a flame together For then the present frame of things shall be dissolved and the bounds set to the more subtile and active parts of matter shall be taken away which mixing with the more grâ—ss and earthy shall sever them from each other and by their whirling and agitation set them all on sire And if the Stars falling to the earth were to be understood in a literal sense none seems so probable as this that those aethereal fires shall then be scattered and dispersed thoughout the universe so that the earth and all the works that are therein shall be turned into one funeral Pile Then the foundations of the earth shall be shaken and all the combustible matter which lies hid in the bowels of it shall break forth into prodigious flames which while it rouls up and down within making it self a passage out will cause an universal quaking in all parts of the earth and make the Sea to roar with a mighty noise which will either by the violent heat spend it self in vapour and smoak or be swallowed up in the hollow places of the deep Neither are we to imagine that only the sulphureous matter within the earth shall by its kindling produce so general a conflagration although some Philosophers of old thought that sufficient for so great an effect but as it was in the deluge of water the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened so shall it be in this deluge of fire as one of the ancients calls it not only mighty streams and rivers of Fire shall issue of out the bowels of the earth but the cataracts above shall discharge such abundance of thunder and lightning wherein God will rain down fire and brimstone from Heaven that nothing shall be able to withstand the force of it Then the Craters breaches made in the earth by horrible earthquakes caused by the violent eruptions of Fire shall be wide enough to swallow up not only Cities but whole Countries too And what shall remain of the spoils of this devouring enemy within shall be consumed by the merciless fury of the thunder and lightning above What will then become of all the glories of the world which are now so much admired and courted by foolish men What will then become of the most magnificent piles the most curious structures the most stately palaces the most lasting monuments the most pleasant gardens and the most delightful countries they shall be all buried in one common heap of ruines when the whole face of the earth shall be like the top of mount Aetna nothing but rubbish and stones and ashes which unskilful travellers have at a distance mistaken for Snow What will then become of the pride and gallantry of the vain persons the large possessions of the great or the vast treasures of the rich the more they have had of these things only the more fuel they have made for this destroying fire which will have no respect to the honours the greatness or the riches of men Nay what will then become of the wicked and ungodly who have scoffed at all these things and walked after their own lusts saying where is this promise of his coming because all things yet continue as they were from the beginning of the creation When this great day of his wrath is come how shall they be able to stand or escape his sury Will they flie to the tops of the mountains that were only to stand more ready to be destroyed from Heaven Will they hide themselves in the dens and the rocks of the mountains but there they fall into the burning furnaces of the earth and the mountains may fall upon them but can never hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. Will they go down into the deep and convey themselves to the uttermost parts of the Sea but even there the storms and tempests of these shours of fire shall overtake them and the vengeance of God shall pursue them to everlasting flames Consider now whether so dreadful a preparation for Christs coming to judgement be not one great reason why it should be called the terror of the Lord For can any thing be imagined more full of horror and amazement than to see the whole world in a flame about us We may remember and I hope we yet do so when the flames of one City filled the minds of all the beholders with astonishment and fear but what then would it do not only to see the earth vomit and cast forth fire every where about us and the Sea to boyl and swell and froth like water in a seething pot but to hear nothing but perpetual claps of thunder and to see no light in the Heavens but what the flashings of lightning give Could we imagine our selves at a convenient distance to behold the eruption of a burning mountain such as Aetna and Vesuvius are when the earth about it trembles and groans the Sea foams and rages and the bowels of the mountain roar through impatience of casting forth its burden and at last gives it self ease by sending up a mixture of flames and ashes and smoak and a flood of fire spreading far and destroying where ever it runs yet even this though it be very apt to put men in apprehensions and fears of this great day falls very far short of the terror of it Could we yet farther suppose that at the same time we could see fire and brimstone raining from Heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah the earth opening to devour Corah and his company Belshazzar trembling at the hand writing against the wall and the Jews destroying themselves in the fire of their Temple and City this may somewhat higher advance our imaginations of the horror of the worlds conflagration but yet we cannot reach the greatness of it in as much as the Heavens and the earth which are now are kept in store saith the Apostle reserved unto fire against the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men even those heavens whole beauty and order and motion and influence we now admire and that earth whose fruitful womb and richly adorned surface affords all the conveniencies of the life of man must either be destroyed or at least purged and refined by this last and dreadful Fire The expressions of which in Scripture being so frequent so particular so plain in Writers not affecting the â—ofty Prophetical stile wherein fire is often used only to express the wrath of God make it evident that their meaning is not barely that the world shall be destroyed by the anger of God but that this destruction shall be by real fire which adds more to the sensible terror of it to all that shall behold it 2. The terror of Christs appearance in that day The design of the Scripture in setting forth the coming of Christ to judgement is to represent it in such a manner to us as is most
of the White Hart in Westminster Hall and the Phoenix in S t. Paul's Church-Yard 1673. DISCOURSE Concerning the TRUE REASON Of the SUFFERINGS of CHRIST CHAP. 1. Of the Socinian way of interpreting Scripture Of the uncertainty it leaves us in as to the main articles of Faith manifested by an Exposition of Gen. 1. suitable to that way The state of the Controversie in general concerning the sufferings of Christ for us He did not suffer the same we should have done The grand mistake in making punishments of the nature of Debts the difference between them at large discovered from the different reason and ends of them The right of punishment in God proved against Crellius not to arise from meer dominion The end of punishment not bare Compensation as it is in debts what punishment due to an injured person by the right of Nature proper punishment a result of Laws Crellius his great mistake about the end of Punishments Not designed for satisfaction of Anger as it is a desire of Revenge Seneca and Lactantius vindicated against Crellius The Magistrates interest in Punishment distinct from that of private persons Of the nature of Anger in God and the satisfaction to be made to it Crellius his great arguments against satisfaction depend on a false Notion of Gods anger Of the ends of divine Punishments and the different nature of them in this and the future state SIR ALthough the Letter I received from your hands contained in it so many mistakes of my meaning and design that it seemed to be the greatest civility to the Writer of it to give no answer at all to it because that could not be done without the discovery of far more weaknesses in him than he pretends to find in my discourse Yet the weight and importance of the matter may require a further account from me concerning the true reason of the sufferings of Christ. Wherein my design was so far from representing old Errors to the best advantage or to rack my wits to defend them as that person seems to suggest that I aimed at nothing more than to give a true account of what upon a serious enquiry I judged to be the most natural and genuine meaning of the Christian Doctrine contained in the Writings of the New Testament For finding therein such multitudes of expressions which to an unprejudiced mind attribute all the mighty effects of the Love of God to us to the obedience and sufferings of Christ I began to consider what reason there was why the plain and easie sense of those places must be forsaken and a remote and Metaphorical meaning put upon them Which I thought my self the more obliged to do because I could not conceive if it had been the design of the Scripture to have delivered the received Doctrine of the Christian Church concerning the reason of the sufferings of Christ that it could have been more clearly and fully expressed than it is already So that supposing that to have been the true meaning of the several places of Scripture which we contend for yet the same arts and subtilties might have been used to pervert it which are imployed to perswade men that is not the true meaning of them And what is equally serviceable to truth and falshood can of it self have no power on the minds of men to convince them it must be one and not the other Nay if every unusual and improper acception of words in the Scripture shall be thought sufficient to take away the natural and genuine sense where the matter is capable of it I know scarce any article of Faith can be long secure and by these arts men may declare that they believe the Scriptures and yet believe nothing of the Christian Faith For if the improper though unusual acception of those expressions of Christs dying for us of redemption propitiation reconciliation by his blood of his bearing our iniquities and being made sin and a curse for us shall be enough to invalidate all the arguments taken from them to prove that which the proper sense of them doth imply why may not the improper use of the terms of Creation and Resurrection as well take away the natural sense of them in the great Articles of the Creation of the World and Resurrection after death For if it be enough to prove that Christs dying for us doth not imply dying in our stead because sometimes dying for others imports no more than dying for some advantage to come to them if redemption being sometimes used for meer deliverance shall make our redemption by Christ wholly Metaphorical if the terms of propitiation reconcilation c. shall lose their force because they are sometimes used where all things cannot be supposed parallel with the sense we contend for why shall I be bound to believe that the World was ever created in a proper sense since those persons against whom I argue so earnestly contend that in those places in which it seems as proper as any it is to be understood only in a metaphorical If when the World and all things are said to be made by Christ we are not to understand the production but the reformation of the World and all things in it although the natural sense of the Words be quite otherwise what argument can make it necessary for me not to understand the Creation of the World in a metaphorical sense when Moses delivers to us the history of it Why may not I understand in the beginning Gen. 1. for the beginning of the Mosaical Dispensation as well as Socinus doth in the beginning John 1. for the beginning of the Evangelical and that from the very same argument used by him viz. that in the beginning is to be understood of the main subject concerning which the author intends to write and that I am as sure it was in Moses concerning the Law given by him as it was in St. Iohn concerning the Gospel delivered by Christ. Why may not the Creation of the Heavens and the Earth be no more than the erection of the Jewish Polity since it is acknowledged that by New Heavens and new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness no more is understood than a new state of things under the Gospel Why may not the confused Chaos import no more than the state of Ignorance and darkness under which the World was before the Law of Moses since it is confessed that it signifies in the New Testament such a state of the World before the Gospel appeared and consequently why may not the light which made the first day be the first tendencies to the Doctrine of Moses which being at first divided and scattered was united afterwards in one great Body of Laws which was called the Sun because it was the great Director of the Iewish Nation and therefore said to rule the day as the less considerable Laws of other Nations are called the Moon because they were to
