sacrificed Beasts as well as the Iews yet in great extremities when they conceived their Gods to be highly displeased with them even the most civilized of them sacrificed Men which shews that they thought the death of Beasts to be an insufficient expiation for the sins of men And indeed it cannot be denied but that the Sacrifice of a Man as such is much more proportionable to the punishment which the sins of men deserve than the Sacrifice of a Beast because a Man is a much nobler Creature as being far advanced above a Beast by the Prerogative of his Reason and consequently his death considered as a Man must be a much more valuable exchange for the punishment that is due to those he dies for But herein the Heathen were miserably mistaken that they did not consider that the men whom they sacrificed were sinners as well as themselves and that it is a much greater flaw in an Expiatory Sacrifice to be a Sinner than to be a Brute For whereas the latter only renders it less effectual and valuable the former as was shewn before renders it utterly void and insignificant and therefore though the death of a Man considered as such is of much more value than the death of a Beast yet to expiate for the sins of men there is more internal vertue and efficacy in the death of an innocent Beast than of a sinful Man because the latter can expiate only for his own sin whereas the former can have no sin but that of others to expiate Since therefore men were all spotted and blemished with Sin there was no life so fit for them to offer to God in commutation for their forfeited lives as that of innocent Brutes so that the best commutation they could make was infinitely short of their demerit And suppose that the men which the Heathen offered had been all pure and innocent yet their lives would have been only an equivalent commutation for the forfeited lives of an equal number of sinners unless therefore one half of Mankind had been innocent and they had been sacrificed for the other half that was guilty it had not been an equal Commutation so much as for the temporal punishment which was due to God from the guilty but then for their eternal punishment a Hecatomb of Angels had been short and insufficient For what proportion is there between a temporary death and an eternal misery Since therefore in great compassion to us God hath thought meet to accept of a Sacrifice in lieu of that punishment which was due to him from Mankind and since to secure his own Authority it was highly requisite that what this Sacrifice suffered for us should be in some measure equivalent to what we had deserved and since we had deserved to suffer for ever it necessarily follows that this Sacrifice must be something infinitely more precious and valuable than the bloud of Bulls and Goats yea than the lives of Men or Angels and what can that be but the bloud of the Eternal Son of God the infinite dignity of whose Person rendered his sufferings for us equivalent to the infinite demerit of our sins For it was the dignity of his Person that gave the value to his sufferings and inhanced his temporary Death to a full equivalence to those endless miseries which we had deserved For if the life of a King be as David's People told him worth ten thousand lives of what an infinite value must the life of the Lord of glory and of the Prince of life be who being the Son of God of the same Nature and Essence with his eternal Father must from thence necessarily derive upon his Sacrifice an immensity of worth and efficacy And hence we are said to be purchased with the bloud of God Acts 20.28 and to have the life of God laid down for us Iohn 3.16 and to be redeemed not with corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the precious bloud of Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 19. and accordingly the Author to the Hebrews makes the vertue and efficacy of Christ's bloud to consist in the worth and value of it For if the bloud of Bulls and Goats c. sanctified to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the bloud of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living God Heb. 9.13 14. By all which it is evident that it was the infinite dignity of Christ's Person which derived that infinite merit on his Sacrifice whereby it became an equivalent to the infinite demerit of our sins Nay of such an infinite value and worth was his Sacrifice that it not only countervailed for the punishment due for our sin but did abundantly preponderate it upon which account God ingaged himself not only to remit that Punishment in consideration of it but also to bestow his Spirit and eternal life on us both which as hath been shewn before are as well the purchace of Christ's bloud as the remission of our sins For God might have remitted our punishment without superadding the gift of his Spirit and eternal life to it and therefore since in consideration of Christ's bloud he hath superadded these Gifts to the remission of our punishment it is evident that his bloud was equivalent to both i. e. that it was not only a valuable consideration for the pardon of our sins but also for the assistance of his Spirit and our eternal happiness IV. His Death was on his part voluntary and unforced For since as a Sacrifice he was to be innocent and yet to undergo the punishment of our sin he could not be the one and do the other without his own free consent and approbation For no innocent person can be justly made obnoxious to punishment but by his own Act and Choice because punishment bears a necessary respect to sin and the desert of suffering evil doth originally spring out of doing evil So that an innocent person considered as such cannot deserve to be punished nor consequently be justly obliged thereunto but yet notwithstanding his innocency he may by his own Will and Consent oblige himself to undergo a punishment which otherwise he did not deserve and when he hath so obliged himself the punishment may be justly exacted of him For though he hath no sin of his own to be punished for yet he may by his own act oblige himself to undergo the punishment of another man's And therefore though merely as an innocent person he cannot deserve to be punished either upon his own account or any other man's because having no sin of his own he cannot be guilty of another man's yet so far as he hath the free disposal of himself he may substitute himself in the room of one that is guilty and thereby render himself obnoxious to his punishment As for instance suppose that by some criminal action of his own a man hath forfeited his liberty or life to the Law it
our Advocate in Heaven yet we can never be so fond sure as to imagine that he loves us better than his own Father and if he doth not we may build upon it that he is as zealously concerned to assert his Authority as to prosecute our interest and to provide that he be obeyed or avenged as that we be pardoned and rewarded but for us to rely upon Christ as mediating for us without submitting to him as mediating for God is in effect to hope that he will be so exceeding gracious to us as to betray his Father's trust for our sake and sacrifice his authority to our safety For should he take our part with God and solicite him to favour us while we persist in our rebellions against him he would in effect abandon the cause and interest of God's Government and endeavour all that in him lay to expose his authority to the scorn and contâ—mpt of Mankind Whilst therefore we obstinately refuse to hearken to him in his Mediation for God that is to submit to his Laws and return to our duty and allegiance he will be so far from interceding for us in the vertue of his meritorious sacrifice that he will appear against us as an incensed Judge in the quarrel of his Father's Authority and dearly revenge upon our guilty heads all those shameless affronts and indignities we have offered it and by making us everlasting Monuments of his Vengeance convince us by woful experience that he is no less a just Mediator for God than a merciful Mediator for Men. So that by resolving to persist in our rebellion against God we do in effect renounce the Mediation of our Saviour and proclaim before God and Angels that we will not be beholden to the one and only Advocate of sinners And when we have flung our selves out of this Protection Lord whither shall we go for sanctuary from thy vengeance When there is but this one Mediator and he hath discarded me O my wretched Soul whither wilt thou betake thy self Call now and see if there be any will hear thee to which of all the Saints or Angels wilt thou turn thee What Favourite of Heaven will plead thy cause when the only Advocate of Souls hath rejected thee For if he who is my only Mediator be incensed against me who shall Mediate between me and him When God alone was angry with me there was some hope because my Saviour stands as a living Screen between me and his displeasure to guard and defend me from it but when that is kindled against me too what is there to interpose between me and the devouring flame Be wise therefore O ye sinners be instructed ye obstinate Rebels against God Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way for if his wrath be kindled but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him but Wo be to them that provoke him Thus the Mediation of Christ addresses to our fear as well as hope in order to the subduing us to the Will of God and presses at once upon both these great Avenues of our Souls with the most irresistible Motives III. That this his Mediation proceeds upon certain terms and stipulations between God and Men which he obtained of God for us and in his name hath published and tendered to us For when Mankind by reason of the degeneracy of humane nature were cut off