themselves uncapable of Forgiveness and Happiness yet it is commonly blind to see God as he is and is more apt to fly from him than come to him measuring God by its own standard it having been very apt to account it Justice to revenge the crossing its Will on those it was able to affect thinks God like it self not considering that the perfect Good-will of God cannot take Pleasure or Satisfaction in the Miseries of his Creatures tho' they are Enemies much less in their Sin or continuing Enmity the formal Cause of their Unhappiness But tho' Man is so apt to look upon God as an inraged Enemy hardly to be appeas'd severe to reckon with the Sinner resolved that the Sinner shall never be happy unless something can be given him to purchase his favour that he values more than the Sinner's Repentance or new Obedience Yet I say tho' Man is so apt to look upon God as such like himself we must affirm that God is not nor can he properly be said to be an Enemy to Man or any of his Creatures as they are to him and to one another He hates or sets himself against nothing but their Sins their Unhappiness wills nothing but what is for their good nor can he but love whatsoever is his own Work as the Beings of all his Creatures are and their Good Order which is their Happiness therefore he cannot but will their Reconcilement to him or to their Duty 30. Now all that God hath done does or will do in order to Man's Recovery from Sin and Misery tends unto this one thing To bring Man again to will as God wills Where ever this is done it is done and the End of God's Dealing with Sinners is accomplished whatever the means were by which it was brought about and so far as we are come towards this so far we are in the way of Salvation or saved To will as God wills or to love our God with all our Heart Soul and Strength and our Fellow Creature as our self is the whole Law that God does so much to perswade Man to keep To will and n'ill the same is perfect Love and Love is manifested by doing the Will of the Beloved In doing the Will of God is Life I mean Happiness not only in this Present State but also in that which is to come 31. And that there is a Life to come and Immortality discoverable clearly even by Reason and divers Notices thereof implanted in Nature we shall a little attempt to shew That Men are mortal and live in this Life but a little while is the experience of the whole World That the Body is subject to decay or the Order of its Motions wherein its Life consists liable to be destroyed and cease and by another as to Life disorderly Motion to be separated and so its Organical Figure to be spoiled and changed all Men perceive by the least Observation But that Death is not a Termination or End of our Being I think will appear by these Considerations First We have no reason to conclude that the End or Design of our Being is fully accomplished in this Life The Manifestations of God's Perfections to Man and Man's Pleasure or Happiness in beholding them the End of Man by reason of Sin are not so clear and so great in this Life as they may be should be and are to be desired God is not seen and enjoy'd by any now as he may be by some but very little The desires of some I may say of all that desire God are not satisfied in this short and sinful State None have unerringly and sufficiently beheld the Divine Excellencies and acknowledged God as he ought to be acknowledged Some have lived and died and hardly ever truely confess'd and own'd their Maker few or none have loved and obeyed him to their capacity and been as pleas'd or happy in him as they may be Therefore it is reasonable to conclude nay we cannot well think otherwise that there is a Life to come wherein the Ends of the Creation shall be accomplished God cannot be thought to let his Works perish without fulfilling his or their true Ends in them The Good those that have been so far convicted of the Disorders of Sin as to repent and change their Minds from willing contrary to God's Will in some measure to will as God wills and to desire that they may do so more yea perfectly and always Those that have some-what beheld God lovely have not yet or in this Life been brought up to so great a degree of Obedience as they are convinced is their Duty nor seen so much of God's Excellence as they desire to see nor been satisfied with the sense of his Love as they would If these their Desires Duties and Happiness are good convenient suitable to the Natures of God and his Creatures as evidently they appear to be certainly God wills them sometime or other to be and that more than the Creature can will them because God is the Supreme Good-will So that it is altogether unlikely that the Good Man should perish and not attain the Good that he is capable of desires is convenient and God wills more than he Nor is it any more likely that the Bad Man he that hath seen no greater Delight than in contradicting the Will and Order of God by the disorderly Enjoyment of the Creatures should perish or cease under so great a Mistake as never to see and be convinced of the Absurdity and Evil of prosecuting his own proper Will as the chief Good as never to find that the way of Happiness is not in acting contrary to the Will of God That God should have an Intelligent Creature never to be made acknowledge his Maker is a thing hard to be thought It is more probable that even the Bad Man will remain