from Lev. 17. 11. and the Concession of Crellius about the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lev. 10. 17. explained The expiation of uncertain murther proves a substitution A substitution of Christ in our room proved from Christ being said to dye for us the importance of that phrase considered In what sense a Surrogation of Christ in our room is asserted by us Our Redemption by Christ proves a substitution Of the true notion of Redemption that explained and proved against Socinus and Crellius No necessity of paying the price to him that detains captive where the captivity is not by force but by sentence of Law Christs death a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attributed to it cannot be taken for meer deliverance pag. 314 CHAP. V. The notion of a sacrifice belongs to the death of Christ because of the Oblation made therein to God Crellius his sense of Christs Oblation proposed Against him it is proved that the Priestly office of Christ had a primary respect to God and not to us Expiatory Sacrifices did divert the wrath of God Christ not a bare Metaphorical High-Priest Crellius destroys the Priesthood of Christ by confounding it with the exercise of his Regal Power No proper expiation of sin belongs to Christ in Heaven if Crellius his Doctrine be true Ephes. 5. 2. proves the death of Christ an Expiatory Sacrifice and an Oblation to God The Phrase of a sweet-smelling savour belongs to Expiatory Sacrifices Crellius his gross notion of it His mistakes about the kinds of Sacrifices Burnt-offerings were Expiatory Sacrifices both before and under the Law A new distribution of sacrifices proposed What influence the mactation of the Sacrifice had on Expiation The High-Priest only to slay the Sin-offering on the day of Atonement from whence it is proved that Christs Priesthood did not begin from his entrance into Heaven The mactation in Expiatory Sacrifices no bare preparation to a Sacrifice proved by the Iewish Laws and the customs of other Nations Whether Christs Oblation of himself once to God were in Heaven or on Earth Of the proper notion of Oblations under the Levitical Law Several things observed from thence to our purpose All things necessary to a legal Oblation concur in the death of Christ His entrance into Heaven hath no correspondency with it if the blood of Christ were no sacrifice for sin In Sin-offerings for the People the whole was consumed no eating of the Sacrifices allowed the Priests but in those for private Persons Christs exercise of Power in Heaven in no sense an Oblation to God Crellius his sense repugnant to the circumstances of the places in dispute Objections answered pag. 329 CHAP. VI. That the effects of proper Expiatory Sacrifices belong to the death of Christ which either respect the sin or the person Of the true notion of expiation of sin as attributed to Sacrifices Of the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to them Socinus his proper sense of it examined Crellius his Objections answered The Iews notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sacrifices not bare conditions of pardon nor expiated meerly as a slight part of obedience Gods expiating sin destroys not expiation by Sacrifice The importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to Sacrifices Expiation attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ in the same sense that it was to other Sacrifices and from thence and the places of Scripture which mention it proved not to be meerly declarative If it had been so it had more properly belonged to his Resurrection than his death The Death of Christ not taken Metonymically for all the Consequents of it because of the peculiar effects of the death of Christ in Scripture and because Expiation is attributed to him antecedently to his entrance into Heaven No distinction in Scripture of the effects of Christs entrance into Heaven from his sitting at the right hand of God The effects of an Expiatory Sacrifice respecting the person belong to the death of Christ which are Atonement and Reconciliation Of the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Reconciliation by Christs death doth not meerly respect us but God why the latter less used in the New Testament A twofold Reconciliation with God mentioned in Scripture Crellius his evasion answered The Objections from Gods being reconciled in the sending his Son and the inconsistency of the Freeness of Grace with the Doctrine of Satisfaction answered and the whole concluded pag. 355 TO THE Right Honourable ELIZABETH COUNTESSE DOWAGER OF JOCELIN Late EARLE of Northumberland Madam AMONG the number of those who congratulate Your safe return into Your own Countrey wherein Your Ladiship is so justly beloved and esteemed by all that honour Vertue and Goodness Give me leave to express my Duty in an Address more agreeable to my own Profession than some perhaps will think it is to Your Quality and Condition Those I mean who measure their Greatness by their contempt of Religion and all that belong to it Who know nothing of Wit or Vertue beyond the Stage or think the Leviathan contains in it the Whole Duty of Man The utmost these Persons will allow us whose Honour and Imployment lyes in asserting the Truth of Religion and perswading to the practice of it is that we are men of a Profession and speak for the things we are to live by As though Reason and Religion were such contemptible Wares as scarce any would enquire after if it were not some mens Trade to put them off and were of less force in themselves because it is our Duty and Interest to maintain them Is it any disparagement to a Prince to have Subjects obliged to defend his Honour and Servants to attend his Person and must not what they say or do be at all minded because their own Interest is joyned with his Why then should Religion suffer in the esteem of any because she hath servants of her own to defend her Cause As if it had alwayes been a received Principle with mankind that no man is to be trusted in his own Profession According to this the Lawyers ought to preach and the Divines plead Causes because the one gets nothing by Divinity nor the other by Law the Merchant should visit Patients and the Physicians attend the Committees of Trade because it is dangerous trusting men in what they are most concerned to understand When once I see these persons for bear to consult the Lawyers about setling their Estates and Physicians for their health meerly because they get by their Professions I shall then think it is something else besides a Pique at Religion which makes them so ready to contemn whatever is said by us in behalf of it because forsooth it is our Trade to defend it I wish it were theirs as much to practise it and then we should not be troubled
with removing these and such like prejudices against all the Discourses of Religion which are spoken and published by us But in these matters which we conceive to be of so high concernment to Mankind we desire nothing may be considered besides the force of reason and weight of argument and surely none that own themselves to be men will despise that by whomsoever it is brought It is not every ridiculous story or vulgar prejudice or common infirmities or different opinions in smaller things which ought to render Religion ridiculous or make the Practice of it be thought mean and contemptible But however they are resolved to think of Us let not Religion suffer for our sakes Indeed if they did as truly love Religion as they despise us we might then have reason to suspect our selves but when we suffer meerly upon her account we have cause to rejoyce in our dishonour and ought to suspect our selves if such persons did speak well of Us. Madam The main design of these following Discourses is to recommend the great matters of Religion from their Truth and Certainty their Power and Efficacy the Benefit and Advantage which comes by them and to disswade from the Practice of Sin from the folly and reproach the present dissatisfaction and suture punishment which attends it If they may be of Use to the World and any wayes serviceable to Your Ladiship in Your retirements I have the end I aimed at And I have therefore presumed to dedicate them to Your Ladiship not only because of the great Obligations which I have to Your Self and Family which were first laid upon me by that Excellent Person the late Lord Treasurer Your Father but likewise because You have so well followed so worthy an Example in joyning Greatness and Goodness together Were it my design to publish Your just and due Character I should not need to find fault with the Age to give the greater advantage to Your Vertue All the harm I wish the Age is that there were many more Persons of Your Condition that did as little need and as much despise the meanness of Flattery I am Madam Your Ladiships most obliged and humble Servant ED. STILLINGFLEET SERMON I. At S t. Margarets Westminster before the Honourable House of COMMONS Octo. 10. 1666. AMOS IV. XI I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. IT is but a very little time since you met together in this place to lament the remainders of a raging pestilence which the last year destroyed so many thousand inhabitants of the late great and famous City and now God hath given us another sad occasion for our faâ—â—â—ng and humiliation by suffering a devouring fire to break forth and consume so many of her habitations As though the infected air had been too kind and partial and like Saul to the Amalekites had only destroyed the vile and refuse and spared the greatest of the people as though the grave had surfeited with the bodies of the dead and were loth to go on in the execution of Gods displeasure he hath imployed a more furious Element which by its merciless and devouring flames might in a more lively manner represent unto us the kindling of his wrath against us And that by a Fire which began with that violence and spread with that horror and raged with that sury and continued for so long a time with that irresistible force that it might justly fill the beholders with confusion the hearers of it with amasement and all of us with a deep and humble sense of those sins which have brought down the judgements of God in so severe a manner in the midst of us For whatever arguments or reasons we can imagine that should compose the minds of men to a sense of their own or others calamities or excite them to an apprehension of the wrath of God as the cause of them or quicken them to an earnest supplication to him for mercy they do all eminently concurr in the sad occasion of this daies solemnity For if either compassion would move or fear awaken or interest engage us to any of these it is hard to conceive there should be an instance of a more efficacious nature than that is which we this day bewail For who can behold the ruines of so great a City and not have his bowels of compassion moved towards it Who can have any sense of the anger of God discovered in it and not have his fear awakened by it Who can as we ought all look upon it as a judgement of universal influence on the whole Nation and not think himself concerned to implore the mercy of Heaven towards us For certainly howsoever we may vainly flatter and deceive our selves these are no common indications of the frowns of Heaven nor are they meeâ—ly intended as the expressions of Gods severity towards that City which hath suffered so much by them but the stroaks which fall upon the head though they light upon that only are designed for the punishment of the whole body Were there nothing else but a bare permission of Divine Providence as to these things we could not reasonably think but that God must needs be very angry with us when he suffers two such dreadful calamities to tread almost upon each others heels that no sooner had death taken away such multitudes of our Inhabitants but a Fire follows it to consume our habitations A Fire so dreadful in its appearance in its rage and fury and in all the dismal consequences of it which we cannot yet be sufficiently apprehensive of that on that very account we may justly lie down in our shame and our confusion cover us because God hath Covered the daughter of Sion with a cloud in his anger and cast down from Heaven to earth the beauty of Israel and remembred not his footstool in the day of his anger For such was the violence and fury of the flames that they have not only defaced the beauty of the City and humbled the pride and grandeur of it not only stained its glory and consumed its Palaces but have made the Houses of God themselves a heap of ruines and a spectacle of desolation And what then can we propose to our selves as arguments of Gods severe displeasure against us which we have not either already felt or have just cause to fear are coming upon us without a speedy and sincere amendment If a Sword abroad and Pestilence at home if Fire in our Houses and Death in our Streets if Foreign Wars and Domestick Factions if a languishing State and a discontented People if the ruines of the City and poverty of the Country may make us sensible how sad our condition at present is how much worse it may be if God in his mercy prevent it not we shall all