from all immediate intercourse with God and this most wise and holy Method of conversing with us by a Mediator was resolved on by the Divine Council God in consideration of what our Mediator had ingaged himself to suffer for us in the fulness of time granted to him in our behalf a most gracious and merciful Covenant whereby he ingaged himself to bestow his spirit upon us to inable us to repent and return to him upon condition that we should seek it and co-operate with it to pardon all our past sins upon condition that we should unfeignedly repent of them and to crown us with eternal life upon condition we should persevere to the end in well-doing This is the substance of that gracious Covenant which God hath granted to us for the sake of our Mediator who hath accordingly assured us from God that he will give his holy Spirit unto them that ask Luke 11.13 That if we will repent and be converted our sins shall be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord Acts 5.19 And that if we will be faithful to the death we shall receive a Crown of life Rev. 2.10 And upon this Covenant it is that our blessed Saviour proceeds in his Mediation between God and Men. For our Baptismal Vow is nothing else but only a solemn engagement of our selves to perform the condition of this Covenant upon which there results to us a conditional right to all that God hath promised in it and when by this federal solemnity of Baptism God and we have once obliged our selves to each other by mutual promises and engagements Christ's Office as Mediator between us is to solicite on both sides for mutual performance and accordingly in Mediating for God with us he requires nothing of us but what we promised to God and in mediating for us with God he claims nothing of God but what God promised to us And hence he is called The Mediator of this better Covenant Heb. 8.6 and The Mediator of the new Covenant Heb. 12.24 because he transacts between both Parties to solicite the performance of their mutual engagements For so the same Author in Heb. 9.14 15. seems to explain it How much more saith he having spoken before of the vertue of the bloud of Bulls and Goats shall the bloud of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge our Consciences from dead Works to serve the living God and for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Covenant that by means of death for the Redemption of transgressions c. they which are called might receive the promise of eternal Inheritance where those words and for this cause seem as well to refer to what went before as to what follows and then the sence will be this For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Covenant both that he might take care that our Consciences being purged from dead works we might serve the living God and that having redeemed us by his Death we might receive the promise of eternal Inheritance And accordingly he proceeds in his Mediation for in acting for God as his King or Vicegerent he hath enacted the conditions which this Covenant requires of us into the Laws of his Kingdom and exacts them of us under the fearful Penalty of eternal Damnation whereby he hath taken effectual care that we shall either perform these conditions or undergo a punishment as great as the guilt of our neglect and contempt of them and having thus tied them upon us by the
reason to repose our trust and confidence in him and therefore that we might have the same reason to confide in him in his Mediation for us as God had in his Mediation for him God so ordered it not only that he should assume our nature which if he had so thought meet he might have done without either being seen of us or born among us but also that he should so assume it as to be visibly born of humane kind and manifested in it in the open view and sight of the World. For in the fulness of that time which was long before prefixed in the Eternal Council of God the Holy Ghost by an immediate invisible and miraculous operation on the pure and Immaculate Womb of a Virgin called Mary of the Lineage of David inabled her without any Congress of Man to conceive a Child of humane kind consisting of a rational Soul in a mortal body which the Eternal Word or natural Son of God who was before all Worlds immediately assumed into a personal Vnion with himself whereby he became God-man who before was only God and this without either commixing his two natures into one or converting either of them into the other but under their Personal Union preserving them still distinct and separate which God-man the blessed Virgin that conceived him actually brought forth after the natural time of Women and Nursed and Educated till he arrived to the Age of man at which time he began personally to treat with men in his Father's behalf and in order to the reducing them to their bounden duty and allegiance to the Throne of Heaven revealed his Mind and Will to them with his own mouth and pressed and inforced it upon them with the most powerful Motives that ever were urged to mankind and by his own miraculous Works and most holy Example abundantly demonstrated to them that what he revealed to be the Will of his Father was true and practicable Thus far in his own person he Mediated for his Father with Men as I shall shew more fully hereafter The consideration of which ought in all reason and conscience to render his Mediation more prevalent with us For when God the Father hath condescended so far as to send down his only Son from Heaven on an Embassie to us to propose to us terms of reconciliation who had so highly incensed and affronted him when God the Son hath condescended so far as to cloath himself in our nature that therein he might indear himself to us and thereby oblige us to listen more attentively to his gracious proposals what a stupendous height of obstinacy will it be in us to stop our Ears against him and reject those terms of Mercy he proposes to us by persisting in a wilful rebellion Had God sent but one of the lowest Angels in Heaven to us to promise pardon and eternal life to us upon condition we would but sincerely submit to his Will one would have thought a proposal so infinitely reasonable in it self and advantagious to us should have been imbraced by us with transports and raptures but to reject it now when he hath sent it to us by his own Eternal Son whom all his Angels adore and by his Son incarnate in our own natures is such a degree of obstinacy and ingratitude together as no Devil was ever guilty of Suppose that you beheld this most glorious Person coming down to you from the right hand of God to tender you a Pardon and a Crown upon condition you would submit to his Father's Will and denounce everlasting vengeance against you if you persist in your rebellion would you dare by refusing to submit to reject that Pardon and that Crown and defie that vengeance to his face One would think it were impossible but yet in effect you do the same thing who believe that that Jesus who preached this Gospel to the World 1600. years ago was the Son of God in Humane Nature and yet obstinately refuse to submit to its proposals Hence from this very Topick that God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his own Son Heb. 1.2 the Apostle himself makes this inference Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip Heb. 2.1 And now having finished his Personal Treaty or Mediation with us for God he lays the foundation of his everlasting Intercession for us with God before our own Eyes viz. in the Sacrifice of himself for the sins of the World. He might if he had pleased have suffered death for us in the invisible state and received those tortures from the malice of Devils which were inflicted on him by the malice of devilish men but that would not have given so great a satisfaction to our Faith. For for the Son of God to lay down his life for Sinners is such a stupendous instance of love as would have exceeded the belief of Mankind had it not been openly and visibly transacted and therefore he rather chose to resign up himself into the hands of the Iews his cruel Persecutors and by them to offer up his Life upon the Cross in the Publick view of the World. And now having given this sensible evidence to our Faith that he died for us to satisfie us farther that his death was accepted by his Father as a full atonement for our sins he rose again from the dead the third day after his Crucifixion which was a plain evidence that his Father was fully satisfied with what he had suffered for us because he exacted no more but by his Resurrection actually discharged him from any farther suffering for ever So that the Resurrection of Christ is not only an evidence of the truth of his Religion under which notion I shall discourse of it hereafter but also of the acceptation of his Sacrifice For so the Apostle intimates in Rom. 8.33 34. Who then shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again i. e. Who is there now that can presume to denounce eternal condemnation against any good Christian since Christ himself hath laid down his life for him yea rather since he is risen again from the dead and hath thereby given sufficient evidence that God hath accepted his death as our ransom from eternal condemnation And now having satisfied our Faith in these two great points that he died for our sins and that God hath accepted his death in lieu of that eternal punishment that was due for them all the farther satisfaction we can ask or need is that as he came down from the Father to Mediate personally with us for him so he should return back again to the Father to Mediate personally for us with him to exhibite and plead his meritorious Sacrifice in our behalf and in vertue thereof to solicite our pardon and acceptation with God.