one way or other to be convinced of his Disorders of his Rebellion against God Injustice and want of Goodness to his Fellow Creatures The Good Man in this Life seems often to be the Man of Sorrow the Son of Adversity that doth not gather the full-ripe Fruits of his Repentance and Obedience being among a world of unhappy and injurious Impenitents Therefore it is requisite there should be a Future State wherein he may reap in Joy what he has sowed in Tears The Evil Man seems often to be the Man of Joy and Pleasure in this Life he rejoyceth and even glorieth in his Disorders yea in that very great one of afflicting the Man that is better than he Now it is most equal and just that he should some time or other come to see the Good Man before-hand with him rejoycing and happy in God when he is sorowing to see he hath turn'd from the fountain of Joy and Blessedness These things are not accomplished in this Life therefore we must necessarily suppose a Future Again It is certain that no Creature can cause it self or another to cease Nothing but the withdrawing
the Same Power that caused the Creature to be and continueth its Being can be suppos'd a reason of its Cessation We can prove no such Death as an Adnihillation of any thing nor does it appear to any that consider the matter that even any Bodily Creature ceaseth to be But the contrary might be shewn by many Arguments if it were doubted of Even those things which seem to the ignorant and inconsiderate to be most likely to be destroyed such as things that are burnt I can at any time demonstrate even to the eye that none of their parts cease but are only separated or altered The Death of the Body is but some kind of alteration or change of its Modes or Circumstances as a Separation of the parts of its Organical Structure or an Alteration of such and such Motions requisite to continue its Particular Mechanism or Animal Oeconomy The Body remains I mean all the Matter of it after the Division of its parts and it cannot rationally be suppos'd that the Mind the more Substantial and as all are ready to acknowledge the more Noble Part of Man should suffer more alteration by the Dissolution of the Body than the Body it self does The Change the Body undergoes is apparent but what Change you will say may the Mind be reasonnably suppos'd to suffer at its Separation from the Body or whether not enough to be call'd Death Many Treatises have been written and Discourses made to prove the Immortality of the Soul and some for its suppos'd Mortality but the Authors have not been so happy as to agree in the Notion of Life and Death with one another nor all so considerate as to fix any determinate Notion for themselves or to tell their Readers what they mean by its Living or Dying so that it may be true or false for them But I shall here state the question more plainly and tell you first that by the Life of the Soul I mean a Continuation of Thinking or of Understanding and Willing Where there are these Actions and Passions there is enough to be call'd Life and that which better deserves to be named Living than any whatsoever Organization and Motion in Bodies And the plain Question is this Whether upon the Death or Dissolution of the Body Thinking wholly ceaseth A Cessation of some of the Modes of Thinking cannot be enough to be properly call'd the Death of the Soul for so it would not only be always dying but dead as it alters so continually at least every night and day An Alteration of some of the Modes of Thinking may in a figurative and improper Sense be called Death but the Question is not of any such Death It is probable that many if not all those Thoughts and Ideas we have by occasion or on condition of our Body as so and so disposed may cease tho' it cannot easily be thought absolutely necessary for we cannot conceive the Body to be a natural Occasion of any Thoughts but so by the Will of God who if he please we may well think can cause the same Ideas and Thoughts without it tho' it seems not to any purpose or probable that he will For on the other hand it is more likely that God permitted Death for the Cessation of those Thoughts or at least many of them the Body is the occasion of since Man's fall into Sin in Good and Bad For as much as we are tempted to most of our Disorders by occasion of the Body and to gratifie some Sense or other disorderly or besides the Direction and Will of God seems to be the first and most constant Temptation every Man is drawn aside with Now the Good Man or Repenting Sinner through the Goodness of God on this Supposition of such Thoughts ceasing gets this by Death tho' in it self an Evil that he is freed from all the Allurements of this Life occasioned by his use of this Body The undue Gratifications of Sense can now no more perswade him the unprofitable care of avoiding little Bodily Displeasures now takes not up his Thoughts the Difficulties from the Injustice and Cruelty of Sinners press him now no more to act against his Maker's Will but he seems perfectly freed from Temptation having perhaps now no Object of desire present but God and nothing to interpose for his Love as a Rival with his Maker Nothing now seems necessary for him to know but God and himself Nor needs he or values he could he have them any little pleasures in Creatures when he is at God the Fountain and Cause of all On the other side the Evil Man also looses