consumed by Fire from Heaven when it had seized upon their dwellings O what cryes and lamentations what yellings and shriekings might ye then have heard among them We may well think how dreadful those were when we do but consider how sad the circumstances were of the Fare we mourn for this day When it began like Sampson to break in pieces all the means of resisting it and carried before it not only the Gates but the Churches and most magnificent structures of the City what horrour and confusion may we then imagine had seized upon the spirits of the Citizens what distraction in their Councils what paleness in their countenances what pantings at their hearts what an universal consternation might have been then seen upon the minds of men But O the sighs and tears the frights and amasements the miscarriages nay the deaths of some of the weaker Sex at the terrour and apprehension of it O the hurry and useless pains the alarms and tumults the mutual hinderances of each other that were among men at the beholding the rage and fury of it There we might have seen Women weeping for their children for fear of their being trod down in the press or lost in the crowd of people or exposed to the violence of the flames Husbands more solicitous for the safety of their Wives and Children than their own the Souldiers running to their Swords when there was more need of Buckets the Tradesemen loading their backs with that which had gotten possession of their hearts before Then we might have heard some complaining thus of themselves O that I had been as careful of laying up treasures in Heaven as I have been upon Earth I had not been under such fears of losing them as now I am If I had served God as faithfully as I have done the world he would never have left me as now that is like to do What a fool have I been which have spent all my precious time for the gaining of that which may now be lost in an hours time If these flames be so dreadful what are those which are reserved for them who love the world more than God! If none can come near the heat of this Fire who can dwell with everlasting burnings O what madness then will it be to sin any more wilfully against that God who is a consuming fire infinitely more dreadful than this can be Farewel then all ye deceitful vanities now I understand thee and my self better O bewitching world then to fix my happiness in thee any more I will henceforth learn so much wisdom to lay up my treasures there where neither moths can corrupt them not Thieves steal them nor Fire consume them O how happy would London be if this were the effect of her flames on the minds of all her Inhabitants She might then rise with a greater glory and her inward beauty would outshine her outward splendour let it be as great as we can wish or imagine But in the mean time who can behold her present ruines without paying some tears as due to the sadness of the spectacle and more to the sins which caused them If that City were able to speak out of its ruines what sad complaints would it make of all those impieties which have made her so miserable If it had not been might she say for the pride and luxury the ease and delicacy of some of my Inhabitants the covetousness the fraud the injustice of others the debaucheries of the prophane the open factions and secret hypocrisie of two many pretending to greater sanctity my beauty had not been thus turned into ashes nor my glory into those ruines which make my enemies rejoyce my friends to mourn and all stand amazed at the beholding of them Look now upon me you who so lately admired the greatness of my Trade the riches of my Merchants the number of my people the conveniency of my Churches the multitude of my Streets and see what desolations sin hath made in the earth Look upon me and then tell me whether it be nothing to dally with Heaven to make a mock at sin to slight the judgements of God and abuse his mercies and after all the attempts of Heaven to reclaim a people from their sins to remain still the same that ever they were Was there no way to expiate your guilt but by my misery Had the Leprosie of your sins so fretted in my Walls that there was no cleansing them but by the flames which consume them Must I mourn in my dust and ashes for your iniquities while you are so ready to return to the practice of them Have I suffered so much by reason of them and do you think to escape your selves Can you then look upon my ruines with hearts as heard and unconcerned as the stones which lye in them If you have any kindness for me or for your selves if you ever hope to see my breaches repaired my beauty restored my glory advanced look on Londons ruines and repent Thus would she bid her Inhabitants not weep for her miseries but for their own sins for if never any sorrow was like to her sorrow it is because never any sins were like to their sins Not as though they were only the sins of the City which have brought this evil upon her no but as far as the judgement reaches so great hath the compass of the sins been which have provoked God to make her an example of his justice And I fear the effects of Londons calamity will be felt all the Nation over For considering the present languishing condition of this Nation it will be no easie matter to recover the blood and spirits which have been lost by this Fire So that whether we consider the sadness of those circumstances which accompanied the rage of the fire or those which respect the present miseries of the City or the general influence those will have upon the Nation we cannot easily conceive what judgement could in so critical a time have befallen us which had been more severe for the kind and Nature of it than this hath been 2. We consider it in the series and order of it We see by the Text this comes in the last place as a reserve when nothing else would do any good upon them It is extrema medicina as St. Hierom saith the last attempt that God uses to reclaim a people by and if these Causticks will not do it is to be feared he looks upon the wounds as incurable He had sent a famine before v. 6. a drought v. 7 8. blasting and mildew v. 9. the Pestilence after the manner of Aegypt v. 10. the miseries of War in the same verse And when none of these would work that effect upon them which they were designed for then he comes to this last way of punishing before a final destruction he overthrew some of their Cities as he had overthrown Sodom and Gomorrah God forbid
of those who dare pass sentence where it is neither in their power to understand the reason of his actions nor if it were to call him in question for his proceedings with men But so great is the pride and arrogance of humane Nature that it loves to be condemning what it cannot comprehend and there needs be no greater reason given concerning the many disputes in the world about Divine Providence than that God is wise and we are not but would fain seem to be so While men are in the dark they will be always quarrelling and those who contend the most do it that they might seem to others to see when they know themselves they do not Nay there is nothing so plain and evident but the reason of some men is more apt to be imposed upon in it than their senses are as it appeared in him who could not otherwise confute the Philosophers argument against motion but by moving before him So that we see the most certain things in the world are lyable to the cavils of men who imploy their wits to do it and certainly those ought not to stagger mens faith in matters of the highest nature and consequence which would not at all move them in other things But at last it is acknowledged by the men who love to be called the men of wit in this Age of ours that there is a God and Providence a future state and the differences of good and evil but the Christian Religion they will see no further reason to embrace than as it is the Religion of the State they live in But if we demand what mighty reasons they are able to bring forth against a Religion so holy and innocent in its design so agreeable to the Nature of God and Man so well contrived for the advantages of this and another life so fully attested to come from God by the Miracles wrought in confirmation of it by the death of the Son of God and of such multitudes of Martyrs so certainly conveyed to us by the unquestionable Tradition of all Ages since the first delivery of it the utmost they can pretend against it is that it is built upon such an appearance of the Son of God which was too mean and contemptible that the Doctrine of it is inconsistent with the Civil Interests of men and the design ineffectual for the Reformation of the World For the removal therefore of these cavils against our Religion I shall shew 1. That there were no circumstances in our Saviours appearance or course of life which were unbecoming the Son of God and the design he came upon 2. That the Doctrine delivered by him is so far from being contrary to the Civil Interests of the World that it tends highly to the preservation of them 3 That the design he came upon was very agreeable to the Infinite Wisdom of God and most effectual for the reformation of Mankind For clearing the first of these I shall consider 1. The Manner of our Saviours appearance 2. The Course of his Life and what it was which his enemies did most object against him 1. The Manner of our Saviours Appearance which hath been always the great offence to the admirers of the pomp and greatness of the World For when they heard of the Son of God coming down from Heaven and making his Progress into this lower world they could imagine nothing less than that an innumerable company of Angels must have been dispatched before to have prepared a place for his reception that all the Soveraigns and Princes of the World must have been summoned to give their attendance and pay their homage to him that their Scepters must have been immediately laid at his feet and all the Kingdoms of the earth been united into one universal Monarchy under the Empire of the Son of God That the Heavens should bow down at his presence to shew their obeysance to him the Earth tremble and shake for fear at the near approaches of his Majesty that all the Clouds should clap together in one universal Thunder to welcome his appearance and tell the Inhabitants of the World what cause they had to fear him whom the Powers of the Heavens obey that the Sea should run out of its wonted course with amazement and horror and if it were possible hide it self in the hollow places of the earth that the Mountains should shrink in their heads to fill up the vast places of the deep so that all that should be fulfilled in a literal sense which was foretold of the coming of the Messias That every Valley should be filled and every Mountain and Hill brought low the crooked made straight and the rough ways smooth and all flesh see the salvation of God Yea that the Sun for a time should be darkned and the Moon withdraw her light to let the Nations of the Earth understand that a Glory infinitely greater than theirs did now appear to the World In a word they could not imagine the Son of God could be born without the pangs and throws of the whole Creation that it was as impossible for him to appear as for the Sun in the Firmament to disappear without the notice of the whole World But when instead of all his pomp and grandeur he comes incognito into the World instead of giving notice of his appearance to the Potentates of the Earth he is only discovered to a few silly Shepherds and three wise men of the East instead of choosing either Rome or Hierusalem for the place of his Nativity he is born at Bethleem a mean and obscure Village instead of the glorious and magnificent Palaces of the East or West which were at that time so famous he is brought forth in a Stable where the Manger was his Cradle and his Mother the only attendant about him who was her self none of the great persons of the Court nor of any fame in the Country but was only rich in her Genealogy and honourable in her Pedigree And according to the obscurity of his Birth was his Education too his youth was not spent in the Imperial Court at Rome nor in the Schools of Philosophers at Athens nor at the feet of the great Rabbies at Ierusalem but at Nazareth a place of mean esteem among the Iews where he was remarkable for nothing so much as the Vertues proper to his Age Modesty Humility and Obedience All which he exercises to so high a degree that his greatest Kindred and acquaintance were mightily surprized when at 30. years of age he began to discover himself by the Miracles which he wrought and the Authority which he spake with And although the rayes of his Divinity began to break forth through the Clouds he had hitherto disguised himself in yet he persisted still in the same course of humility and self-denyal taking care of others to the neglect of himself feeding others by a Miracle and fasting himself to one