And therefore to satisfie us in this also after he had abode some time upon Earth after his Resurrection and satisfied his Disciples by frequent converses with them that he was really risen and given them all necessary Orders for their future conduct in the propagation of his Gospel he carried them out to Bethany where after he had lift up his hands and blessed them he ascended before their eyes into Heaven upon which it is said Luke 24.52 That they worshipped him and returned to Ierusalem with great Ioy surely not because their dear Lord was gone from them never in this World to be seen by them more that was cause of sorrow rather than joy to them but because he was gone to the right hand of the Father there to intercede in Person for them and for ever to exhibite that wounded and bleeding body of his by which he had made expiation for the sins of the World and purchased the promise of the Spirit and of eternal life upon this account indeed they had great cause to rejoyce because now they knew they had a sure Friend in Heaven where their main hope and interest lay even that very Friend who not long before had freely exposed himself to a most shameful and tormenting death to rescue them from death eternal and who after such an instance of love they could not but conclude would employ his utmost interest with the Father in their behalf and in a word who being the only begotten of the Father whose precious Bloud he had graciously accepted as a ransom for the sins of the World could not but have an interest with him infinitely sufficient to obtain for them all the graces and favours that were fit either for them to ask or for his Father to bestow So that now if we heartily comply with him as Mediating for his Father with us we have all the encouragement in the world to depend on him as Mediating for us with his Father since he doth not Mediate with him by a second hand or at a distance but in his own Person in that very Person which is not only infinitely dear to the Father as being his only begotten Son but hath also infinitely merited of him by offering him his own life at his command as a Sacrifice for the sins of the World. And accordingly upon this consideration the Apostle founds the hope of Christians 1 Iohn 2.1 2. My little Children these things write I unto you that ye sin not but if any man sin let him not presently give up himself as hopeless and irrecoverable for we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins VI. And lastly Another thing which the Scripture proposes to our belief concerning this Mediator is that upon his return from us to Heaven there to Mediate Personally for Men with God he substituted the divine and Omnipresent Spirit Personally to promote and effectuate his Mediation for God with Men. When he went up to Heaven there to Mediate for us with God he did not thereby abandon his Mediation for God with us but immediately substituted a certain mighty spiritual Being to act for him whom he calls the Advocate or as we render it the Comforter and the Holy Ghost and who was to Mediate with Men in his behalf even as he Mediated with them in the behalf of his Father and to Advocate for his Authority as he Advocated for his Father's For so he tells his Ministers whom he left behind him to assert and propagate his Authority in the World I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter or Advocate i. e. to plead for and inforce your Ministry in my behalf whose Ministers you are that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth c. I will not leave you comfortless or without an Advocate I will come to you that is by this Spirit of Truth who is to be my Vicegerent even as I am my Father's Iohn 14.16 17 18. But for the fuller explication of this great and necessary Article I shall first shew what this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence Secondly I shall explain his subordination and substitution to Christ in this part of his Mediation Thirdly I shall shew what it is that he hath done and still continues to do in order to the effecting this Mediation First What this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence I answer it is the third Person in the Tri-une Godhead For that besides the Father and the Son there is a third divine Person subsisting in the Godhead seems to have been a current Doctrine among the ancient Writers both Gentile and Iewish and is most plainly and expresly asserted in holy Scripture which third Person is known in Scripture by the name of the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of the Lord. For that the Holy Ghost so often named in the New Testament is the same with that Spirit of the Lord so much celebrated in the Old S. Peter expresly asserts 2 Pet. 1.2 For the Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost from which words it is evident that this Holy Ghost whom S. Peter here mentions is the very same with that holy Spirit or Spirit of the Lord by whom as we are told in the Old Testament the ancient Prophets were inspired vid. Isa. 63.11 2 Sam. 23.2 Mich. 2.7 and abundance of other places and accordingly S. Peter applies that Prophecy of Ioel 2.28 I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh to that miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost Acts 2.16 17. but this is that saith he which was spoken by the Prophet Ioel c. which could not be true if Peter's Holy Ghost were not the same with Ioel's spirit of the Lord. But it is most certain that the Holy Ghost whom S. Peter and the New Testament so often mention was in the first place a real Person and not a meer Quality as the Socinians vainly dream For so we every where find personal properties and actions attributed to him Thus he is said to speak Acts 28.25 and Heb. 3.7 yea and his speeches are frequently recorded so Acts 10.20 The Spirit said unto Peter arise therefore get thee down and go with them for I have sent thee and Acts 13.2 The Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them and how can we without horrible force to such plain historical relations which ought to be literal and not figurative attribute these speeches to a meer Vertue or Quality And elsewhere he is said to reprove the world Iohn 16.8 and to search into and know the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 11. and to divide his Gifts
deserve he had been obliged in justice to discharge us without any farther condition yet since out of his own free grace he hath admitted another to suffer for us he may admit it with what limitations he pleases and if he shall think meet as he hath done to limit it to our repentance and amendment all that Christ hath suffered for us will be insignificant to our discharge from our obligation to punishment unless we repent and amend So that the Death of Christ you see doth not expiate mens sins as their personal punishments do by their own natural vertue but by vertue of God's accepting it upon his own terms and conditions And without God's accepting it it would not have been at all an expiation for the sins of the World and without the conditions upon which he accepteth it viz. our repentance and amendment it will not be at all an Expiation for ours Now God hath solemnly declared his acceptance of Christ's Death as an Expiation for our sins for it was God that laid upon him the iniquities of us all Isa. 53.6 that gave his only begotten Son John 3.16 and sent him to be a propitiation for us 1 Joh. 4.10 which plainly imply his free acceptance of him And therefore Christ is said to have given himself for us an Offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Eph. 5.2 i. e. for an Expiation that was highly grateful and acceptable to him So that now the expiation of our sins by the bloud of Christ wholly depends on our performing the condition on which God hath accepted it and since it is upon condition that we repent and amend that God hath accepted the bloud of Christ in exchange for the eternal punishment we owe him unless we perform this condition the Bloud of Christ will not at all avail us but we shall still remain as much obliged to undergo that punishment as if he had never died for us at all God's acceptance indeed hath made the Death of Christ available for us under those conditions and limitations upon which he accepted it but if when he hath accepted it conditionally we expect that it should avail us absolutely and unconditionally we miserably deceive and abuse our own souls Thus far therefore God's acceptance of Christ's Death instead of the punishment we have deserved hath rendred it an effectual expiation and ransom for sinners that if they repent and amend they shall be released and acquitted from the obligation they lie under to suffer eternal punishment in their own persons and entitled to everlasting life and happiness And thus the Death of Christ you see had in it all the necessary qualifications of a real and compleat propitiatory Sacrifice I proceed therefore in the second place to shew what a wise and effectual method this of God's admitting Christ's Sacrifice for sinners is to reduce and reform Mankind which will evidently appear by considering these five things First That the Sacrifice of Christ's Death was a most sensible and affecting acknowledgment of the infinite guilt and demerit of our sin For thus under the Law the offering of Propitiatory Sacrifices implied a most solemn and sensible confession of the guilt of the Offerer For his laying his hand upon the head of his Sacrifice was a Symbolical action by which he solemnly acknowledged to God that he had justly deserved to suffer that death himself which his Sacrifice was suffering for him and accordingly the Jews have this Maxim Vbi non est peccatorum confessio ibi non est impositio manuum quia manuum impositio ad confessionem pertinet where there is no confession of sins there is no imposition of hands because the imposition of hands