as Mediator could not be imputed to us as though we had done it though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fruits of it are because we were never designed to be Mediators and the Righteousness of a Mediator is as improper to be imputed to those who are not Mediators as it is to impute the Righteousness of a Prince to a Beggar The righteousness of every man consists in the discharge of those duties and offices which belong to his state condition and relatious of life not in doing those things which he is not concerned to do and therefore that the Righteousness of Christ might be fit to be imputed to us as our Righteousness he was forced to consider him not as Mediator but as a private person made subject to the Law who did whatever was required of us by vertue of any Law though this too was impossible for he could not at the same time act so many different and opposite parts as there are relations and conditions of men in the World and yet when he thought on 't again he found that it was not the Righteousness of a private person that would avail us though it were never so perfect because we have no way to come at it to make it ours but only the Righteousness of a Mediator who did whatever he did for us and in our stead and so he wheels about again and tells us that though what Christ did as a man subject to the Law did not belong to the Law of his Mediation yet he did it as Mediator because he was a Mediator who did it and thus he is caught in the Net and Labyrinth of his own making and the more he turns and windes himself the faster it holds him A Mediator who acts as a Mediator in a private capacity as a man subject to the Law I shall certainly believe as they say some Country-people do that Logick is Conjuring if it can reconcile such palpable contradictions It is very ominous thus to stumble at the threshold but though Mediator and not a Mediator be contradictory terms which Learned men say cannot be reconciled yet let us forgive him that slip and see how he proves that whatever Christ did is reckoned to us as done in our stead and all the reason I can find in his Discourse may be reduced to three Heads first that Christ was under no obligation to do it himself secondly that there r can be no other reason assigned why he did it at all but that he did it for us and thirdly that this was absolutely necessary it should be so First That Christ was under no obligation to obey these Laws himself and to make this appear he discourses particularly both of the Law of our Creation and the Ceremonial Law given to the Iews As for the first the Law of Creation that comprehends those eternal Laws which result from the essential differences of good and evil which all Mankind are bound to observe by the very frame and constitution of their natures now he dares not deny that Christ was bound to obey this Law for himself but then his obedience he says was voluntary and what of that for so the obedience of every good man is for by voluntary he tells us he doth not mean that it was meerly arbitrary and at his choice whether he would yield obedience to it or not but on supposition of his undertaking to be a Mediator it was necessary it should be so but he voluntarily and willingly submitted unto it and so became really subject to the commands of it and is it not very plain now that Christ was not obliged to obey these Laws because he willingly submitted to them But certainly he means something more by this voluntary than he could tell how to express and all that I can guess is that whereas we are bound to obey these Laws antecedentally to our own choice it was not so with him for his obligation was only consequential upon his being born and becoming Man which was his own choice and yet even then as he tells us as he was Mediator God and Man he was not by the Institution of that Law obliged to it being as it were exempted and lifted above that Law by the Hypostatical Union Now this is very profound reasoning for the meaning of it is this that Christ had not been bound to live like a man unless he had become man and yet I can grant something more that it was impossible he should have lived like a man discharged all the duties of a man without being man but when he chose to be a man there was no need to chuse any more for then he was bound by the Laws of his Nature to discharge all the duties of a man for himself But how could he be exempted from this Law though it be but as it were and raised above it by being Mediator God and Man when the Doctor himself acknowledges two lines after that upon supposition of his being Mediator it was necessary it should be so that is that he should yield obedience to the Law now not to be obliged by the Institution of the Law as Mediator and that it should be necessary for him to obey the Law as Mediator are at so great a distance that it may serve for another tryal of skill to reconcile them But Secondly Though we suppose that Christ as Man was bound to yield obedience to the Laws of the Creation yet the Doctor observes that this is the only Law he could be liable to as a Man for an innocent man in a Covenant of works as he was needed no other Law nor did God ever give any other Law to such persons the Law of