laid on him the iniquities of us all that through the eternal Spirit he offer'd himself without spot to God and did appear to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself that he was made a propitiation for our sins that he laid down his life as a price of Redemption for Mankind that through his blood we obtain Redemption even the forgiveness of sins which in a more particular manner is attributed to the blood of Christ as the procuring cause of it That he dyed to reconcile God and us together and that the Ministery of Reconciliation is founded on Gods making him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and that we may not think that all this Reconciliation respects us and not God he is said to offer up himself to God and for this cause to be a Mediator of the New Testament and to be a faithful high-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people and every high-Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God not appointed by God in things meerly tending to the good of men which is rather the Office of a Prophet than a Priest So that from all these places it may easily appear that the blood of Christ is to be looked on as a sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the World Not as though Christ did suffer the very same which we should have suffer'd for that was eternal death as the consequent of guilt in the person of the Offender and then the discharge must have been immediately consequent upon the payment and no room had been left for the freeness of remission or for the conditions required on our parts But that God was pleased to accept of the death of his Son as a full perfect sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the World as our Church expresseth it and in consideration of the sufferings of his Son is pleased to offer pardon of sin upon sincere repentance and eternal life upon a â—…y obedience to his will Thus much for the things we are to consider concerning the contradiction of sinners which Christ endured against himself Nothing now remains but the influence that ought to have upon us lest we be weary and faint in our minds For which end I shall suggest two things 1. The vast disproportion between Christs sufferings and ours 2. The great encouragement we have from his sufferings to bear our own the better 1. The vast Disproportion between Christs sufferings and our own Our lot is fallen into suffering times and we are apt enough to complain of it I will not say it is wholly true of us what the Moralist saith generally of the complaints of men Non quia dura sed quia molles patimur that it is not the hardness of our conditions so much as the softness of our spirits which makes us complain of them For I must needs say this City hath smarted by such a series and succession of judgements which few Cities in the world could parallel in so short a time The Plague hath emptied its houses and the fire consumed them the War exhausted our spirits and it were well if Peace recovered them But still these are but the common calamities of humane nature things that we ought to make account of in the World and to grow the better by them And it were happy for this City if our thankfulness and obedience were but answerable to the mercies we yet enjoy let us not make our condition worse by our fears nor our fears greater than they need to be for no enemy can be so bad as they Thanks be to God our condition is much better at present than it hath been let us not make it worse by fearing it may be so Complaints will never end till the World does and we may imagine that will not last much longer when the City thinks it hath trade enough and the Country riches enough But I will not go about to perswade you that your condition is better than it is for I know it is to no purpose to do so all men will believe as they feel But suppose our condition were much worse than it is yet what were all our sufferings compared with those of our Saviour for us the sins that make us smart wounded him much deeper they pierced his side which only touch our skin we have no cause to complain of the bitterness of that Cup which he hath drunk off the dreggs of already We lament over the ruins of a City and are revived with any hopes of seeing it rise out of the dust but Christ saw the ruins that sin caused in all mankind he undertook the repairing them and putting men into a better condition than before And we may easily think what a difficult task he had of it when he came to restore them who were delighted in their ruins and thought themselves too good to be mended It is the comfort of our miseries if they be only in this life that we know they cannot last long but that is the great aggravation of our Saviours sufferings that the contradiction of sinners continues against him still Witness the Atheism I cannot so properly call it as the Antichristianism of this present Age wherein so many profane persons act over again the part of the Scribes and Pharisees they slight his Doctrine despise his Person disparage his miracles contemn his Precepts and undervalue his Sufferings Men live as if it were in defiance to his holy Laws as though they feared not what God can do so much as to need a Mediator between him and them If ever men tread under foot the Son of God it is when they think themselves to be above the need of him if ever they count the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing it is not only when they do not value it as they ought but when they exercise their profane wits upon it Blessed Saviour was it not enough for thee to bear the contradiction of sinners upon Earth but thou must still suffer so much at the hands of those whom thou dyedst for that thou mightest bring them to Heaven was it not enough for thee to be betrayed on Earth but thou must be defied in Heaven Was it not enough for thee to stoop so low for our sakes but that thou shouldest be trampled on because thou didst it was the ignominious death upon the Cross too small a thing for thee to suffer in thy Person unless thy Religion be contemned and exposed to as much shame and mockery as thy self was Unhappy we that live to hear of such things but much more unhappy if any of our sins have been the occasion of them If our unsuitable lives to the Gospel have open'd the mouths of any against so
Priesthood any pretence for Rebellion But all these pretences would not serve to make them escape the severe hand of divine justice for in an extraordinary and remarkable manner he made them suffer the just desert of their sin for they perished in their contradiction which is the next thing to be considered viz. 2. The Iudgement which was inflicted upon them for it They had provoked Heaven by their sin and disturbed the earth by their Faction and the earth as if it were moved with indignation against them trembled and shook as Iosephus saith like waves that are tossed with a mighty wind and then with a horrid noise it rends asunder and opens its mouth to swallow those in its bowels who were unfit to live upon the face of it They had been dividing the people and the earth to their amazement and ruine divides it self under their feet as though it had been designed on purpose that in their punishment themselves might feel and others see the mischief of their sin Their seditious principles seemed to have infected the ground they stood upon the earth of a sudden proves as unquiet and troublesome as they but to rebuke their madness it was only in obedience to him who made it the executioner of his wrath against them and when it had done its office it is said that the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the Congregation Thus the earth having revenged it self against the disturbers of its peace Heaven presently appears with a flaming fire taking vengeance upon the 250. men who in opposition to Aaron had usurped the Priestl office in offering incense before the Lord. Such a Fire if we believe the same Historian which far outwent the most dreadful eruptions of Aetna or Vesuvius which neither the art of man nor the power of the wind could raise which neither the burning of Woods nor Cities could parallel but such a Fire which the wrath of God alone could kindle whose light could be outdone by nothing but the heat of it Thus Heaven and Earth agree in the punishment of such disturbers of Government and God by this remarkable judgement upon them hath left it upon record to all ages that all the world may be convinced how displeasing to him the sin of faction and sedition is For God takes all this that was done against Moses and Aaron as done against himself For they are said to be gathered together against the Lord v. 11. to provoke the Lord v. 30. And the fire is said to come out from the Lord v. 35. And afterwards it is said of them This is that Dathan and Abiram who strove against Moses and against Aaron in the company of Corah when they strove against the Lord. By which we see God interprets striving against the Authority appointed by him to be a striving against himself God looks upon himself as immediately concerned in the Government of the world for by him Princes raign and they are his Vicegerents upon earth and they who resist resist not a meer appointment of the people but an Ordinance of God and they who do so shall in the mildest sense receive a severe punishment from him Let the pretences be never so popular the persons never so great and famous nay though they were of the great Council of the Nation yet we see God doth not abate of his severity upon any of these considerations This was the first formed sedition that we read of against Moses the people had been murmuring before but they wanted heads to manage them Now all things concur to a most dangerous Rebellion upon the most popular pretences of Religion and Liberty and now God takes the first opportunity of declaring his hatred of such actions that others might hear and fear and do no more so presumptuously This hath been the usual method of divine Judgements the first of the kind hath been most remarkably punished in this life that by it they may see how hateful such things are to God but if men will venture upon them notwithstanding God doth not always punish them so much in this world though he sometimes doth but reserves them without repentance to his Justice in the world to come The first man that sinned was made an example of Gods Justice The first world the first publick attempt against Heaven at Babel after the plantation of the world again the first Cities which were so generally corrupted after the flood the first breaker of the Sabbath after the Law the first offerers with strange fire the first lookers into the Ark and here the first popular Rebellion and Usurpers of the office of Priesthood God doth hereby intend to preserve the honour of his Laws he gives men warning enough by one examplary punishment and if notwithstanding that they will commit the same sin they may thank themselves if they suffer for it if not in this life yet in that to come And that good effect this Judgement had upon that people that although the next day 14000. suffered for murmuring at the destruction of these men yet we do not find that any Rebellion was raised among them afterwards upon these popular pretences of Religion and the Power of the People While their Judges continued who were Kings without the state and title of Kings they were observed with reverence and obeyed with diligence When afterwards they desired a King with all the Pomp and Grandeur which other Nations had which Samuel acquaints them with viz. the officers and Souldiers the large Revenues he must have though their King was disowned by God yet the people held firm in their obedience to him and David himself though anointed to be King persecuted by Saul and though he might have pleaded Necessity and Providence as much any ever could when Saul was strangely delivered into his hands yet we see what an opinion he had of the person of a bad King The Lord forbid that I should do this thing against my Master the Lords Anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the Anointed of the Lord. And lest we should think it was only his Modesty or his Policy which kept him from doing it he afterwards upon a like occasion declares it was only the sin of doing it which kept him from it For who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless Not as though David could not do it without the power of the Sanhedrin as it hath been pretended by the Sons of Corah in our age for he excepts none he never seizes upon him to carry him prisoner to be tryed by the Sanhedrin nor is there any foundation for any such power in the Sanhedrin over the persons of their Soveraigns It neither being contained in the grounds of its institution nor any precedent occurring in the whole story of the Bible which gives the least countenance to it Nay
clemency and the greatest severity the richest mercy and the strictest justice the most glorious rewards and intollerable punishments accordingly we find God therein described as a tender Father and as a terrible Judge as a God of peace and as a God of vengeance as an everlasting happiness and a consuming fire and the Son of God as coming once with great humility and again with Majesty and great glory once with all the infirmities of humane nature and again with all the demonstrations of a Divine power and presence once as the Son of God to take away the sins of the world by his death and passion and again as Judge of the world with flaming fire to execute vengeance on all impenitent sinners The intermixing of these in the doctrine of the Gospel was necessary in order to the benefit of mankind by it that such whom the condescension of his first appearance could not oblige to leave off their sins the terrour of his second may astonish when they foresee the account that will be taken of their ingratitude and disobedience that such who are apt to despise the meanness of his birth the poverty of his life and the shame of his death may be filled with horrour and amazement when they consider the Majesty of his second coming in the clouds to execute judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly not only of their ungodly deeds but of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him And we shall easily see what great reason there is that this second coming of Christ to judgement should be called the terrour of the Lord if we consider 1. The terror of the preparation for it 2. The terror of the appearance in it 3. The terror of the proceedings upon it 4. The terror of the sentence which shall then be passed 1. The terror of the preparation for it which is particularly described by St. Peter in these words But the day of the Lord will come as a Thies in the night in which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with servent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up This day will come as a Thief in the night by way of surprise when it is not looked for and that makes it so much the more dreadful A lesser calamity coming suddenly doth astonish more than a far greater which hath been long expected for surprisals confound mens thoughts daunt their Spirits and betray all the succours which reason offers But when the surprise shall be one of the least astonishing circumstances of the misery men fall into what unconceivable horrour will possess their minds at the appâ—ehension of it What confusion and amazement may we imagine the soul of that man in whom our Saviour speaks of in his parable who being pleased with the fulness of his condition said to his soul soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry but God said to him thou fool this might thy soul shall be required of thee then whose shall those things be that thou hast provided Had God only said this night