all those Gratifications of Sense he so much affected and erringly counted his chiefest Good and must needs find that he foolishly set his Heart on that which would not make him happy but so soon left him And as his Will is not reconcil'd and subjected to God's but he desires still that which cannot be God cannot so communicate himself to him to make him joyous but he must be subject to all that Anguish that the Reflection on the loss of the Creatures he so much delighted in and that he hath miss'd the Fountain of all Good can cause in him with all the Vexation and Trouble that all the disorderly Thoughts of such a Soul can raise to it self But to come to the point in hand again It cannot well be thought that the Soul or Mind of either Good or Bad should die or Thinking wholly and for ever cease or yet for a time upon the Body's Death because the Continuation of Thinking or Life of the Soul can't rationally be suppos'd to depend on the Body a thing more ignoble than it self being very unlikely to be its cause but upon the Will of God its Author And God cannot well be suppos'd thus to let any of his Creatures cease or disown his Works that are good as the Beings of all things are much less can Minds the Intelligent and Active Beings be thought to be adnihilated or cease Thinking so soon and to no purpose Change they may and do as all Creatures are mutable but what of God would be seen in the Cessation of any especially of Minds who are the only kind of Beings capable of beholding God If the Soul ceaseth to think and so dies more than a figurative Death it ceaseth to be for Thinking and Mind are the same Being which if you will not be perswaded to believe you must at least acknowledge them inseparable For a Mind that does not think or a Thinker that cannot think is a Contradiction and to call that a Power or Agent that can do nothing is absurd for that which can do nothing is no Power or Agent and a Power or Agent that will do nothing is as great a Contradiction for Willing is Doing even Thinking Again Nothing is more strongly implanted I may say concreated in the Mind of Man than a desire to continue and if Being is good the Continuation of Being is good
be attained but by Love and Obedience to God And when we return to our Father's House and acknowledge our Folly and Rebellion then we shall find it true that God is our best Friend and was so before we thought of returning It was an Opinion in the Pagan Divinity that their Gods were sometimes angry and must be attoned or reconciled and intreated to do them no Mischief or to be favourable to them and this they thought was to be done by some thing or other which they fancied was more pleasing to the Gods than that which they were angry at was displeasing something or other they liked so much better than doing Good that they were thereby over perswaded to do them such Favours they would not otherwise have done such a pleasure to them in their opinion was the slaying of a Beast and the offering it to them yea the horrid Act of sacrificing Men. But Christians should have a better Opinion of God who are taught that he is Love that is unchangeable Good will Who can imagine that the Blood of a Lamb pour'd out or the wasting of a Bullock on an Altar or the Death yea the Murder of an Innocent Man can be so grateful to the Most High as to make him a Friend when he was suppos'd before to be an angry Enemy Can this be an Argument to prevail with him to alter his Mind and like the Sinner any better What Delight or Advantage can we suppose the Death or Spoiling any Creature can be to the Self sufficient God Tho'd Christ for some Reasons is compar'd to or call'd a Sacrifice we can with no good reason retain the vulgar notion of it or believe that he by his being murder'd appeas'd God's Wrath and made him change from an angry Enemy to a pleased loving Friend or render'd him less disliking the Sins of Men than he was before No the Enmity is in Man against God not in God against Man it is Man that is to be changed not God Besides nothing but a wonderful Prejudice can make us think that the Murder of the most innocent Man the World ever had should be so much more pleasing to the most Just God than all other Sins were displeasing so that That and nothing else could pacifie him or make him willing Men that had sinn'd should yet obey him and be happy Did we but consider we should never have hopes to digest this opinion so many hard things are in the bowels of it If God hath commanded all Men not to kill can we with any sense think that God is at any time pleas'd with the breach of that Command Yea that the most Innocent must needs be murder'd that God might be justly pleas'd with the Guilty yea his Murderers This is to make Wickedness necessary and God pleas'd with it yea implacable without it This is to represent God worse than Man This is to suppose that some must of necessity sin and be damned or else none could possibly be saved Ah poor Judas that never taught'st us such hard things of God must thou needs betray thy Innocent Master and be damn'd that we might be saved who think so hardly of our Maker Why not another that thou might'st be saved or why not we for others that have a better opinion of God But God has without exception forbid all Injustice and especially the shedding Innocent Blood and if Men had believed and obeyed God as they ought and consequently