Creation is the only Law that an innocent Creature is liable to with what Symbols of the Law God is pleased to add But now Iesus Christ yielded perfect obedience to all those Laws which came upon us by the occasion of sin as the Ceremonial Law yea those very Institutions that signified the washing away of sin and repentance from sin as the Baptism of John which he had no need of himself this therefore must needs be for us This now looks something like though I fear it will prove like all the rest that is to no purpose for though the Doctor takes it for granted yet I would willingly have had some proof of it that an innocent man can be bound by no other Law than the Law of Creation especially since he acknowledges which is a great favour that God might add what Symbols he pleased to that Law for I suppose he remembred the Tree of Life and the Tree of knowledge of good and evil now I know not what these Symbols are but positive Laws and such the Ceremonial Laws were and if God may require the obedience of an innocent man to one positive Law I see no reason why he may not if he please enjoyn twenty such Laws by the same Authority But they are
Scripture mentions whereby our fellowship with God and Christ in this World is exprest hence it is called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Communion and fellowship 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the body of Christ And why he calls it the Communion appears from the following verses First because it signifies the Communion and fellowship of Christians with each other that they are all Members of the Body of Christ that they are all the Children of the same Father as being entertained by him at the same Table vers 17. And Secondly It is a Communion also as it signifies our fellowship with God Vers. 18. Behold Israel after the flesh are not they which eat of the Sacrifice partakers of the Altar The meaning of which is that the Sacrifice which was offered upon the Altar was reckoned as Gods meat as the Temple was his house and therefore those that eat of the Sacrifice were entertained at Gods Table which was a signification of their fellowship with him that he was their God and they his people Thus the Lords Supper is a Feast upon a Sacrifice even that great and stupendious Sacrifice of the Body of Christ which was offered upon the Cross and therefore to eat the consecrated Bread and drink the Wine which are the figures of his Body and Blood is to eat of that Sacrifice that spiritual food God hath provided for us Thus God entertains us at his Table as his own Children who are of his houshold and family as the Members of Christ who have a right to all the blessings of the new Covenant which was sealed with his blood This is the true Interpretation of all Feasts upon Sacrifice such as the Lords Supper in an eminent manner is that it is to eat of Gods food and to be entertained at his Table which is such an argument of our fellowship with God as eating and drinking together is among men always allowing for that infinite distance which is between God and us This is the only Act of Religion which in Scripture signifies Communion and Fellowship because it is the most proper signification of our fellowship with God and with each other but prayer and meditation and such like Acts of Devotion are no where called Communion with God though a prevailing custom hath in our days almost wholly appropriated that name to them fellowship with God doth not consist in transient Acts but is a state of life that relation we stand in to God and Christ and there is no Act of Religion which doth properly signifie this fellowship with God but only eating at his Table for you will not say that a poor man enjoys communion and fellowship with his Prince when he puts up a Petition to him to beg his charity or praiseth him for his clemency and bounty to pray to God is an Act of Homage which we owe him as he is our Maker and Father it is a duty which results from our relation to and fellowship with God but it is not in its own nature an act of fellowship and communion which expression I purposely avoid not only because it is improper and hath thrust out the true notion of our fellowship with God and not only the notion but the practice of it too for certainly did men understand what our fellowship with God is they would not so much neglect the Lords Supper which is the only Act whereby our Communion is exprest but also because men have abused it to great irreverence and familiarity with God in their addresses to him while they fancy that they are now acting the part of Gods Fellows and therefore may talk to him with such freedom as they use in common conversation I have discoursed these things at large because they are too commonly mistaken our Union to Christ hath been represented as a Riddle and Mystery which no body can understand the perfect knowledge of which must be reserved for the next World or the coming of Elias and the mistakes about it have had a bad influence upon all Religion not only to confound the notions but to debauch the practice of it The sum of what I have already said is this that those Phrases and Metaphors which represent our Union to Christ signifie our visible Society with the