appertains to Confession For so Lev. 5.5 they are particularly directed to confess their sins upon their bringing their Trespass-Offering before the Lord and as hath been shewn before they had a set Form of Confession in all their expiatory Sacrifices and particularly in that solemn Propitiation viz. the dismission of the Scape-Goat the High Priest is directed to lay both his hands upon the Goat's Head and to confess over him all the iniquities of the Children of Israel Lev. 16.21 so that as Confession is a kind of audible Sacrifice so Sacrifice was a kind of visible Confession and the demerit of their sin being thus represented to their Eyes by the death of their Sacrifice was far more apt to move and affect them with horror and detestation of it than any audible Confession how severe or pungent soever And accordingly our Saviour in offering up himself as an expiation for our sin did as it were lay his hand upon his own head and as our Representative solemnly acknowledge to God that we had justly deserved to suffer for our sin a punishment equivalent to that which he was undergoing for us And what a dreadful one must that be which is equivalent to the Death of the Son of God What less punishment than our everlasting misery can countervail the temporary death of him who was so eminent and innocent who was God-man united in one person and the Lamb of God without spot or blemish If the Iews by sacrificing a Beast did make such a moving acknowledgment that they themselves deserved to die how much more did Christ by sacrificing himself for us acknowledge in our stead that we deserved to die eternally So that whatsoever vertue there is in the most bitter and pathetick confession to create in mens minds a horrour and detestation of their sins all that and much more there is in the Sacrifice of our Saviour whose Bloud cried louder against our sins and made a far more Tragical confession of their demerit than it 's possible for the most sorrowful Penitent to do with all the Eloquence of his grief and bitter strains of self-abhorrence And hence our Saviour is said to have condemned sin in the flesh Rom. 8.3 i. e. to have solemnly acknowledged by his dying for it what a dreadful punishment it deserves Secondly It is to be considered also that the Sacrifice of Christ's Death was a most ample declaration of God's severity against our sins All wise Governours ought so to exercise their Mercy as that it may not be prejudicial to their Authority by giving Offenders encouragement to kick against it but whilst their mercy is easie and apt to be moved by slight Reasons and Motives it will infallibly expose their Authority and render it cheap and vile in the eyes of bold and insolent Offenders the Reasons therefore which move a Prince to pardon Criminals ought to be such if possible as give all manner of discouragement to them from presuming upon impunity for the future God therefore being inclined by the infinite benignity of his Nature to shew mercy to sinners was obliged in wisdom to shew it in such a way and upon such reasons as might sufficiently discourage them from presuming upon his Mercy to the prejudice of his Authority
sins of many and make intercession for the transgressors all which expressions do as plainly denote him to be substituted to be punished for us in order to our release as it is possible for words to do and unless we will admit that to be the sence of Scripture which the words of it do as plainly import as they could have done if it had been its sence it will be impossible to determine it to any sence whatsoever because men may prevaricate upon the plainest words and with quirks of Wit and Criticism pervert them to a contrary meaning And I dare undertake by the same Arts that our Adversaries use to avoid the force of these Testimonies to elude the plainest words that the Wit of man can invent to express this Proposition that Christ's Death was a punishment for our sins which to any reasonable man is a sufficient answer to all the Socinian Cavils And indeed the whole current of Scripture runs so clear against them that they do as good as acknowledge that according to the most common and natural acceptation of its words it fairly implies the Doctrine we contend for viz. that the Death of Christ was a real punishment for the sins of the World but their main Plea is that it is unjust in the nature of the thing to punish one man for the sins of another and therefore we ought rather to impose any sence on the words of Scripture how forein soever than attribute to God so great a piece of injustice as the punishing his own Son for the sins of the World. But as for the Iustice of this procedure I shall endeavour by and by to clear and vindicate it II. He died in pure and spotless Innocence and this was highly necessary to his being an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of others For had he been a sinner he had deserved to die upon his own account and the utmost effect of his Death could have been only the Expiation of his own sin by which his life must have been forfeited to the divine Justice and it is impossible that he who hath forfeited his own life should by his death redeem the forfeited lives of others And accorcordingly Heb. 7.26 27. we are told that such an High Priest became us who is holy harmless and undefiled separate from sinners and made higher than the Heavens who needed not daily as those High Priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins c. because the Sacrifice which he offered was his own life so that had he been obliged to offer that for his own sins it could have made no Expiation for ours the bare payment of a man 's own debt being no satisfaction for other mens And therefore herein the Apostle places the vertue and efficacy of Christ's bloud by which it was rendred sufficiently precious to be a ransom for the sins of the World that it was of a Lamb without spot or blemish i. e. the bloud of a most holy and innocent person who never deserved the least evil on his own account and therefore was truly precious and sit to be a ransom for the sins of others 1 Pet. 1.18 19. And accordingly he is said to be made sin for us i. e. to be devoted as a Sacrifice for our sins who knew no sin 2 Cor. 5.21 where you see the great Emphasis of his Sacrifice is laid upon his Innocence as that which was necessary to qualifie him to be a Sacrifice for others So that by that spotless obedience of Christ's life through the whole course of which he did no sin neither was there any guile found in his mouth he consecrated himself an acceptable Sacrifice to God for the sins of the World. III. His Death was of sufficient intrinsick worth and value to be an equivalent commutation for the punishment that was due to the whole world of sinners For the reason why God would not pardon sinners without some commutation for the punishment that was due from them to his Justice was that he might preserve and maintain the Authority of his Laws and Government For had he exacted the punishment from the sinners themselves he must have destroyed the whole Race of Mankind and had he pardoned them on the other hand without any punishment at all he must have exposed his authority to the contempt and outrage of every bold and insolent Offender and therefore to avoid these dangerous extremities of severity and impunity his infinite wisdom found out this expedient to admit of some exchange for our persons and punishment that so some other thing or person being substituted in our stead to suffer and be punished for us neither we might be destroyed nor our sins be unpunished This therefore being the reason of God's admitting of Sacrifice it was highly requisite that the punishment of the Sacrifice should bear some proportion to the guilt of the Offenders otherwise it will not answer God's reason of admitting it For since the reason of his admitting it was the security of his Authority the less he had admitted the less he must have secured his Authority by it For to have exacted a small punishment for a great demerit would have been within a few degrees as destructive to his Authority as to have exacted none at all to punish but little for great Crimes is within one remove as mischievous to Government as total impunity and therefore to support his own Authority over us it was highly requisite that he should exact not only a punishment for our sin but also a punishment proportionable to the guilt and demerit of it For there is no doubt but the nearer the punishment is to the demerit of the sin the greater security it must give to his Authority And upon this account the Sacrifices of the Iews were infinitely short of making a full expiation for their sins because being but brute Animals their death was no way a proportionable punishment to the great demerit of the sins of the People For what proportion could there be between the momentany sufferings of a Beast and those eternal sufferings which the sins of a man do deserve The death of a Beast is a punishment very short of the death of a Man but infinitely short of that eternal death to which the man's guilts do oblige him and accordingly the Expiations which were made for Men by the death of those Beasts were very short and imperfect For so the Apostle tells us that they only sanctified to the purifying of the flesh Heb. 9.13 that is to the acquitting them from their Corporal Penalties and legal Vncleannesses but could not at all make them perfect as pertaining to their Consciences i. e. could not expiate the guilt of any wilful sin by which their Consciences were laid waste and wounded ver 9. And accordingly the Heathen seem to be aware how short the death of Beasts was of the punishment which was due for the sins of Men. For though in ordinary cases they
