel is greater than what was threatned against the Breach of the Law of Works the Law given to Adam And that the Reward proposed by the Gospel to those who shall admit the Conditions of it is greater than what was by the Law proposed to Adam upon his Obedience And we have observed in this Chapter That that Inherent and Indefectible Holiness which is a Part of such Reward is greater and nobler than Adam's Holiness before the Fall because it is more lasting than that of him or indeed of the faln Angels Now it is certain that the Degrees of the Punishments are by Justice proportioned to the Degrees of the several Sinners own Deserts And it is certain that the Rewards of eternal Life and of an Indefectible Holiness do in Justice exceed the Deserts of all that are saved for they have been all Sinners And then what Grounds these Considerations may afford for the magnifying of God's Grace and the Merits and Dignity of our Saviour's Purchase and Person may be a Matter worthy our Meditations But I shall not pursue it here because tho' there be an Occasion for me to enlarge what has been said already yet I am unwilling to repeat CHAP. XIII By what Means Men shall be put into the Actual Possession of Eternal Life HAving thus far discoursed First Concerning the Pardon of Sin and Secondly Concerning the Gift of an Happy and Eternal Life the Two Things in which a Gospel Salvation does consist And having made it good That Believers do obtain both the one and the other only in Consideration of our Saviour's Merits and that their so doing is agreeable to Reason and Justice Two Things do still remain to be examined 1. By what Way or Means they shall be put into the Possession of such Eternal Life And 2. Wherein the Happiness of such Life does consist 1. And in order to the Resolution of the first Thing we lay it down as a certain Truth in the first place That Man in order to his entring upon the Possession of Eternal Life must first rise from the Dead For all Men die because all Men are Sinners And because it is absurd so much as to imagine that Man can enter upon the Possession of Eternal Life while he remains under the Power of Death therefore without any more ado we shall take it for granted that Man must be freed from that Death which is brought upon him by his Sin before he can obtain that Eternal Life which is purchased for him by his Saviour 2. We lay it down in the second place as a certain Truth That because our Saviour underwent Death himself for the Expiation of Man's Sin and because our Saviour could not in Nature or Possibility be qualified to bestow upon Man the Purchase of such his Death till he himself should rise from the Dead That therefore in order to Man's entring upon the Possession of an Eternal Life it was necessary that our Saviour himself as well as Man should first rise from the Dead 3. We lay it down in the Third place That if the Merits of our Saviour's Death were of Value sufficient to make good the Expiation of Man's Sin that then in Reason and Justice he ought to rise again from the Dead For
because in the Case so put he could have no Concern with Justice but what was his own and because he himself had paid an exact Obedience to the Law and because Life is the Reward of such Obedience as Death is the Wages of Disobedience Therefore if we do allow him to have unloaded himself of the Sin of Man which he had taken upon himself by his Death we must and do by so doing reinstate him in his own Right that is we must allow that he had a Right to be and therefore in Justice ought to be restored to Life again And therefore it is not at all to be questioned but that our Saviour had never died at all if he had never taken upon himself the Sins of other Men. But of this more by and by In the mean while these Things being laid down we proceed and 1. Observe in the first place That our Saviour's Resurrection is almost constantly by the Scriptures of the New Testament ascribed to God the Father And Multitudes of Texts might be quoted for it as the Second of the Acts ver 24 30. The Fifth Chapter of the same ver 26 30. The Tenth ver 40. The Seventeenth ver 31. The Tenth to the Romans ver 9. The First to the Corinthians chap. 6. ver 14 c. We know well enough that they who make it their Business to degrade our Saviour below his most exalted Dignity and Station do make use of these Texts for such their Purpose But we know withal that there are other Texts tho' indeed not so many and some of them when compared with their Context not so Categorical which yet ascribe his Resurrection to himself Such is that in the Second Chapter of St. John v. 19. Destroy this Temple and in three Days I will raise it up And so again in the Tenth of St. John v. 18. No Man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again Now as we made it out just now that after the Expiation finished he had a Right to rise from the Dead so we do not at all question but that he had a Power to raise himself too But tho' it should be allowed as we do not at all question and that too from several Things already laid down and made good but that it may be proved But I say tho' it should be allowed that he had both a Right and a Power to raise himself from the Dead yet notwithstanding that it was not altogether so congruous