Christian Church and our sincere practice of the Christian Religion when we joyn in Communion with the Church of Christ and live in a regular subjection to our spiritual Governours and a mutual discharge of all Christian offices when we profess to believe the Gospel and to obey the Laws of our common Saviour then we are visibly united to Christ as Subjects to their Prince and Members to their Head and when this profession is sincere and hearty when we really are what we pretend to be then our Union to Christ is real and spiritual too A visible and real Union to Christ differ as a visible Professor and sincere Christian the one is a Christian only in show the other is what he pretends to be and this Union to Christ entitles us to his peculiar care and providence to the influences of his Grace to the power of his Intercession transforms us into his nature and likeness and makes us the Temple of God wherein he delights to dwell All this may be understood on this side Heaven and without sending for Elias to unriddle it and this is all the Scripture tells us of our Union to Christ. SECT II. Of our Union to the Person of Christ. I Know not whence it comes to pass that men love to make plain things obscure and like nothing in Religion but Riddles and Mysteries God indeed was pleased to institute a great many Ceremonies and many of them of very obscure signification in the Jewish Worship to awe their childish minds into a greater veneration of his Divine Majesty But in these last days God hath sent his own Son into the World to make a plain and easie and perfect Revelation of his Will to publish such a Religion as may approve it self to our reason and captivate our affections by its natural charms and beauties and there cannot be a greater injury to the Christian Religion than to render it obscure and unintelligible and yet too many there are who despise every thing which they understand and think nothing a sufficient tryal of their Faith but what contradicts the sense and reason of mankind I might give you too many instances of this but our present Argument may serve instead of many There is nothing more easie to be understood than our Union and Communion with Christ and it had certainly continued so had not some men undertook to explain it who have now made it more than mystical that is an unintelligible Union though indeed that is the least fault that it cannot be understood for as they have
ordered the matter it is made to serve a great many evil purposes and to overthrow the main Designs of Christianity And to make this appear I shall as briefly and plainly as the matter will bear represent to you those other opinions concerning our Union to Christ which are now in great vogue in the World and do very unjustly challenge to themselves the name of Gospel-Mysteries As first when we inquire what this Union betwixt Christ and Believers is they answer in general that it is a mystical Union through the Spirit and Faith This Mystical is a hard word and therefore to explain it they tell us that this mystical Union is an Union of Persons where yet Persons and Natures are distinct As there is an Union of three Persons in one Nature in the Trinity and of two Natures in one Person in Christ which is the Hypostatical Union so the mystical Union is an Union of Persons where both Persons and Natures are distinct and it is an Union of Persons but no Personal Union The Person of Christ is united to the person of the Believer and the person of the Believer is united to the Person of Christ as it must needs be where the Person of Christ is united to the person of the Believer which Union is made by Faith which receives the Person of Christ and therefore must unite to the Person of Christ I doubt that consequence is not good for men are not united to every thing they receive but yet what follows may help it out as it is in the Marriage-Union which joyns person to person This is not very clear yet and therefore as a fuller explication of it the same Author describes it thus This mystical Union is that supernatural spiritual intimous Oneness and Conjunction which is betwixt the Person of Christ and the person of Believers through the bonds of the Spirit and Faith upon which there follows mutual and reciprocal Communion with each other This Oneness and Conjunction are hard words still and therefore to explain them you must observe that Christ and Saints are united how why in respect of that Oneness and Conjunction that is between them This now is as plain as one could wish they are one by their Oneness Union is Union and Christ is Christ and Believers are Believers and Oneness is Oneness and thus Christ and Believers are united by their Oneness But what are the bonds of this Union though it had been convenient first to have understood the Union better why they are the Spirit and Faith the Spirit unites Christ to us and Faith unites us to Christ and who can deny this to be a very mystical Union But besides this mystical Union there is a Legal or Law-Union betwixt Christ and Believers as he is their surety and a moral Union the foundation of which is Love of which more in its proper place and thus the Person of Christ and the person of Believers are united mystically