and there is no reason could be so sufficient to this end as a valuable Sacrifice to suffer in our stead and bear the punishment of our sin which reason carries with it such an awful severity as must needs dishearten any considering sinner from presuming upon impunity if he go on in his sin For next to exacting the punishment of the Offender himself the most dreadful severity he could have expressed was not to remit it upon any consideration but this that some other should undergo it in his stead and by how much greater and more valuable the person is who undergoes it for us so much greater and more formidable God's severity appears in remitting it to us Since therefore in consideration of our Pardon God would admit no meaner Sacrifice than the precious Bloud of his own Eternal Son he hath hereby expressed the utmost indignation against our sin that he could possibly do unless he had absolutely resolved never to pardon it at all So that now we have all the reason that Heaven or Earth can afford us to tremble at his severity even while we are within the Arms of his mercy For what man in his Wits would take encouragement to sin on from a mercy that cost the Bloud of the Son of God He that can presume upon such a reason of mercy hath courage enough to out-face the flames of Hell and if Hell it self had stood open before us and we had seen the damned Ghosts weltering in the flames of it it would not have given us such a loud and horrible warning of God's severity against our sin as this tremendous Sacrifice of the Son of God doth If then a mercy that is so secured from being made an encouragement to sin by the terrible reason and consideration upon which it is founded cannot deter us from sinning on there is no wise mercy that we are capable of and consequently no mercy that the great God can indulge with safety to his Authority For what mercy can be safe from our abuse and presumption if this be not that is thus guarded with thunder and attended with the utmost severity that mercy could possibly admit of Wherefore if after I have seen my Saviour in his Agony deprecating with fruitless cries that fearful Cup which I deserved if after I have beheld him hanging on the Cross covered with Wounds and Bloud and in the bitter Agony of his Soul heard him crying out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And in a word if after I have seen that God to whom he was infinitely dear and precious turn a deaf ear to his mournful cries and utterly refuse to abate him so much as one degree or circumstance of a most shameful and tormenting death in consideration of my Pardon If I say after such a horrible spectacle I have heart enough to sin on I am a couragious sinner indeed or rather a desperate one not to be affected or restrained by all the terrors of Hell. Thirdly This Sacrifice of Christ is also to be considered as a most obliging expression of the love of God and our Saviour to us For if God had so pleased he might have exacted our punishment at our own hands and made us smart for ever in our own Persons and this notwithstanding we had heartily repented For though to repent is the best thing a sinner can do yet it doth not alter the nature of the sin he repenteth of so as to render it less evil or less deserving of punishment nor indeed is Repentance a sufficient reason to move the all-wise Governour of the World to grant a publick Act of pardon and indulgence to sinners it being inconsistent with the safety of any Government Divine or Humane so far to encourage Offenders as to indemnifie them by a publick Declaration meerly upon condition of their future repentance and amendment For all men are naturally apt to presume that God will be better to them than his word and therefore had he declared that he would pardon them upon their repentance without any other reason this would have encouraged them to hope that he might pardon them though they repented not at all or at least though they repented but by halves Wherefore since our repentance is not a sufficient reason to oblige God to grant a publick Pardon to sinners and since this was the best reason we could offer in our own behalf to move him thereunto it hence necessarily follows that he might have justly exacted the punishment of our sin of us and made us smart for it for ever notwithstanding the best reason we could have offered him to the contrary But such was his goodness towards us as to admit another to suffer in our stead that so neither we might be ruined nor our sins be unpunished And then that the punishment of our sin might be a sufficient reparation to his injured Authority he admitted his own Son upon his voluntary offering himself to undergo it for us who by the dignity and innocence of his Person rendered that temporary Death he underwent for us equiâ—alent to that eternal Death which we had deserved Now what a Prodigy of love was this that the God of Heaven whom we had so infinitely offended should part with his own Son for us and freely consent that he should undergo our punishment Which while I seriously consider it puzzles my conceit and out-reaches my wonder so that though I have infinite reason to rejoyce in it yet while I am contemplating it I seem to be looking down from some stupendious Precipice whose height fills me with a sacred horrour and almost oversets my Reason But Oh! the amazing love of the Son of God towards us that he should put himself in our stead and interpose his own Breast as a living Shield between ours and his Father's Vengeance which considering the greatness of his Person and of our unworthiness is such a stupendious expression of Love as no Romance of Friendship ever thought of And what is the proper influence of all this love but to oblige us for ever to God and our Saviour in the bands of a reciprocal affection to melt down our stubbornness and enmity against them and draw us on to our duty with the Cords of an invincible indearment For is it possible my sins should be as dear to me as the Son of God was to his own Father and yet the Father left him out of love to me and shall not I leave them out of love to him And when the Son of God hath been so kind to me as to lay down his life for me can I be so ingrateful to him as to doat upon those sins which he hated more than all the shame and torment which he endured on their account those sins that were the cause of all his sufferings the Thorns that gored his Temples and the Nails that pierced his hands and feet Sure if we are not utterly lost to all that is modest and
bestows upon us he bestows by the hand of Jesus Christ whom upon his first Oblation of his precious Sacrifice in heaven and continual intercession with it he constituted and continues the Royal distributer of all his graces and favours to the World. And therefore since there is no doubt but that that which he obtains by his intercession is the thing which he intercedes for it necessarily follows that the thing which he intercedes for is power to bestow on us the blessings of the New Covenant because he hath actually obtained that power by his Intercession Having thus given as plain and as brief an account as I could of this second Priestly Act of our Saviour viz. his Intercession for us in Heaven by the continual Oblation of his Sacrifice there I proceed in the second place to shew the admirable tendency of this method of God's communicating his Graces and Favours to us through the intercession of our Saviour to reduce and reform Mankind which will plainly appear by considering the following particulars First This method naturally tends to excite in us a mighty aw and reverence of God's Majesty Secondly It also tends to give us the strongest conviction of God's hatred and abhorrence of our sins Thirdly It also tends most effectually to secure us from presuming upon God's mercy while we continue in our sins Fourthly It tends to encourage us to draw near to God with Chearfulness and freedom Fifthly It tends to give us the most ample assurance of his gracious intentions towards us if we repent and return to our duty I. This method of God's communicating his Favours to us through our Saviour's intercession is naturally apt to excite in us a mighty aw and reverence of the divine Majesty For in this degenerate condition wherein our Nature is inverted and turned upside down and our sensitive faculties have got the ascendant of our Reason rational Objects have incomparably less force on and prevalence with us than material and sensitive And hence it is that we are so unapt to be affected with the Majesty of God though in it self infinite and incomprehensible because it being purely spiritual is objected only to our Faith and Reason and doth not strike upon our sense with the Rays of a visible glory And hence it was that under the Old Testament God so frequently exhibited himself to mens eyes in sensible appearances as particularly sometimes in a humane shape and sometimes in a body of light or of shining flame that so by making an impression of his great Majesty on their sense he might affect them with a sutable aw and dread of it And for the same reason that he conversed with them in these sensible appearances he also treated with them by a Mediator on Mount Sinai for God commanded that bounds should be set round about the Mountain which the People were forbid upon peril of death to break through unto the Lord to gaze and only Moses their Mediator together with his Brother Aaron were permitted to ascend the Mount and to have immediate access to him and by thus keeping them at a distence from his sacred presence and only suffering them to approach him by their Mediator he took an effectual course to inspire their minds with a reverential aw of his divine Majesty which is in it self so infinitely sacred and August that it seems it would have been an high Prophanation in them to have conversed with it immediately And accordingly God by keeping us at a distance from him and allowing us to have access to him only by our Mediator expresses the greatness of his Majesty