shall thy burns be burnt and thy substance consumed to ashes which thou hast laid up for so many years that would have caused a strange consternation in him for the present but he might have comforted himself with the hopes of living and getting more But this night shall thy soul be required of thee O dreadful words O the tremblings of body the anguish of mind the pangs and convulsions of conscience which such a one is tormented with at the hearing of them What sad reflections doth he presently make upon his own folly And must all the mirth and ease I promised my self for so many years be at an end now in a very few hours Nay must my mirth be so suddenly turned into bitter howlings and my ease into a bed of flames Must my soul be thus torn away from the things it loved and go where it will hate to live and can never dye O miserable creature to be thus deceived by my own folly to be surprised after so many warnings to betray my self into everlasting misery fear horrour and despair have already taken hold on me and are carrying me where they will never leave me These are the Agonies but of one single person whom death snatches away in the midst of his years his pleasures and his hopes but such as these the greatest part of the world will fall into when that terrible day of the Lord shall come For as it was in the days of Noe so shall it be also in the day of the Son of Man they did eat they drank they married wives they were given in marriage until the day that Noe entred into the Ark and the flood came and destroyed them all Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot they did eat they drank they bought they sold they planted they builded but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstome from Heaven and destroyed them all even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth If some of the è expressions seem to relate to the unexpected coming of Christ to judgement upon Hierusalem we are to consider that was not only a fore-runner but a figure of Christs coming to judge the world And that may be the great reason why our Saviour mixeth his discourses of both these so much together as he doth for not only the judgement upon that nation was a draught as it were in little of the great day but the symptoms and fore-runners of the one were to bear a proportion with the other among which the strange security of that people before their destruction was none of the least And the surprise shall be so much the more astonishing when the day of the Lord shall come upon the whole world as the terâ—or and consequents of that univerial judgement shall exceed the overthrow of the Jewish Polity But supposing men were aware of its approach and prepared for it the burning of the Temple and City of Hierusalem though so frightful a spectacle to the beholders of it was but a mean representation of the terror that shall be at the conflagration of the whole world When the Heavens shall pass away with a great â—oise or with a mighty force as some interpret it and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat i. e. when all the fiery bodies in the upper regions of this world which have been kept so long in an even and regular course within their several limits shall then be let loose again and by a more rapid and violent motion shall put the world into confusion and
apt to strike us with awe and terror at the apprehension of it Now the greatest appearance of Majesty among men is either when a mighty Prince marches triumphantly in the midst of a Royal Army with all the splendor of a Court and the discipline of a Camp having his greatest attendants about him and sending his Officers before him who with the sound of Trumpets give notice of his approach and is every where received with the shouts and acclamations of the people or else of a Prince sitting upon his throne of Majesty set forth with all the Ornaments of State and Greatness with all his Nobles and Courties standing about his Throne and in his own Person calling Malefactors to account and both these ways the appearance of Christ upon his second coming is represented to us first as coming in the clouds of Heaven i. e. riding triumphantly as it were upon a Chariot on a body of light brighter than the Sun having all the Heavenly host attending upon him and therefore he is said to come with power and great glory and sending his Angels with a great sound of a trumpet before him after whom the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God Not as though we were to imagine any material trumpet as some have grossly done whose sound could reach over the whole earth but the sound of the last trumpet seems to be the same with the voice of the Son of God which the dead are said to hear and live i. e. it shall be an effectual power for raising the dead which may be therefore called the sound of a trumpet because it supplies the use of one in calling all people together and doth more lively represent to our capacities the Majesty of Christs appearance with all the Heavenly host of Angels and Saints Thus when God appeared upon Mount Sinai with his Holy Angels about him we there read of the noise of the trumpet and when God shewed his glorious presence in the temple he is said to go up with a shout and the Lord with the sound of a trumpet and when he sets himself against his enemies God himself is said to blow the trumpet and to go with the whirlwinds of the South But besides this we find Christ upon his second coming described as sitting on the throne of his glory and all the Holy Angels about him and all nations gathered before him to receive their sentence from him His throne is said to be great and white i. e. most magnificent and glorious and to make it the more dreadful from it are said to proceed lightnings and thundrings and voices and so terrible is the Majesty of him that sits upon the throne that the Heaven and earth are said to flie away from his face but the dead small and great are to stand before him and to be judged according to their works And if the appearance of a common Judge be so dreadful to a guilty prisoner if the Majesty of an earthly Prince begets an awe and reverence where there is no fear of punishment what may we then imagine when Justice and Majesty both meet in the person of the Judge and fear and guilt in the Conscience of Offenders Therefore it is said behold he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him and all kindreas of the earth shall wail because of him We find the best of men in Scripture seized on with a very unusual consternation at any extraordinary divine appearance The sight upon Mount Sinai was so terrible even to Moses that he did exceedingly fear and quake the vision which Isaiah had of the glory of God made him cry out Wo is me for I am unâ—one for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts When Daniel saw his vision all his strength and vigor was gone and though an Angel raised him from the ground yet he saith of himself that he stood trembling If these whom God appeared o in a way of kindness were so possessed with fear what horror must needs seize upon the minds of the wicked when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed from Heaven in flaming fire on purpose to take vengeance upon them If in the days of his flesh there appeared so much Majesty in his Countenance that when the Officers came to apprehend him they went backward and fell to the ground how unconceivably greater must it be when his design shall be to manifest that Glory to the world which he then concealed from it If in the short time of his transfiguration on the Holy Mount his own Disciples were so far from being able to behold the glory of his presence that they fell on their faces and were sore afraid how shall his enemies abide the day of his wrath or how can they stand when he shall appear in the full glory of his Majesty and Power 3. The terror of the proceedings upon that day for then we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ not for any ostentation of his greatness and power before the whole world but that every one may receive according to the things done in his body whether it be good or bad How full of terror will the proceedings of that day be wherein all secrets shall be disclosed all actions examined and all persons judged That will be a the day of the Revelation of the righteous judgement of God this is the time of darkness and therefore of disputes and quarrels but then the wisdom and justice of divine providence shall be made manifest to all for every one shall receive according to his works and none will wonder at the sentence when they have seen the evidence Then the most secret impurities the most subtile hypocrisie the most artificial fraud and the most dissembled malice shall be laid open to publick view For then God will bring to hight the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts Then all the intrigues of lust and ambition so much the talk and business of this world will be nothing but mens shame and reproach in the next With what horror will they then behold all the sins of their lives set in order before them when they seemed in this life next to the committing them to design as much as may be to forget them Happy men if their Consciences were like their Table Books that they could blot out and put in what they pleased themselves then all the black Catalogue of their sins would be presently expunged and they would have nothing to be seen there but the Characters of what at least seemed to be good For though men be never so vicious they neither care that others should think so of them nor they of themselves of
contemn all sober Counsels and scoffe at Religion what can they expect from him but that when they shall call upon him he will not answer and when they seek him earnestly they shall not find him but he will laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh O blessed Jesus didst thou weep over an incorrigible people in the days of thy flesh and wilt thou laugh at their miseries when thou comest to judge the world didst thou shed thy precious blood to save them and wilt thou mock at their destruction didst thou woo and intreat and beseech sinners to be reconciled and wilt thou not hear them when in the anguish of their souls they cry unto thee See then the mighty difference between Christs coming as a Saviour and as a Judge between the day of our salvation and the day of his wrath between the joy in Heaven at the conversion of penitent sinners and at the confusion of the impenitent and unreclaimable How terrible is the representation of Gods wrath in the style of the Prophets when he punisheth a people in this world for their sins It is called the day of the Lord cruel with wrath and fierce anger the day of the Lords vengeance the great and dreadful day of the Lord. If it were thus when his wrath was kindled but a little when mercy was mixed with his severity what will it be when he shall stir up all his wrath and the heavens and the earth shall shake that never did offend him what shall they then do that shall to their sorrow know how much they have displeased him Then neither power nor wit nor eloquence nor craft shall stand men in any stead for the great Judge of that day can neither be over-awed by power nor over-reached by wit nor moved by eloquence nor betrayed by craft but every man shall receive according to his deeds The mighty disturbers of mankind who have been called Conquerours shall not then be attended with their great armies but must stand alone to receive their sentence the greatest wits of the world will then find that a sincere honest heart will avail them more than the deepest reach or the greatest subtilty the most eloquent persons without true goodness will be like the man in the parable without the wedding garment speechless the most crafty and politick will then see that though they may deceive men and themselves too yet God will not be mocked for whatsoever a man sows that shall he reap and they who have spread snares for others and been hugely pleased to see them caught by them shall then be convinced that they have laid the greatest of all for themselves for God will then be fully known by the judgement which he shall execute and the wicked shall be snared in the work of their own hands for the wicked shall be turned into Hell and all the nations that forget God 4. The terror of the sentence which shall then be passed The Judge himself hath told us before hand what it shall be to make us more apprehensive of it in this State wherein we are capable to prevent it by sincere repentance and a holy life The tenour of it is expressed in those dreadful words depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels It is impossible to conceive words fuller of horrour and amazement than those are to such as duly consider the importance of them It is true indeed wicked men in this world are so little apprehensive of the misery of departing from God that they are ready to bid God depart from them and place no mean part of their felicity in keeping themselves at a distance from him The true reason of which is that while they pursue their lusts the thoughts of God are disquieting to them as no man that robs his neighbour loves to think of the Judge while he does it not as though his condition were securer by it but when men are not wise enough to prevent a danger they are so great fools to count in their wisdom not to think of it But therein lies a great part of the misery of another world that men shall not be able to cheat and abuse themselves with false notions and shews of happiness The clouds they have embraced for Deities shall then vanish into smoke all the satisfaction they ever imagined in their lusts shall be wholly gone and nothing but the