or agreeable to the equitable Proceedings of Justice that he should exercise such his Power or put himself into the possession of such his Right in the present Case For because he had submitted to offer his Life an Expiatory Sacrifice to the Divine Justice for the Sin of Man he had by such his Submission so far resigned such his Right and Power into the Hand of God as that both by the Laws of Reason and Justice as well as by the Rules of Decency and Congruity God was now become the sole Judge of the Validity of such his Sacrifice for the Accomplishment of the designed Expiation And if God was the sole Judge of the Validity of his Sacrifice he had by the same Means the rightful and I may add the sole Power of declaring such Validity And because the Resurrection of our Saviour from the Dead was in effect such a Declaration therefore we may now be satisfied why the Holy Ghost does so very frequently and in a manner constantly ascribe the Resurrection of our Saviour in the Scriptures to God alone To which we may add That the High-Priest under the Law who in this very Case was a Type of our Saviour was obliged once a Year to enter into the Holy of Holies but as the Author to the Hebrews words it not without Blood which he offered for himself and for the Errors of the People In which Case it must be confessed that the offering of the Blood to God was in order to his acceptance and that God's acceptance of the Blood that is of the Life of the Sacrifice was the Ratification of that Expiation that was made by such Sacrifice And in deed and truth our Saviour in the Business now before us being both the Priest and the Sacrifice to God for the Sins of Man and his Resurrection being the first Testimony or Declaration of the Acceptance of such his Sacrifice We cannot in any Congruity suppose that such Testimony or Declaration should be ascribed to any other but to God alone And therefore as all those Texts which ascribe our Saviour's Resurrection to God do in this Case speak strictly and properly so we may now by what has been said perceive that they are no Prejudice to his Divinity because he having obliged himself to offer that Body to which his Deity was united a Sacrifice for Sin he had by the same Act obliged himself to expect from God the Approbation and Allowance of such his Sacrifice and therefore also to receive from him his Resurrection which was an effectual Declaration of such Allowance And therefore 2. I do offer it to Consideration That the Resurrection of our Saviour from the Dead was an undoubted Argument that he had finished and compleated that Expiation which he had undertaken to make by his Death for the Sins of Men. For as we are assured by the Scriptures that he was crucified dead and buried and so that he died the Death of a Criminal So we are assured by the same Scriptures that he did not die for his own Crimes For it is utterly impossible and that too in the Nature of the Thing that he should die for his own Sins who yet did no Sin neither was Guile found in his Mouth that is who had no Sins of his own to die for Now because we are taught by the Scriptures and as we have already made it out because our Reason guided by them does fall in with them and so both do tell us that the Wages of Sin is Death that is that there is a Natural Justice in the Case that Death should be inflicted as the Punishment of Sin And because we are assured by the same Natural Reason that it must needs be unjust to inflict the same Punishment upon an Innocent Person which is the just Punishment of a Criminal I say for this Reason we may be satisfied that our Saviour tho' he was in himself a Lamb without Spot yet did die for some Sins or others be those Sins whose they will at present And therefore because the Spirit of God has by his express Word told us that he died for our Sins we may upon his Testimony rest satisfied that so he did Thus far therefore we have advanced towards our present Purpose and Argument That Death was what the Law threatned for our Sins and that we being Sinners and so having incurred the Vengeance threatned
Life he laid it down in our stead so also that when he took it up again he took up with it the Lives of all those who by the Conditions of the New Covenant shall have an Interest in such his Death And therefore as our Christianity does acquaint us that they who live to Christ do live by the Spirit so St. Paul to our present purpose does tell us in the Eighth to the Romans ver 11. that if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead do dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you In a Word Christ is our Head and we are his Members and because he and we do make up one Body and because as Members of such his Body we are quickned by his Spirit therefore we may confirm our own Resurrection by his And therefore as he is called the First-born from the Dead in the First to the Colossians ver 18. so we are called the Children of the Resurrection in the Twentieth of St. Luke ver 36. So that a good Man from the Certainty of his Saviour's Resurrection from Death to Glory and Immortality may safely conclude his own may lie down in his Grave as securely as in his Bed and when the Morning of the Great Day shall down forth may be more secure of rising