which is too sacred to be mingled in conversation with us too sublime to admit of the immediate addresses of poor Mortals yea and which no Mortal must approach without the Mediation of his own Eternal Son for thus Plato in his Sympos gives it as an instance of the Majesty of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. God doth not mingle himself with men but all the converse and intercourse between him and us is transacted by the Mediation of Demons And if it were thought so great an instance of God's Majesty that he would not be approached by us without the Mediation of Angels to what an infinite height must he be exalted above us when no less a person than he who is God-man can so much as give us access to him or present our Prayers and Supplications at his feet O! what an awful sense therefore of the Majesty of God should this consideration beget in our minds For how can we think of him without dread and reverence when we consider how he is secluded by the infinite sacredness of his own Majesty from all immediate converse and intercourse with us and how he is exalted so infinitely above us as that we cannot have access to him so much as by our Prayers and Supplications without the interposition of a Mediator who is greater than the greatest of all the Kings on Earth or Angels in Heaven Surely he who can thus think of God without being struck into a profound aw and reverence of his Majesty must have a mind so hardened against all the impressions of Reason as that no wise thought can ever move or affect it II. This method of God's communicating his favours to us through our Saviour's Intercession tends also to give us the strongest conviction of God's hatred and abhorrence of our sins For doubtless to convince us how deeply he resents our sinful behaviour towards him the most effectual course he could take next to that of banishing us from his presence for ever was to exclude us from all immediate intercourse with him and not to admit of any more addresses or supplications from us but by the hand of some Mediator Hereby he plainly demonstrates how infinitely pure and abhorrent to sin his nature is that he will not suffer a sinful Creature to come near him but by Proxy nor accept of a service from a guilty hand nor listen to a Prayer from a sinful mouth till it is first hallowed and presented to him by a pure and holy Mediator If therefore we are not infinitely conceited of our selves this procedure of his cannot but lay us low in our own eyes and make us deeply sensible of our own vileness and baseness For how infinitely detestable must our sins be in his eyes when notwithstanding all his kindness and benevolence towards us he keeps us at such a distance from him and will not be prevailed with without some powerful intercession so much as to hear our Prayers or to have any kind of communication or intercourse with us And accordingly you find that when the three Friends of Iob had treated him so despitefully and uncharitably God to manifest his displeasure against them commands them to make use of Iob's Mediation Iob 42.7 My wrath saith he to Elephas is kindled against thee and against thy two Friends for ye have not spoken of me the thing that
and Phantasms of whatsoever Objects they please and continue and repeat those Pictures in our fancies as long and as oft as they think meet and then considering what the natural use of the fancy is both to the Vnderstanding and Will and how it prompts the one with matter of Invention and supplies it with variety of Objects to work on and draws forth or elicits the other to choose or refuse those Objects it presents according as they are amiably or odiously represented considering these things I say it is notorious what mighty advantages the evil Spirits have of insinuating their black suggestions to our minds And then they being very subtil and sagacious by nature and having had above five thousand years experience to cultivate their Talent of tempting and seducing us that having been their trade ever since they became Devils to be sure they can never be at a loss when or how to apply themselves to us and to nick us with such temptations as are most convenient to our several inclinations conditions and circumstances and accordingly 2 Cor. 2.11 the Devil is said to have his Methods or Devices i e. his stated Rules by which he governs his mischievous practice of tempting and seducing souls and 2 Tim. 2.26 we are told of the snare of the devil or his crafty devices to intangle and captivate mens Souls Now though the design of these evil Spirits in tempting Christ's Subjects is doubtless to seduce and ruine them yet it is evident that the design of Christ in permitting them to tempt them is only to try and exercise them and rouse them out of their sloth and inactivity and by the continual alarms of these their restless Adversaries to keep them upon their guard and make them more watchful and vigilant and accordingly from the consideration of that permission which these evil Spirits have to tempt us we are in Scripture frequently exhorted to activity and vigilance so 1 Pet. 5.8 Be sober be vigilant for the Devil your Adversary goeth about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour So also Ephes. 6.11 Put on the whole armour of God that ye may be able to stand against the Wiles of the Devil Since therefore the Devil 's tempting us is used by Christ as a motive to excite our activity it is evident that Christ's intention in permitting him to tempt us is to excite and stimulate us thereunto It is true the Devil's Temptations may and often have a quite contrary effect on us than Christ intended they may seduce us from our innocence and duty and thereby involve us in everlasting perdition but if they do it is our own fault and through our own consent without which they can never prevail against us for we are assured that if we resist the Devil he will fly away from us and that we shall not be tempted by him above what we are able and we are furnished by our Saviour with sufficient strength and assistance to repel his most powerful temptations but if instead of imploying our strength and exercising our vertue in a vigorous resistance of him which is the thing Christ intended in permitting him to tempt us we will tamely suffer our selves to be led Captive by him we must thank our selves for all the dire and miserable consequents of it II. Another instance of the Ministry of these evil Angels to Christ is their chastening and correcting the faults and miscarriages of his Subjects Thus upon great and high provocations he many times le ts loose these evil Spirits upon us and permits them to pain and punish us either immediately by themselves or mediately by their Instruments for so only to prevent St. Paul's being exalted above measure through the abundance of his revelations there was given a Thorn in the flesh the Messenger of Satan to buffet him i. e. as it seems most probable some evil Spirit was sent to him from Satan the Prince of Devils to inflict some corporal pain or disease on him for so the grieving thorn Ezek. 28.24 signifies a sore bodily affliction and though he sought the Lord thrice for this thing that it might depart from him yet could he receive no other Answer but My grace is sufficient for thee see 2 Cor. 12.7 8 9. and it is very probable that those weaknesses diseases and deaths which were inflicted on the Corinthians for their irreverent communication of the Lord's Supper vid. 1 Cor. 11.30 were inflicted by the Ministry of evil Angels to whose power and malice they were abandoned by our Saviour as a just Chastisement of their prophaneness for so it is evident the incestuous person was corrected upon the Sentence of his Excommunication which was that he should be delivered up unto Satan for the destruction of his flesh 1 Cor. 5.5 where the delivering him up to Satan seems to have been in answer to Satan's demanding of him for so in Scripture the Devil is sometimes called The accuser of the Brethren which accuses them before God day and night Rev. 12.10 and sometimes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies an Adversary in Court of Iudicature that impleads and accuses us before God 1 Pet. 5.8 Now this accusation of his is sometimes false and groundless as in the case of Iob upon which account he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Calumniator but sometimes he accuses us truly for faults that are real and highly criminal upon which he requires us of God as he did St. Peter Luke 22.31 i. e. he requires us as the Executioner doth a Malefactor to sift or winnow us as Wheat i. e. to shake and afflict us and when ever God is pleased to answer this request he is truly said to deliver us up to Satan and this power of delivering up to Satan such persons as are justly accused of great and scandalous sins God hath communicated to his Church upon which delivery in the Primitive Ages when there were no Magistrates to second the Churches Censures with Corporal punishments Satan as the Lictor or Executioner of our Saviour immediately seized the Criminal and inflicted on him some bodily disease or torment which St. Ignatius calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the punishment of the Devil Epist. ad Roman for so in our Saviour's time and before and after it it was usual for evil Spirits by God's permission to inflict diseases and torments on mens bodies of which there are innumerable instances in the Gospels and the Writings of the Primitive Fathers and that this was then the usual consequence of Excommunication is evident from that phrase For the destruction of the flesh which plainly signifies some corporal punishment consequent to that Tremendous Sentence which is therefore called a Rod 1 Cor. 4.21 because of the bodily correction that followed it But since the power of corporal punishments hath been derived by Christ upon Christian Magistrates he very rarely chastens his Subjects with any bodily pains by the immediate Agency of evil Spirits but