sad remembrance of them lest behind to torment them All the Philosophy in the world will never make men understand their true happiness so much as one hours experience of another State will do all men shall know better but some shall be more happy and others more miserable by it The righteous shall not only see God but know what the seeing of God means and that the greatest happiness we are capable of is implyed therein and the wicked shall not only be bid to depart from him but shall then find that the highest misery imaginable is comprehended in it It is a great instance of the weakness of our capacities here that our discourses concerning the happiness and misery of a future life are like those of Children about affairs of State which they represent to themselves in a way agreeable to their own Childish fancies thence the Poctical dreams of Elysian fields and turning wheels and rouling stones and such like imaginations Nay the Scripture it self sets forth the joys and torments of another world in a way more suited to our fancy than our understanding thence we read of sitting down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob to represent the happiness of that State and of a gnawing worm and a devouring fire and blackness of darkness to set forth the misery of it But as the happiness of heaven doth infinitely exceed the most lofty metaphors of Scripture so doth the misery of hell the most dreadful representation that can be made of it Although a worm gnawing our entrails and a fiâ—e consuming our outward parts be very sensible and moving metaphors yet they cannot fully express the anguish and torment of the soul which must be so much greater as it is more active and sensible than our bodies can be Take a man that afflicts himself under the sense of some intolerable disgrace or calamity befallen him or that is oppressed with the guilt of some horrid wickedness or sunk into the depth of despair the Agonies and torments of his mind may make us apprehend the nature of that misery although he falls short of the degrees of it And were this misery to be of no long continuance yet the terror of it must needs be great but when the worm shall never dye and the fire shall never be quenched when insupportable misery shall be everlasting nothing can then be added to the terrour of it and this is as plainly contained in the sentence of wicked
all other Beings are such as are suitable to their natures how come those in mankind to be such as must be supposed to be not only above but contrary to them if an immortal soul be not granted If men had no principle within them beyond that of sense nothing would have been more easie than to have shaken off the notion of a Deity and all apprehension of a future State But this hath been so far from easie that it is a thing utterly impossible to be done all the wit and arts all the malice and cruelty all the racks and torments that could yet be thought on could not alter mens perswasions of the Christian Religion much less raze out the Foundations of Natural Religion in the world But what imaginable account can be given of the joys and pleasures which the Martyrs of old expressed under the most exquisite torments of their bodies if their minds were not of a far nobler and diviner nature than their bodies were Although a natural stupidity and dulness of temper may abate the sense of pain although an obstinate resolution may keep men from complaining of it yet not only to bear the Cross but to embrace it to be not only patient but pleasant under tortures nay to sing with greater joy in the flames than others do when they are heated with wine doth not only shew that there is something within us capable of pleasure distinct from the body but that the pleasures of it may be so great as to swallow up the pains of the body But I need not have recourse to such great and extraordinay instances although sufficiently attested by such who saw and heard them for every good man hath that inward pleasure in being and doing good which he would not part with for all the greatest Epicurism in the world And where there is or may be so great pleasure no wonder if there be likewise a sense of pain proportionable to it witness those gripes and tortures of Conscience which wicked men undergo from the reflection upon themselves when their own evil actions fill them with horror and amazement when the cruelties they have used to others return with greater violence upon their own minds when the unlawful pleasures of the body prove the greatest vexation to their souls and the weight of their evil actions sinks them under despair and the dreadful apprehensions of future misery These are things we need not search histories or cite ancient authors for every mans own Conscience will tell him if he hath not lost all sense of good and evil that as there is a real pleasure in doing good there is the greatest inward pain in doing evil Having thus shewed that the soul of man is capable of pleasure and pain in this present state distinct from the body it thence follows that it is capable of rewards and punishments when it shall be separated from it 2. That the souls of men have a power of determining their own actions without which there could be no reasonable account given of the rewards and punishments of another life Were I to prove liberty in man from the supposition of Religion I know no argument more plain or more convincing than that which is drawn from the consideration of future rewards and punishments but being now to prove a capacity of rewards and punishments from the consideration of Liberty I must make use of other means to do it by And what can be imagined greater evidence in Beings capable of reflecting upon themselves than the constant sense and experience of all mankind Not that all men are agreed in their opinions about these things for even herein men shew their liberty by resisting the clearest evidence to prove it but that every man finds himself free in the determining his moral actions And therefore he hath the same reason to believe this which he hath of his own Being or understanding For what other way hath a man to know that he understands himself or any thing else but the sense of his own mind and those who go about to perswade men that they think themselves free when they are not may in the next place perswade them that they think they understand when they do not Nay they might hope in the first place to perswade men out of their understandings for we are not so competent judges of the more necessary and natural acts for men understand whether they will or no as of the more free and voluntary for in this case every man can when he pleases put a tryal upon himself and like the confuting the arguments against motion by moving can shew the folly of all the pleas for fatal necessity by a freedom of action But if once this natural liberty be taken away wisdom and folly as well as vice and vertue would be names invented to no purpose no men can be said to be better or wiser than others if their actions do not depend on their own choice and consideration but on a hidden train of causes which it is no more in a mans power to hinder than in the earth to hinder the falling of rain upon it If therefore sense and reason may prevail upon mankind not to fancy themselves under invisible chains and fetters of which they can have no evidence or experience we may thence infer the souls capacity of rewards and punishments in another life since happiness and misery are set before them and it must be their own voluntary choice which brings them to either of them When either by their own folly they run themselves upon everlasting ruine or by making use of the assistance of divine grace they become capable of endless Joy But since men have not only a power of governing themselves but are capable of doing it by considerations as remote from the things of sense as Heaven is from Earth it is not conceivable there should be such a power within us if there were not an immortal soul which is the subject of it For what is there that hath the shadow of liberty in meer matter what is there of these inferiour creatures that can act by consideration of future things but only man Whence comes man to consider but from his reason or to guide himself by the consideration of future and eternal things but from an immortal principle within him which alone can make things at a distance to be as present can represent to it self the infinite pleasures and unconceivable misery of an eternal state in such a manner as to direct the course of this present life in order to the obtaining of the one and avoiding of the other And thus much concerning the supposition here made of the loss of the soul and its immortality implied therein I come to consider the hazard of losing the soul for the gain of this world Fâ—r although our Saviour puts the utmost supposable case the better to represent the folly of losing
nature to have yet the very thoughts of dying and leaving all in a short time must needs make his happiness seem much less considerable to him And every wise man would provide most for that State wherein he is sure to continue longest The shortness of life makes the pleasures of it less desirable and the miseries less dreadful but an endless State makes every thing of moment which belongs to it Where there is variety and liberty of change there is no necessity of any long deliberation before hand but for that which is to continue always the same the greatest consideration is needful because the very continuance of some things is apt to bring weariness and satiety with it If a man were bound for his whole life time to converse only with one person without so much as seeing any other he would desire time and use his best judgement in the choice of him If one were bound to lie in the same posture without any motion but for a month together how would he imploy his wits before hand to make it as easie and tolerable as might be Thus solicitous and careful would men be for any thing that was to continue the same although but for a short time here But what are those things to the endless duration of a soul in a misery that is a perpetual destruction and everlasting death always intolerable and yet must always be endured A misery that must last when time it self shall be no more and the utmost periods we can imagine fall infinitely short of the continuance of it O the unfathomable Abysse of Eternity how are our imaginations lost in the conceptions of it But what will it then be to be swallowed up in an Abysse of misery and eternity together And I do not know how such an eternal State of misery could have been represented in Scripture in words more Emphatical than it is not only by everlasting fire and everlasting destrustion but by a worm that never dyes and a fire that never goes out and the very same expressions are used concerning the eternal State of the Blessed and the damned so that if there were any reason to Question the one there would be the same to question the other also 4. The loss of this world may be abundantly recompenced but the loss of the soul can never be For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul If a man runs the hazard of losing all that is valuable or desirable in this world for the sake of his soul heaven eternal happiness will make him infinite amends for it He will have no cause to repent of his bargain that parts with his share in this evil world for the joys and glories which are above They who have done this in the resolution of their minds have before hand had so great satisfaction in it that they have gloried in tribulations and rejoyced in hopes of the glory of God they have upon casting up their accounts found that the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed because the afflictions they meet with here are but light and momentany but that which they expected in recompence for them was an exceeding and an eternal weight of Glory O blessed change what life can be so desirable as the parting with it is on such terms as these It was the hopes of this glorious recompence which inspired so many Martyrs to adventure for heaven with so much courage patience and constancy in the primitive times of the Christian Church How do they look down from heaven and despise all the vanities of this world in comparison with what they enjoy And if they are sensible of what is done on earth with what pity do they behold us miserable creatures that for the sake of the honours pleasures or riches of this world venture the loss of all which they enjoy and thereby of our souls too Which is a loss so great that no recompence can ever be made for it no price of redemption can ever be accepted for the delivery of it For even the Son of God himself who laid down his life for the redemption of souls shall then come from heaven with flaming fire to take vengeance on all those who so much despise the blood he hath shed for them the warnings he hath given to them the Spirit he hath promised them the reward he is ready to bestow upon them as in spight of all to cast away those precious and immortal souls which he hath so dearly bought with his own blood Methinks the consideration of these things might serve to awaken our security to cure our stupidity to check our immoderate love of this world and inflame our desires of a better Wherein can we shew our selves men more than by having the greatest regard to that which makes us men which is our souls Wherein can we shew our selves Christians better than by abstaining from all those hurtful lusts which war against our souls and doing those things which tend to make them happy We are all walking upon the shore of eternity and for all that we know the next tide may sweep us away shall we only sport and play or gather cockle shells and lay them in heaps like Children till we are snatched away past all recovery It is no such easie matter to prevent the losing our souls as secure sinners are apt to imagine It was certainly to very little purpose that we are bid to work out our Salvation if lying still would do it or to give all diligence about it if none would serve the turn or to strive to enter in at the straight gate if it were so wide to receive all sinners No Many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able what then shall become of those that run as far from it as they can Those I mean whom no intreaties of God himself no kindness of his Son no not the laying down his life for their souls no checks or rebukes of their own consciences can hinder from doing those things which do without a speedy and sincere repentance exclude men from the Kingdom of heaven O that men could at last be perswaded to understand themselves and set a just value upon their immortal souls How would they then despile the vanities conquer the temptations and break through the difficulties of this present world and by that means fit their souls for the eternal enjoyment of that blessed State of souls which God the Father hath promised his Son hath purchased and the Holy Ghost hath confirmed To whom be rendred c. FINIS A DISCOURSE Concerning the TRUE REASON OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST By EDWARD STILLINGFLEET D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty The Second Edition LONDON Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock and are to be sold at his Shops at the Sign