might if they had received Christ's Doctrine and follow'd his Example as it was God's Will and so their Duty there would have been none to have slain Christ but Men would nay must have been saved without any ones committing such a nefarious Fact Yea if the Husband-men had yeilded the Due Fruits at the Approach of the Servants they would have been far from being so wicked as to have murder'd the Son Again if God could have been supposed to will that Christ should be put to Death if the Slaying of Christ had been that without which God would not be pleas'd it had been no Sin in those that did it but some Bodies Duty to kill him and so the notion of their being Murderers or Sinners in that Action had been destroyed But God never commanded any to put him to Death but the Action of those who did it is spoken of in Scripture with the highest Disapprobation But Christ was to be a Sacrifice you will say I answer That the business of Sacrifices is not well consider'd by many hor does the Death of Christ agree with the common notion of a Sacrifice tho' he is in some sense call'd a Sacrifice Christ is call'd a Priest and an Altar and a Sacrifice when one Person cannot possibly be all these in a proper sense The Priests slew the Sacrifices Christ flew not himself or any other nor were those who slew him Priests for that purpose The Priests might without Sin slay the Beasts they offered those that slew Christ had the absolute Prohibition of God in the Sixth Commandment The Offerings with the Levitical Priesthood not being to be thought for any Profit or Pleasure to God Almighty could have no reason except some prosit to Man might come thereby some of them fed the Levites who had no portion among their Brethren a People needing a sufficient number of Teachers of the Moral and Civil Law could they have been contented to be unlike the Nations round about them satisfied with a Spiritual Worship and Pure Theocracy without the more pompous and insignificant Ceremonies but God knowing the Inclination of that People let them have work burthensom enough to keep them from the Abominations of the Heathen had they shewed their Obedience in observing no more than what they were directed in a burden expensive enough to drain their Superfluities and enure them to spare when they should come more to need the Beneficence of one another when they were no longer a Peculiar People But whatever might be the Original Reason of Sacrifices or what apt Tendency there might at any time be found in them to bring Man to his Chief End we do not find that any of the Inhabitants of the Earth except the Hebrews nor they till they came into the Wilderness had any Institutions or Directions about Sacrificing Animals however Mankind Hebrews and others came to be so fond of it for so many Ages But to leave this that we may conceive how Christ may be call'd a Sacrifice let us consider what we find in Scripture as the most Plain Discoveries of God's Mind in relation to Sacrifice by the Prophets and Apostles Psal 50.8 I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or thy Burnt-offerings to have been continually before me Ver. 9. I will take no Bullock out of thy House nor He-goats out of thy Folds Ver. 10. For every Beast of the Forrest is mine and the Cattel upon a thousand Hills Ver. 11. I know the Fowls of the Mountains and the wild Beasts
THE Atheist turn'd Deist AND THE Deist turn'd Christian OR THE REASONABLENESS and UNION OF Natural and the True Christian Religion BY THO. EMES Chirurgo-Medicus LONDON Printed in the Year 1698. Speak every Man Truth with his Neighbour for we are Members of one another Eph. 4.25 AND So speak ye and so do ye as they that shall be judged by the Law of Liberty Jam. 2.12 ERRATA PAge 3. line 10. for certify read certifie L. 20. for Lier r. Lyar. P. 4. l. 26. for ll read all P. 6. l. last for unbeholding r. un-beholden P. 21. l. 20. for then r. than P. 22. for beholding r. beholden So P. 34. l. 34. P. 43. l. 36. r. Marriage-Constancy P. 45. l. 5. for countervaile r. countervale P. 84. l. 6. for God's r. Gods P. 95. after same add time P. 118. l. 26. blot and after David P. 181. l. 16. for they r. the before Oaths Some of the principal Heads of this Discourse under which divers other things are touched upon Numb 1. WHAT necessary to the End of Man Numb 2. Three Ways whereby we know Truth Numb 3. The nearest Way to prove the Being of God Numb 4. Self what The Necessity of supposing a Divine Being thence proved Numb 5. God knowable by Experience or Sense Numb 6. Self more largely considered and said to be Cogitation or Mind Numb 7. Objections against Cogitation's being the Essence of Self answered Numb 8. God considered more largely and as in himself or essential Attributes Numb 9. The common Notion of Omnipresence false Numb 10. God considered in relation to the Creatures negatively and positively Numb 11. Of the End of God's making things Numb 12. Man's Duty or Religion considered in general Numb 13. The same considered more particularly in Love to God Numb 14. And Love to his Works Numb 15. Love the Foundation of all orderly Behaviour No. 16. The Natural Reason and Sense of the Decâ—logue No. 17. The Goodness and Well-being of the Creaturâ— wherein it consists No. 18. The Ground of Vnhappiness No. 19. The true Notion of Sin and that Sin is a ways an Act and Original Sin as supposâ— distinct from