of sin is in Scripture frequently attributed to the Father as well as to the Son So 1 Iohn 1.9 If we confess our sins he i. e. the Father is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and Eph. 4.32 Forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you From whence it is plain that forgiveness of sin appertains to God as well as Christ and that both have their appropriate shares in it and therefore since it is impossible that the same individual action should proceed from two distinct Agents in this Act of forgiveness the Father must do something which the Son doth not and the Son must do something which the Father doth not They must both of them act an appropriate part in it and each have a distinct agency from each other For the fuller explication therefore of this Article I shall endeavour to shew first what it is which the Father doth in forgiving sins and secondly what the Son doth I. What is it that the Father doth in this Act of forgiveness of sin To which in short I answer That the Fathers part herein is to make a general grant of pardon to offenders upon such a consideration as he shall think meet to accept and with such a limitation and restriction he shall think fit to make which general Grant is nothing else but those glad tidings of the Gospel which he proclaimed to the World by Jesus Christ viz. that in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice he would freely forgive all penitent and believing sinners their personal obligation to eternal punishment and receive them into grace and favour So that in forgiving our sins there are these three things peculiar to God the Father First His making a general Grant of Pardon to us Secondly His making it in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice Thirdly His making it with those restrictions and limitations of Faith and Repentance First One thing peculiar to God the Father in forgiving sins is his making a general Grant of pardon and forgiveness to sinners For the Law against which all men had sinned and by which they were obliged to eternal punishment was strictly and properly the Law of God the Father who being the first and supreme person in the Godhead was consequently always the first and supreme in the divine Dominion Now the divine Dominion consisting even as all other Dominions do of a Legislative and executive power the Father must be supreme in both and consequently the Laws of the divine Dominion must be more especially and peculiarly his And hence it is called The Will of the Father Mat. 7.21 so in the Lords Prayer the Divine Law is in a peculiar manner stiled the Will of God the Father Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Matth. 12.50 our Saviour stiles it the Will of his Father which is in Heaven and elsewhere the Commandment of his Father vid. Ioh. 12.5 Mat. 15.3.6 Mar. 7.8 9. by all which it is evident that the Divine Law against which we have all offended and by which we are obliged to punishment is appropriately and peculiarly the Will and Commandment of God the Father and it being so the right of exacting or remitting the punishment of this Law must be peculiarly and appropriately inherent in him For the penalty of the Law is due to him whose Law it is and it is he alone can loose us from it who bound it upon us so that it was the Fathers peculiar as to give the Law so to indemnifie offenders from the Penalty of it and accordingly we find that publick Grant of pardon which through Jesus Christ is made to sinners is in Scripture every were attributed to the Father so we are told that it is God who for Christs sake hath forgiven us Eph. 4.32 and that it is God who hath set forth Christ to be a Propitiation though faith in his bloud to declare his Righteousness for the remission of sins that are past that he might be just and the justifier of them that believe in Iesus Rom. 2.25 26. that it was God who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their trespasses unto them 2 Cor. 5.19 And in a word that it is God who is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 1 John 1.9 where his being faithful and just plainly refers to some publick Grant and Promise by which he hath obliged himself to penitent offenders And indeed the whole new Covenant in which this publick Grant of remission of sins is contained vid. Heb. 8.12 is the act and deed of God the Father It was he that in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice granted this grand Charter of mercy to the World for seeing it was to the Father that that Sacrifice was offered in consideration of which the new Covenant was granted vid. Eph. 4.2 compared with Col. 1.20 the grant of it must necessarily be from the Father And as it was the Father that made this publick grant of Remission to sinners so II. It was he that made it in consideration of Christs Death and Sacrifice for so Christ himself tells us that it was by commandment which he received from his Father that he laid down his life Iohn 10.17 18. and when he was going to offer up himself upon the Cross he tells his Disciples As the Father gave me Commandment even so do I arise let us go hence i. e. to execute that Command which the Father hath given me to lay down my life for the sheep Ioh. 10.15 from whence it is evident that it was the Father who exacted the Death and Sacrifice of Christ in consideration of that publick Grant of forgiveness which he made to the World for it was through his blood that we have redemption the forgiveness of sins according to the Riches of his i. e. the Fathers grace Eph. 1.7 and that blood of his was an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Eph. 5.2 So that it was God the Father that did both exact and accept the sacrifice of Christ which as I have shewed at large Sect. 4. was in consideration of his pardoning and forgiving Sinners III. And lastly It was God the Father also that made this Grant of forgiveness to us with these restrictions and limitations of our believing and repenting For as the promises of the Covenant were his in which remission of sin is proposed to us so must the conditions of it be also by which it is limited and restrained Because it can belong to none but the giver to limit and conditionate his own Gifts and Grants Now the Conditions of our forgiveness are faith and repentance oâ—â—ather the condition of it is such a Faith such a lively and active belief in Jesus Christ as doth beget in us sincere repentance and renovation of life for so S. Paul tells us again
his continual intercession in Heaven Royal Authority to dispense that Promise to us doth by vertue of that Authority actually pardon us upon our actual repentance So that as soon as ever we perform the condition of Gods grant of pardon our Saviour who knows the inmost thoughts of our hearts and perfectly discerns our sincerity immediately pronounces our sentence of pardon and by a particular application of that general grant to us absolves us from our obligation to eternal punishment and freely receives us into Grace and Favour For though the completion and publication of our pardon is reserved for the day of judgment when we shall be absolved from all punishment i. e. not only of eternal misery but also of corporal death and temporal sufferings in the publick view and audience of the World yet it is certain that every penitent Believer in Jesus is actually pardoned by him in Heaven as soon as ever he believes and repents that is he is in foro Christi and before the Tribunal of his Royal Judgment Absolved from the obligation to suffer eternal misery which he lay under during his state of impenitence and Christ in his own mind judgment and estimation hath Judicially thus pronounced concerning him By vertue of my Fathers grant to all penitent offenders and of that Royal Authority which he hath committed to me I freely release thee from all that vast debt of everlasting punishment which thou hast too justly incurr'd by sinning against him Thus as the Father forgives us vertually by that publick grant of mercy which for Christs sake he hath made to all penitent offenders so the Son forgives us actually by that Royal Authority which the Father hath given him to make a particular application of that his general grant to us upon our actual repentance and as it is by the Fathers grant that the Son pardons us so it is by the Sons application of it that the Father pardons us and therefore we are said in or by Christ to have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sin Col. 1.14 i. e. to be forgiven for the sake of his blood in consideration whereof God the Father hath given him power to forgive us for so he himself tells us that all power in Heaven and Earth was given him Matth. 