again and putting on his Body than he can be that he shall rise on the Morrow-morning and put on his Clothes For for the first he has the Security of Truth and Omnipotence but for the last he has only the Promises of his own Presumption or at the very best but of his Hope 4. As the Faithful shall in Consideration of our Saviour's Death and Resurrection obtain their own Resurrection from Death to Life so the Life which by such their Resurrection they shall obtain shall be Life Eternal This is express Scripture and a Christian may therefore be satisfied in and assured of its Truth For our Saviour himself tells us as much when giving an Account of the Last Judgment he closes such Account in the Last Verse of the Twenty fifth Chapter of St. Matthew with these Words And these shall go into everlasting Punishment and then follows that which is directly to our present Purpose But the Righteous into Life Eternal And Reason tells us that so it must needs be because where the Cause of all Death whatsoever is taken away there the Possibility of Death must be taken away too unless we should imagine that Death should be brought upon a Rational Creature subject to Law without any meritorious Cause of Death at all But as we have often laid it down and proved it already that cannot be supposed in the present Case because the Death we now speak of is supposed to come from God's Justice and the Justice of God cannot either truly or rationally be supposed to inflict Death there where there is no Desert of it Now we therefore know that the meritorious Cause of Death is Sin because we know that the Wages of Sin is Death If therefore as we have already seen the Sin of the Faithful be taken away by the Expiation and if upon their Resurrection they obtain an indefectible Holiness the Inference will be That the Cause of Death Sin will upon the first Account be cancelled and blotted out and that upon the last Account it cannot be renewed or restored and that therefore upon both Accounts in conjunction Death the Wages of Sin can never more return And then when a Life restored is secured from all possible return of Death we may be sure that such Life so restored must be Eternal And agreeable to what we now say St. Paul tells us in the Third to the Philippians the last Verse that our Saviour whom we look for from Heaven shall change our vile Body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious Body according to the mighty working whereby he is able even to subdue all Things unto himself Now we know that when our Saviour appeared to St. Paul that is to that very Apostle who tells us these Things he does expresly affirm to King Agrippa in the Twenty sixth of the Acts that the Light of the Appearance was above the Brightness of the Sun and yet the Context will tell us that the Appearance was made about Mid-day And perhaps our Saviour's Transfiguration on the Mount was a Proleptick Discovery of that Glory with which his Body was to be cloathed upon his Ascent into Heaven the Mount of God But be that as it will yet to our Purpose If the Bodies of the Saints shall be fashioned like unto his glorious Body then it will be no improbable Conclusion That they shall with that Glory put on an Immortal Frame and Constitution And this Conclusion will then advance from Probable to Certain when we know that the same Apostle does acquaint us not only that our Body which is sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory but over and above that this Corruptible must put on Incorruption and that this Mortal must put on Immortality Much more might be offered on this Subject but from what has been glanced at we may now perceive that our Body in imitation of our Saviour's Body shall after its Resurrection be indued with a glorious Frame and an immortal Constitution that it shall be done by his Power as it shall in Consideration of his Merit that the Power that shall do it is able to subdue all Things to it self that is is Omnipotent And then where we have the Promise of Truth and the Power of Omnipotence to secure to us an Eternal Life there we can have no Reason to doubt the Eternity of such Life The Second Thing should now in Order follow which is to shew wherein the Happiness of such Eternal Life does consist But before we speak to that I shall lay down two or three Practical Considerations which as they look back to what has been spoken already so will be no improper Introduction to those Things which are to follow 1. And first We should be sensible of and grateful for that blessed Provision that our Lord and Saviour has made for our Everlasting Happiness and Security And this we should so much the rather be because by what has been said we may now understand that such Provision does fully answer to our highest natural Desires and Inclinations For our Anxiety for our own Welfare will tell us that among all the several Appetites by which we pursue after our own Happiness our Desire of Life does hold the first and chief Place with us And the Reason is plain because the Loss of Life must needs be followed by the Loss of all other Enjoyments whatsoever that can in any wise conduce to our Happiness And as we are told by our Common Sense that our grand and topping Appetite is that of Life so we are told by the same