legally morally The design of all these distinctions is to prove the Union of Persons betwixt Christ and Believers and because I find this Author hath bewildred himself I will endeavour to help him out for it is a very plain case if Christ and believers are united their Persons must be united too for the Person of Christ is Christ himself and the Persons of believers are the believers themselves and I cannot understand how they can be united without their Persons that is without themselves but then they are united by mutual relations as the Persons of a Prince and his Subjects of a Husband and his Wife are united or by mutual affections or common Interest not by a natural adhesion of Persons but because I find it doth not satisfie these men that Christ and believers are united unless their Persons be united too it makes me suspect that there is a greater Mystery in this Union of Persons than every one apprehends and therefore Secondly Let us inquire what they mean by the Person of Christ to which believers must be united And here they have out-done all the metaphysical subtilties of Suarez and have found out a Person for Christ distinct from his Godhead and Manhood for there can be no other sense made of what Dr. Owen tells us That by the Graces of his Person he doth not mean the glorious excellencies of his Deity considered in it self abstracting from the office which for us as God and Man he undertook nor the outward appearance of his humane nature neither when he converst here on Earth nor yet as now exalted in glory But the graces of the Person of Christ as he is vested with the office of Mediation His spiritual eminency comeliness beauty as appointed and anointed by the Father unto that great work of bringing home all his Elect into his bosom Now unless the Person of Christ as Mediator be distinct from his Person as God Man all this is idle talk for what Personal Graces are there in Christ as Mediator which do not belong to him either as God or Man there are some things indeed which our Saviour did and suffer'd which he was not obliged to either as God or Man but as Mediator but surely he will not call the peculiar duties and actions of an office Personal Graces His Personal Graces fitted him for the discharge of his Mediatory office but whatever Personal Graces are in Christ belong to his Person still are seated either in his Divine or Humane Nature and he hath no Personal Graces as Mediator which he hath not either as God or Man And the Doctor himself when he accommodates the Description the Spouse gives of her Beloved to Christ tells us That he is white in the glory of his Deity and ruddy in the preciousness of his humanity because white is the complexion of glory and ruddy is very applicable to his humanity because man was called Adam from the red Earth whereof he was made which are excellent proofs but however white and ruddy belong to his divine and humane nature and that without any regard to his Mediatory office for he had been white in the glory of his Deity and ruddy with the red Earth of his humanity whether he had been consider'd as Mediator or not And in his first digression concerning the excellency of Christ Iesus to invite us to Communion with him in a Conjugal relation he tells us that Christ is exceeding excellent and desireable in his Deity and the glory thereof He is desireable and worthy our acceptation as consider'd in his Humanity in his freedom from sin and fulness of Grace c. Now though this look very like a contradiction to what he said before that by the graces of his Person he meant neither the excellencies of his divine nor humane nature yet he hath a salvo which will deliver him both from contradiction and from sense that he doth not consider these excellencies of his Deity or Humanity as
appears from Rom. 9. 30. Israel which followed after righteousness hath not attained to the law of righteousness wherefore because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the works of the law that is the Israelites who pursued so earnestly after Righteousness are excluded from righteousness or forgiveness of sins and are under a Curse because they did not look for Righteousness and Justification in the way which God prescribed which is by Faith in Christ or by Christianity but by the observance of the law of Moses Now the most obvious Reason why this righteousness of the law is called their own righteousness and the Righteousness of Faith Gods Righteousness is because this legal righteousness was a way of justification not of Gods appointment but their own chusing God never designed that any man should be justified to eternal life by observing the law of Moses but yet they confidently expected justification by that Law and for that reason rejected the Gospel of Christ But the righteousness of Faith is a righteousness of Gods chusing this he approves and accepts of for the justification of a Sinner by this the Elders obtained a good report by this Enoch and Noah and Abraham were justified before God and therefore this may well be called the Righteousness of God because this he appointed and this he will owne and reward Thus you see that there is no foundation in Scripture for all this talk of a Personal Righteousness