Actual Sin a Mistake the triâ— Notion of it No. 20. The Fall of Man from Innocence naturalâ— known No. 21. The Aggravation or Greatness of Sins Diâ—order No. 22. How the Creature should behave it self on thâ— Conviction of Sin With the Natural Dutâ— of Repentance No. 23. Forgiveness with God apparently discoverabâ—â— by the Light of Nature No. 24. Why God made Creatures capable of Sin No. 25. Free will considered No. 26. What an Arbitrary Command of God and hoâ— reasonable No. 27. All the Commands of God tend to Mans Happiness or Pleasure Disobedience to the contrary neither Obedience nor Disobedience add to or take any thing from God No. 28. That the Creature having once sinn'd is more inclinable to go on sinning than to repent No. 29. Convicted Sinners at first unapt to believe that God will forgive No. 30. The Scope of all God's Dealings with Sinners in order to their Recovery No. 31. Immortality and a future Life discoverable by Reason what Death is and its use since Sin with Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul No. 32. The Resurrection of the Body rationally concluded No. 33. Future Judgment necessary No. 34. Man capable of Repentance and doing his Duty No. 35. The divers Motives and Arguments God has given Men to perswade them to repent and what the compleatest No. 36. Revelation chiefly for enforcing Natural Religion Divers Considerations about Revelation Miracles Faith c. No. 37. Of Christ and his Work No. 38. Of his Person No. 39. All that are saved saved the same way viz. by Christ No. 40. Scripture a Gift of God argued and the need of Revelation No. 41. Some things taught in the World as Doctrines of the Bible not tending to the true End and Scope of Revelation No. 42. As Mistakes about Reconciliation Christ's Death and Sacrifice Propitiation c. No. 43. About Satisfaction No. 44. Mistakes about Punishment God not to be thought the Cause of the Creatures Misery No. 45. Mistakes about Imputation of Sin and Righteousness No. 46. Mistakes about Merit No. 47. About Redemption No. 48. About Intercession No. 49. How the Mediation of Christ becomes â—â—fectual No. 50. Of the Doctrine of Fate or absolute Predestâ—â—nation No. 51. A Reflection on the present State of Christiâ—â—nity 1. THERE are Two Things necessary for Man in order to his attaining the End of his Being To know the Truth And to Will well Or in other words To be Wise and Good As for Knowing the Truth there are two Things wherein this Necessary Wisdom doth chiefly consist The Knowledge of God and the Knowledge of Ones Self And there is one thing wherein Man's Goodness doth consist and that is in the Conformity of his Will to the Will of his Maker to will as God wills The Order of our Knowledge of these two Objects God and Self seems to be this We begin to know our Selves as the Objects of which we are first aware and then we proceed to the Knowledge of God But the Connection of the Knowledg of God and of our Selves is such that we can never know our Selves well tell we arise to the Knowledge of God nor know God as we ought if we know but little of our Selves 2. There are but three Ways I conceive whereby we can have any Knowledge of God our Selves or any thing else 1. By Sense 2. By Reason Or 3. By Revelation By the Knowledge of Sense I do not mean only the Sensation or Perception of Bodies but also and rather the Experience Sense or Conscience we have of our own Thoughts or may have of others All those Notions we have as it were passively received without reasoning and which are as it were the Matter or Ground on which Reason works The second way of Knowledge Reason is the Faculty of arguing or discoursing with our Selves whereby from considering our passive Knowledges or Sensations we arise to get more full Knowledge of things and of what we had no immediate Sensation or Intuition and by getting the Knowledge of some things we proceed by Arguments and get the Knowledge and better Knowledge of others As by considering the Creatures especially our selves we may arise to the knowledge of God and then by considering our Maker we are led back again better to know our selves and from a better knowledge of our selves we get still the clearer knowledge of our Author The third way we may be made acquainted with God our selves or other things viz. Revelation is but as it were a compendious Assistance of the two former An express or particular Instruction from God telling the Creature in short what he would have been either ignorant of or not so soon or easily have known without such an immediate Teaching As for instance What God is and will be found to be what we are ought to