among men I answer that we do not pretend in all things to parallel the sufferings of Christ for us with any sufferings of men for one another But yet we add that even among men the punishments inflicted on those who were themselves innocent as to the cause of them may be as exemplary as any other And the greater appearance of severity there is in them the greater terror they strike into all offenders As Childrens losing their estates and honors or being banished for their Parents treasons in which they had no part themselves Which is a proper punishment on them of their Fathers faults whether they be guilty or no and if this may be just in men why not in God If any say that the Parents are only punished in the Children he speaks that which is contradictory to the common sense of mankind for punishment doth suppose sense or feeling of it and in this case the Parents are said to be punished who are supposed to be dead and past feeling of it and the Children who undergo the smart of it must not be said to be punished though all things are so like it that no person can imagine himself in that condition but would think himself punished and severely too If it be said that these are calamities indeed but they are no proper punishments it may easily be shewed that distinction will not hold here Because these punishments were within the design of the Law and were intended for all the ends of punishments and therefore must have the nature of them For therefore the Children are involved in the Fathers punishment on purpose to deter others from the like actions There are some things indeed that Children may fall into by occasion of their Fathers guilt which may be only calamities to them because they are necessary consequents in the nature of the thing and not purposely designed as a punishment to them Thus being deprived of the comfort and assistance of their Parents when the Law hath taken them off by the hand of justice this was designed by the Law as a punishment to the Parents and as to the Children it is only a necessary consequent of their punishment For otherwise the Parents would have been punished for the Childrens faults and not the Children only involved in that which unavoidably follows upon the Parents punishment So that Crellius is very much mistaken either in the present case of our Saviours punishment or in the general reason of exemplary punishments as among men But the case of our Saviour is more exemplary when we consider the excellency of his person though appearing in our nature when no meaner sufferings would satisfie than of so transcendent a nature as he underwent though he were the Eternal Son of God this must make the punishment much more exemplary than if he were considered only as our Adversaries do as a meer man So that the dignity of his person under all his sufferings may justly add a greater consideration to deter us from the practice of sin which was so severely punished in him when he was pleased to be a Sacrifice for our sins From whence we see that the ends of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are very agreeable with the sufferings of Christ considered as a punishment for sin We now consider whether as Crellius asserts supposing Christs death were no punishment it could have these effects upon mens minds or no Yes he saith it might because by his sufferings we might see how severely God would punish wicked and obstinate persons Which being a strange riddle at the first hearing it viz. that by the sufferings of an innocent person without any respect to sin as the cause of them we should discern Gods severity against those who are obstinate in sin we ought the more diligently to attend to what is said for the clearing of it First saith he If God spared not his own most innocent and holy and only Son than whom nothing was more dear to him in Heaven or Earth but exposed him to so cruel and ignominious a death how great and severe sufferings may we think God will inflict on wicked men who are at open defiance with him I confess my self not subtle enough to apprehend the force of this argument viz. If God dealt so severely with him who had no sin either of his own or others to answer for therefore he will deal much more severely with those that have For Gods severity considered without any respect to sin gives rather encouragement to sinners than any argument to deter them from it For the natural consequence of it is that God doth act arbitrarily without any regard to the good or evil of mens actions and therefore it is to no purpose to be sollicitous about them For upon the same account that the most innocent person suffers most severely from him for all that we know the more we strive to be innocent the more severely we may be dealt with and let men sin they can be but dealt severely with all the difference then is one shall be called punishments and the other calamities but the severity may be the same in both And who would leave off his sins meerly to change the name of punishments into that of calamities And from hence it will follow that the differences of good and evil and the respects of them to punishment and reward are but aiery and empty things but that God really in the dispensation of things to men hath no regard to what men are or do but acts therein according to his own Dominion whereby he may dispose of men how or which way he pleases If a Prince had many of his Subjects in open rebellion against him and he should at that time make his most obedient and beloved Son to be publickly exposed to all manner of indignities and be dishonoured and put to death by the hands of those rebels could any one imagine that this was designed as an exemplary punishment to all rebels to let them see the danger of rebellion No but would it not rather make them think him a cruel Prince one that would punish innocency as much as rebellion and that it was rather better to stand at defiance and become desperate for it was more dangerous to be beloved than hated by him to be his Son than his declared Enemy So that insisting on the death of Christ as it is considered as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for of that we speak now there is no comparison between our Adversaries hypothesis and ours but saith Crellius the consequence is not good on our side if Christ suffered the punishment of our sins therefore they shall suffer much more who continue in sin for Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world but they suffer only for their own and what they have deserved themselves To which I answer that the argument is of very good force upon our hypothesis
person who detains because the reason of his detaining was the expectation of the price to be pald but in the latter the detainer is meerly the instrument for execution of the Law and the price of redemption is not to be paid to him but to those who are most concerned in the honour of the Law But Crellius objects that the price can never be said to be paid to God because our redemption is attributed to God as the author of it and because we are said to be redeemed for his use and service now saith he the price can never be paid to him for whose service the person is redeemed But all this depends upon the former mistake as though we spake all this while of such a redemption as that is of a Captive by force in whom the detainer is no further concerned than for the advantage to be made by him and in that case the price must be paid to him who detains because it would otherwise be unsuccessful for his deliverance but in case of captivity by Law as the effect of disobedience the Magistrate who is concerned in the life of the person and his future obedience may himself take care that satisfaction may be given to the Law for his redemption in order to his future serviceableness From hence we see both that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is proper in this case of our redemption and that it is not a meer commutation of a price for a person but a commutation of one persons suffering for others which suffering being a punishment in order to satisfaction is a valuable consideration and therefore a price for the redemption of others by it Which price in this sense doth imply a proper substitution which was the thing to be proved Which was the first thing to be made good concerning the death of Christ being a sacrifice for sin viz. that there was a substitution of Christ in our stead as of the sacrifices of old under the Law and in this sense the death of Christ was a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or price of redemption for us Nothing then can be more vain than the way of our Adversaries to take away the force of all this because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes taken for a meet deliverance without any price which we deny not but the main force of our argument is from the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is mentioned and then we say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when applied to sins signifies expiation as Heb. 9. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but when applied to persons it signifies the deliverance purchased by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not to be considered as a bare price or a thing given but as a thing undergone in order to that deliverance and is therefore not only called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too which Crellius confesseth doth imply a commutation and we have shewed doth prove a substitution of Christ in our place CHAP. V. The notion of a sacrifice belongs to the death of Christ because of the Oblation made therein to God Crellius his sense of Christs Oblation proposed Against him it is proved that the Priestly office of Christ had a primary respect to God and not to us Expiatory Sacrifices did divert the wrath of God Christ not a bare Metaphorical High-Priest Crellius destroys the Priesthood of Christ by confounding it with the exercise of his Regal Power No proper expiation of sin belongs to Christ in Heaven if Crellius his Doctrine be true Ephes. 5. 2. proves the death of Christ an Expiatory Sacrifice and an Oblation to God The Phrase of a sweet-smelling savour belongs to expiatory Sacrifices Crellius his gross notion of it His mistakes about the kinds of Sacrifices Burnt-offerings were Expiatory Sacrifices both before and under the Law A new distribution of sacrifices proposed What influence the mactation of the Sacrifice had on Expiation The High-Priest only to slay the Sin-offering on the day of Atonement from whence it is proved that Christs Priesthood did not begin from his entrance into Heaven The mactation in Expiatory Sacrifices no bare preparation to a Sacrifice proved by the Iewish Laws and the customs of other Nations Whether Christs Oblation of himself once to God were in Heaven or on Earth Of the proper notion of Oblations under the Levitical Law Several things observed from thence to our purpose All things necessary to a legal Oblation concur in the death of Christ His entrance into Heaven hath no correspondency with it if the blood of Christ were no sacrifice for sin In Sin-offerings for the People the whole was consumed no eating of the Sacrifices allowed the Priests but in those for private Persons Christs exercise of Power in Heaven in no sense an Oblation to God Crellius his sense repugnant to the circumstances of the places in dispute Objections answered THE Second thing to prove the death of Christ a Sacrifice for sin is the Oblation of it to God for that end Grotius towards the conclusion of his book makes a twofold oblation of Christ parallel to that of the Sacrifices under the Law the first of Mactation the second of Representation whereof the first was done in the Temple the second in the Holy of Holies so the first of Christ was on Earth the second in Heaven the first is not a bare preparation to a Sacrifice but a Sacrifice the latter not so much a Sacrifice as the commemoration of one already past Wherefore since appearing and interceding are not properly sacerdotal acts any further than they depend on the efficacy of a sacrifice already offered he that takes away that Sacrifice doth not leave to Christ any proper Priesthood against the plain authority of the Scripture which assigns to Christ the office of a Priest distinct from that of a Prophet and a King To which Crellius replies That the expiation of sin doth properly belong to what Christ doth in Heaven and may be applyed to the death of Christ only as the condition by which he was to enjoy that power in Heaven whereby he doth expiate sins but the Priest was never said to expiate sins when he killed the beast but when the blood was sprinkled or carried into the Holy of Holies to which the Oblation of Christ in Heaven doth answer but mactation saith he was not proper to the Priests but did belong to the Levites also And Christ was not truly a Priest while we was on Earth but only prepared by his sufferings to be one in Heaven where by the perpetual care he takes of his People and exercising his Power for them he is said to offer up himself and intercede for them and by that means he dischargeth the Office of a High-Priest for them For his Priestly Office he saith is