of Christ inherent in him and imputed to us but the righteousness of which the Scripture speaks is not the righteousness of Christs Person but of his Gospel that is that way of Righteousness and Justification which Christ hath revealed in his Gospel I have now considered all the Personal Graces of Christ as these men call them and upon inquiry it appears that what they appropriate to his Person belongs to his Gospel and is intended to describe the perfection and excellency of his Religion as being the most perfect Revelation of the will of God the most powerful method of his wisdom for the reforming the World the only way to life and immortality and which prescribes the only Righteousness which is acceptable to God There is indeed one metaphorical expression still behind which exercises mens wits and fancies viz the riches of Christ Eph. 3. 8. Which must needs be a personal Grace too or Personal Estate or what you will call it unto me who am the least of all Saints is this Grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Where by the unsearchable riches of Christ is meant the Gospel which St. Paul preached to the Gentiles as being ordained by Christ to be the Apostle of the Gentiles and he calls it unsearchable riches because the Grace of the Gospel is not a narrow and stinted thing is not confined to a particular Nation as the law was but is offer'd to all Mankind whether Jews or Gentiles bond or free the Gospel of Christ contains those glorious discoveries of Gods goodness to all Mankind as may well be called the riches of his Grace Eph. 1. 7. for riches signifie only an abundance And is it not a great violation of the Majesty of Scripture to sport and toy with words and metaphors as some men do with this riches of Christ that he is rich because he hath a rich dowry having all the World given to him as his proper Inheritance that he keeps open House and maintains all the Creation at his own charge and that he hath done this above 6000 years which would have broke him long since had he not been very rich and that he doth not only inrich all the Saints but all of the Saints their understandings with glorious light their Consciences with quickness pureness c. and that after all this vast expence he is never the poorer that he is not a penny the poorer for all that he hath laid out for the relief of those that have their dependance on him And that Iesus Christ is generally rich rich in Houses and Lands though he had not a place whereon to lay his head in gold in silver in Cattel in all temporals as well as spirituals and that he hath a great Tribute and Rent due to him that he is the great Landlord and Owner of all that Angels and men possess above and below These are fine things to perswade young Women to accept of Christ for their Husband since they can never expect so rich and advantageous a match any where else but I have something else to do than to pursue such follies and extravagancies as are so palpable that there is no need to expose them SECT III. Concerning the nature of our Union to Christ whereby we are intitled to all his fulness Righteousness c. HAving showed you what kind of Person these men make of Christ how they have fitted him to all the wants and necessities of a Sinner let us now consider wherein this Union they talk of between the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers does consist Now the Union betwixt Christ and Christians is represented in Scripture by various metaphors which I have explained at large but these men instead of explaining these metaphors turn all Religion into an Allegory As for example Christ is called an Husband and the Church his Spouse and now all the invitations of the Gospel are Christs wooing and making love to his Spouse and what other men call believing the Gospel of Christ whereby we devote our selves to his service these men call that consent and contract which makes up the marriage betwixt Christ and Believers Christ takes us for his Spouse and we take Christ for our Husband and that with all the solemnities of marriage except the Ring which is left out as an Antichristian Ceremony Christ saying thus This is that we will consent unto that I will be for thee and thou shalt be for me and not for another Christ gives himself to the Soul with all his excellencies righteousness preciousness graces and eminencies to be its Saviour Head and Husband to dwell with it in this holy Relation and the Soul likes Christ for his excellencies Graces suitableness far above all other Beloveds whatever and accepts of Christ by the will for its Husband Lord and Saviour and thus the Marriage is compleated and this is the day of Christs Espousals of the gladness of his heart and now follow all mutual conjugal affections which on Christs part consist in delight valuation pity or compassion and bounty on the Saints part in delight valuation Chastity duty which is much like Mr. Hobs his Description of his Artificial Man the Common-wealth But I have already corrected this fooling with Scripture-Metaphors and Phrases and my business at present is to consider wherein they place the nature of this Union betwixt Christ and Believers namely in this that it is such an Union as makes all Christ ours