28.18 and there is no doubt but in all power the power of forgiving sins was included for so S. Peter tells us that through his Name i. e. by his Authority or judicial sentence Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Acts 10.43 And thus you see what the first Regal act is which our Saviour hath always performed and will always continue to perform viz. forgiving of sins II. Another of his Regal acts of this kind is punishing obstinate offenders For as he mediates for his Father in ruling and governing us he must be the Minister of his Fathers providence and being so whatsoever divine punishments are inflicted upon offenders are to be look'd upon as the stroaks of his hand and the Ministries of his power for he hath the Keys of Death and Hell i. e. the power of punishing both here and hereafter Rev. 1.18 and accordingly he threatens the corrupt Churches of Asia that he would remove their Candlestick and that he would fight against them with the sword of his mouth that he would come upon them as a Thief and that he would spew them out of his mouth Rev. 2.5.3.16 and Chap. 3. Vers. 16. all which is a sufficient proof that the punishment of offenders both here and hereafter is committed to him as a branch of that Royal Authority with which he is invested by the Father in the execution of which Commission he many times Chastens bad men in this life in order to their reformation and amendment for as many as I love saith he i. e. wish well to I rebuke and chasten Heb. 3.19 and many times he persecutes them with exterminating judgments thereby hanging them up in Chains as it were as publick examples of his vengeance to warn and deter the World from treading in their impious footsteps For so he threatens Iezebel and her followers I gave her space to repent of her fornications and she repented not behold I will cast her into a bed i. e. into a Bed-rid and irrevocable condition and them that commit Adultery with her into great tribulation and I will kill her Children with death and all the Church shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and heart and I will give unto every one of you according to your works Rev. 2.21 22 23. And though for wise and gracious ends he oftentimes spares bad men in this life and sometimes shines upon them a continued day of prosperity without any cloud or interruption yet he always overtakes them with the fearful storms of his vengeance in the life to come For no sooner do their souls depart from their bodies but they are immediately consigned by his warrant into the hands of evil Angels those skilful spiteful and powerful executioners of his justice under whose savage Tyranny they indure all the tortures and Agonies that the wrath and power of Devils together with their own awakened consciences and furious and unsatisfied affections are able to inflict Of which see Part 1. Ch. 3. For that the souls of bad men are transmitted into a state of wretchedness and misery immediately upon their separation from their bodies is evident from the Parable of Dives and Lazarus wherein in the first place Dives immediately after his death is said to be in great torment in Hell and this while his body lay buried in the grave Luk 16.22 23. which is a plain argument that in all that interval between death and the resurrection of the body the souls of bad men abide in a state of torment for secondly this torment of Dives's soul in hell was then when his Brethren were living upon earth and under the teaching of Moses and the Prophets ver 27. and 28 29 30 31. which shews that our Saviour supposes it to be at that very time when he delivered this Parable and consequently he supposes all bad men who were then dead and whose condition he represents by that of Dives to be then in Hell and there suffering unspeakable Agonies and Torments and if so then it 's plain that when ever impenitent souls leave their bodies they are carried by Devils into some dismal abode and there kept under a perpetual discipline of torment and in this deplorable state they remain expecting that fearful day of accounts when their condition through their reunion to their bodies and that dread bodily Torment they must then be condemned to will be rendered yet far more intolerable III. Another of those Regal Acts which our Saviour hath always and always will continue to perform is his protecting and defending his Kingdom in this World. For thus he promises his faithful Church of Philadelphia Because thou hast kept the
all things under him and when all things shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him which did put all things under him that God may be all in all the whole sense and meaning of which passage I shall cast into these Propositions First That the Kingdom or Dominion here spoken of was committed to him by God the Father Secondly That he is to possess this Kingdom and Dominion so long and no longer as till all things are actually subdued to him Thirdly That during his possession of it he is subject to the Father Fourthly That after his delivering it up to the Father he will be otherwise subject to him than he is now Fifthly That he being thus subjected to the Father all Power and Dominion shall from thenceforth be immediately exercised by the Deity I. That the Kingdom or Dominion here spoken of was committed to him by God the Father and this is expresly affirmed vers 27. For he i. e. the Father hath put all things under his feet which words are a quotation of Psal. 8. ver 6. Thou madest him to have Dominion over the works of thy hands thou hast put all things under his feet which words are to be understood literally of the first Adam but mystically of the second as is evident not only because 't is here applied to Christ by S. Paul but also by the Author to the Hebrews Heb. 2.7 8. where he expresly tells us that it was God the Father that crowned Christ with Glory and Honour and that did set him over the works of his hands and put all things in subjection under his feet and accordingly our Saviour himself declares that all Power in Heaven and Earth was given him i. e. by the Father and that it was the Father that committed all judgment to him and the Apostle expresly tells us that it was God that exalted him with his own right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour Acts 5.31 From all which it is evident that the Dominion which the Apostle here treats of is not the Essential Dominion of Christ which as he is God Essential is Co-eternal with him but that Mediatorial Dominion which was committed to him by the voluntary disposal of his Father and which once he had not and will hereafter cease to have II. That he is to possess this Kingdom or Dominion so long as and no longer than till all things are actually subdued unto him So vers 24. you see the time of his delivering up this Kingdom is then when he shall have put down all Rule and all Authority and Power i. e. till he shall have converted or destroyed all those Powers of the Earth that oppose themselves against him for so vers 25 26. For he must reign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet the last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death which plainly implies that when he hath conquered all Enemies and destroyed Death which is the last Enemy by giving a glorious Resurrection to his faithful Subjects then and not till then his Mediatorial Reign is to conclude For so Psal. 110.1 to which the Apostle here refers the Psalmist brings in Iehovah the Father thus bespeaking Iehovah the Son The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou at my right hand until I make thine Enemies thy footstool now to sit at the Right Hand of God when ever 't is applied to our Saviour doth in Scripture always denote his possessing and exercising this his Mediatorial Kingdom so that the meaning of the Psalmist is this the Father hath Commissioned his Son to continue the exercise of his Mediatorial Dominion till such time as either by the dint of his Almighty Vengeance he hath trampled all his Enemies under foot or by the power of his Grace reduced them voluntarily to prostrate themselves before him and indeed the end for which this Kingdom of our Saviour was erected was to subdue the Rebellious World to God and either to captivate men into a free submission to hâ—s Heavenly Will which is its first intention or if they will not yield to make them the Triumph of his everlasting vengeance which end at the day of Judgment will be fully accomplished for then the fate of all the rational World will be fixed and determined then the faithful Subjects will be crowned and the incorrigible Rebels condemned and executed and so one way or t'other all things will be subdued unto him So that from hence-forth the end and reason of this his Mediatorial Dominion will cease and when the end of it ceaseth he who never doth any thing in vain will immediately deliver it up into those hands from whence he received it For when he shall have put down all Rule and all Authority and Power i. e. conquered and subdued all that resisted and opposed him then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father III. That during his possession of this Kingdom he is subject to the Father So Ver. 27. But when he saith all things are put under him it is manifest that he i. e. the Father is excepted which did put all things under him As if he should say Do not mistake me for when I say all things are put under him my meaning is all things except God the Father for it was he that did put all things under him and it 's manifest that he who gave him this superiority over all things must himself be superior to him and indeed considering Christ as Mediatorial King he is no more than his Fathers Viceroy and doth only act by deputation from him and rule and Govern for him and hence the Father stiles him his King Psal. 2.6 Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Zion So that now he is subject to the Father in the capacity of a Vice-King to a supreme Sovereign and whatsoever he doth in this capacity he doth in his Fathers Name and by his Authority for he Mediates as for men with God in doing which he is our Advocate so for God with men in doing which he is our King. Gods part is to Govern us and our part is to sue to him for favour and protection and both these parts our Saviour acts as Mediator between God and us He acts our part for us in being Advocate and Gods part for him in being King. So that in that Rule and Government which he now exercises over us he is only the supreme Minister of his Fathers Power and Dominion and as the Father reigns by his Ministry so he reigns by the Fathers Authority But tho now while his Mediatorial Kingdom doth continue he is subject to the Father in the Admistration of it yet from this passage of S. Paul it is evident IV. That when he hath delivered it up to the Father he will be otherwise subject to him than he is now for so ver 28. and when all things shall be subdued unto him that