of the Field are mine V. 12. If I were hungry I would not tell thee for the World is mine and the Fulness thereof V. 13. Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats V. 14. Offer unto God Thanksgiving and pay thy Vows unto the most High V. 15. And call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Psal 51.16 Thou desiredst not Sacrifice else would I give it thou delightest not in Burnt-offerings V. 17. The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit c. Jer. 7.22 I spake not unto your Fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the Land of Egypt concerning Burnt-offerings or Sacrifices V. 23. But this thing commanded I them saying obey my Voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my people c. 1 Sam. 15.22 To obey is better than sacrifice Hos 6.6 God will have mercy and not sacrifice Math. 9.13 If ye had known what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice Ye would not have condemned the guiltless Spoken to the Jews condemning his Disciples when they being hungry plucked the Ears of Corn but might have been said to them rather when they afterwards more unjustly condemned and slew him Is 1.11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full of the Burnt-offerings of Rams and the fat of fed Beasts and I delight not in the blood of Bullocks or of Lambs or of He-goats c. And at the 16th Wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil Ver. 17. Learn to do well seek Judgment relieve the Oppressed judge the Fatherless plead for the Widow Mich. 6.6 7 8. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the High God Shall I come before him with Burnt offerings with Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousands of rivers of Oil Shall I give my first-born for my Transgression or the fruit of my Body for the sin of my Soul He hath shewed thee O Man what is Good And what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God But the sacrifices of God Psal 107.22 are sacrifices of Thanksgiving Psal 4.5 Sacrifices of Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.5 Spiritual Sacrifices Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ Sacrifices of praise and doing good Heb. 13.15 16. By him therefore let us offer up the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name But to do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased Sacrifices of love to God and our Neighbour Mark 12.33 And to love him with all the Heart and with all the Understanding and all the Soul and with all the Strength and to love his Neighbour as himself is more than all whole Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices Living Sacrifices Rom. 12.1 I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your reasonable service And the Author to the Hebrews chap. 10.5 brings Christ in from Psal 40.6 c. saying to God A Sacrifice and Offering thou wouldest not but a Body hast thou prepared me as the Septuagint reads it but the Hebrew hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Ears hast thou digged viz. opened to hear thy Commands not to Sacrifice certainly for saith he in Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure Then said I Lo I come to do thy Will O God Above when he said Sacrifices and Burnt-offerings for sin thou wouldest not neither hadst pleasure therein c. Then said I Lo I come to do thy Will O God He taketh away the first viz. Sacrifice that he may establish the second viz. doing the Will of God By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all c. Ver. 16. This is the Covenant I will make with them after those days speaking Jer. 31.33 of the New Covenant saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their Hearts and in their Minds will I write them Ver. 17. And their Sins and Iniquities will I remember no more Ver. 18. Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin c. From all which places compared and many more that we might consider it appears that Christ is a Sacrifice or Offering acceptable to God as he does his Will in prosecuting the end of his Mission the bringing Sinners to Repentance and Obedience to God against all opposition even Death it self giving up his Body to Death rather than omit any thing he was to do And Sinners have the benefit of this Sacrifice not as God is appeas'd atton'd or reconciled to Sin or Sinners by any pleasure that can be added to him by beholding the Pain Bloodshed or Death of an innocent Man but rather as they are attoned or reconciled to God and their Duty to him by beholding Christ's Obedience in doing the Will of his Father even under the greatest Sufferings even to Death he could meet with from the opposition of Earth and Hell his Constancy being a convincing Argument that his Doctrine was good and his Life to be imitated a Perswasive to follow him in Gospel or exact Moral Obedience through whatsoever Persecution for Righteousness sake leaving all those external and childish things of the Levitical Priesthood as useless Wherefore as a better Covenant God saith He will put his Laws into their Hearts What Laws The Laws of Offerings and Ceremonies might possibly be put into their Hearts no such Laws as readily come into the Hearts of considering Persons such as we have ver 24. viz. Love and good Works So that the Obedience of Christ is the Christian Sacrifice but not ours by its pacifying God for us Sinners but by our following it as it is an Example in offering up all we are and have in love to God which is our reasonable Duty Christ may also be said to be sacrificed for us as he dedicated and offered up his Life in prosecuting the Good of Sinners by teaching them and perswading them to be reconciled to God He may also be said to be a Sacrifice to the Wrath and Malice of the wicked Jews as they devoted him and gave him up to Death according to the Councel of Caiaphas to prevent the Romans coming upon them on the noise of his being said to be the King of the Jews they supposing as also his Disciples for some time did that he meant then to set up an earthly Kingdom thinking it was better that one Man should die than that the whole Nation should perish