is set down briefly by Crellius in the beginning of his discourse of Sacrifices There is a twofold power saith he of the sacrifice of Christ towards the expiation of sin one taking away the guilt and the punishment of sin and that partly by declaring that God will do it and giving us a right to it partly by actual deliverance from punishment the other is by begetting Faith in us and so drawing us off from the practice of sin Now the first and last Crellius and Socinus attribute to the death of Christ as that was a confirmation of the Covenant God made for the remission of sin and as it was an argument to perswade us to believe the truth of his Doctrine and the other viz. the actual deliverance from punishment is by themselves attributed to the second coming of Christ for then only they say the just shall be actually delivered from the punishment of sin viz. eternal death and what expiation is there now left to the Oblation of Christ in Heaven Doth Christ in Heaven declare the pardon of sin any other way than it was declared by him upon Earth What efficacy hath his Oblation in Heaven upon perswading men to believe or is his second coming when he shall sit as Judge the main part of his Priesthood for then the expiation of sins in our Adversaries sense is most proper And yet nothing can be more remote from the notion of Christs Pristhood than that is so that expiation of sins according to them can have no respect at all to the Oblation of Christ in Heaven or which is all one in their sense his continuance in Heaven to his second coming Yes saith Crellius his continuance there is a condition in order to the expiation by actual deliverance and therefore it may be said that God is as it were moved by it to expiate sins The utmost then that is attributed to Christs being in Heaven in order to the expiation of sins is that he must continue there without doing anything in order to it for if he does it must either respect God or us but they deny though contrary to the importance of the words and the design of the places where they are used that the terms of Christs interceding for us or being an Advocate with the Father for us do note any respect to God but only to us if he does any thing with respect to us in expiation of sin it must be either declaring perswading or actual deliverance but it is none of these by their own assertions and therefore that which they call Christs Oblation or his being in Heaven signifies nothing as to the expiation of sin and it is unreasonable to suppose that a thing which hath no influence at all upon it should be looked on as a condition in order to it From whence it appears that while our Adversaries do make the exercise of Christs Priesthood to respect us and not God they destroy the very nature of it and leave Christ only an empty name without any thing answering to it But if Christ be truly a High-Priest as the Apostle asserts that he is from thence it follows that he must have a respect to God in offering up gifts and sacrifices for sin which was the thing to be proved 2. That Christ did exercise this Priestly Office in the Oblation of himself to God upon the Cross. Which I shall prove by two things 1. Because the death of Christ is said in Scripture to be an Offering and a Sacrifice to God 2. Because Christ is said to offer up himself antecedently to his entrance into Heaven 1. Because the death of Christ is said to be an offering and a sacrifice to God which is plain from the words of St. Paul as Christ also hath loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour Our Adversaries do not deny that the death of Christ is here called an Oblation but they deny That it is meant of an Expiatory Sacrifice but of a free will offering and the reason Crellius gives is because that phrase of a sweet-smelling savour is generally and almost always used of sacrifices which are not expiatory but if ever they be used of an Expiatory Sacrifice they are not applyed to that which was properly expiatory in it viz. the offering up of the blood for no smell saith he went up from thence but to the burning of the fat and the kidneys which although required to perfect the expiation yet not being done till the High-Priest returned out of the Holy of Holies hath nothing correspondent to the expiatory Sacrifice of Christ where all things are persected before Christ the High-Priest goes forth of his Sanctuary How inconsistent these last words are with what they assert concerning the expiation of sin by actual deliverance at the great day the former discourse hath already discovered For what can be more absurd than to say that all things which pertain to the expiation of sin are perfected before Christ goes forth from his Sanctuary and yet to make the most proper expiation of sin to lye in that act of Christ which is consequent to his going forth of the Sanctuary viz. when he proceeds to judge the quick and the dead But of that already We now come to a punctual and direct answer as to which two things must be enquired into 1. What the importance of the phrase of a sweet-smelling savour is 2. What the Sacrifices are to which that phrase is applyed 1. For the importance of the phrase The first time we read it used in Scripture was upon the occasion of Noahs Sacrifice after the flood of which it is said that he offered burnt-offerings on the Altar and the Lord smelled a savour of rest or a sweet savour Which we are not to imagine in a gross corporeal manner as Crellius seems to understand it when he saith the blood could not make such a savour as the fat and the kidneys for surely none ever thought the smell of flesh burnt was a sweet-smelling savour of it self and we must least of all imagine that of God which Porphyry saith was the property only of the worst of Daemons to be pleased and as it were to grow fat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the smell and vapours of blood and flesh by which testimony it withal appears that the same steams in Sacrifices were supposed to arise from the blood as the flesh But we are to understand that phrase in a sense agreeable to the divine nature which we may easily do if we take it in the sense the Syriack Version takes it in when it calls it Odorem placabilitatis or the savour of rest as the word properly signifies for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word formed from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is used for the resting of the Ark v. 4. of the
too viz. Because it was the way whereby he obtained the power of expiation and far more properly so than the other since they make Christs entrance and power the reward of his sufferings but they never make his sitting at the right hand of God the reward of his entrance into Heaven 2. His offering up himself to God upon the Cross was his own act but his entrance into Heaven was Gods as themselves acknowledge and therefore could not in any propriety of speech be called Christs offering up himself 3. If it were his own act it could not have that respect to the expiation of sins which his death had for our Adversaries say that his death was by reason of our sins and that he suffered to purge us from sin but his entrance into Heaven was upon his own account to enjoy that power and authority which he was to have at the right hand of God 4. How could Christs entrance into Heaven be the way for his enjoying that power which was necessary for the expiation of sin when Christ before his entrance into Heaven saith that all power was given to him in Heaven and earth and the reason assigned in Scripture of that power and authority which God gave him is because he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the Cross So that the entrance of Christ into Heaven could not be the means of obtaining that power which was conferred before but the death of Christ is mentiâ—ned on that account in Scripture 5. If the death of Christ were no expiatory Sacrifice the entrance of Christ into Heaven could be no Oblation proper to a High-Priest for his entrance into the Holy of Holies was on the account of the blood of the sin-offering which he carried in with him If there were then no Expiatory Sacrifice before that was slain for the sins of men Christ could not be said to make any Oblation in Heaven for the Oblation had respect to a Sacrifice already slain so that if men deny that Christs death was a proper Sacrifice for sin he could make no Oblation at all in Heaven and Christ could not be said to enter thither as the High-Priest entred into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the Sacrifice which is the thing which the Author to the Hebrews asserts concerning Christ. 2. There is as great an inconsistency in making the exercise of Christs power in Heaven an Oblation in any sense as in making Christs entrance into Heaven to be the Oblation which had correspondency with the Oblations of the Law For what is there which hath the least resemblance with an Oblation in it Hath it any respect to God as all the legal Oblations had no for his intercession and power Crellius saith respects us and not God Was there any Sacrifice at all in it for expiation how is it possible that the meer exercise of power should be called a Sacrifice What analogy is there at all between them And how could he be then said most perfectly to exercise his Priesthood when there was no consideration at all of any Sacrifice offered up to God so that upon these suppositions the Author to the Hebrews must argue upon strange similitudes and fancy resemblances to himself which it was impossible for the Iews to understand him in who were to judge of the nature of Priesthood and Oblations in a way agreeable to the Institutions among themselves But was it possible for them to understand such Oblations and a Priesthood which had no respect at all to God but wholly to the People and such an entrance into the Holy of Holies without the blood of an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the people But such absurdities do men betray themselves into when they are forced to strain express places of Scripture to serve an hypothesis which they think themselves obliged to maintain We now come to shew that this interpretation of Crellius doth not agree with the circumstances of the places before mentioned which will easily appear by these brief considerations 1. That the Apostle always speaks of the offering of Christ as a thing past and once done so as not to be done again which had been very improper if by the Oblation of Christ he had meant the continual appearance of Christ in Heaven for us which yet is and will never cease to be till all his enemies be made his foot-stool 2. That he still speaks in allusion to the Sacrifices which were in use among the Iews and therefore the Oblation of Christ must be in such a way as was agreeable to what was used in the Levitical Sacrifices which we have already at large proved he could not do in our Adversaries sense 3 That the Apostle speaks of such a Sacrifice for sins to which the sitting at the right hand of God was consequent so that the Oblation antecedent to it must be properly that Sacrifice for sins which he offered to God and therefore the exercise of his power for expiation of sins which they say is meant by sitting at the right hand of God cannot be that Sacrifice for sins Neither can his entrance into Heaven be it which in what sense it can be called a Sacrifice for sins since themselves acknowledge it had no immediate relation to the expiation of them I cannot understand 4. The Apostle speaks of such an Offering of Christ once which if it had been repeated doth imply that Christs sufferings must have been repeated too For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the World but the repeated exercise of Christs power in Heaven doth imply no necessity at all of Christs frequent suffering nor his frequent entrance into Heaven which might have been done without suffering therefore it must be meant of such an offering up himself as was implyed in his death and sufferings 5. He speaks of the offering up of that body which God gave him when he came into the World but our Adversaries deny that he carried the same Body into Heaven and therefore he must speak not of an offering of Christ in Heaven but what was performed here on Earth But here our Adversaries have shewn us a tryal of their skill when they tell us with much confidence that the World into which Christ is here said to come is not to be understood of this World but of that to come which is not only contrary to the general acceptation of the word when taken absolutely as it is here but to the whole scope and design of the place For he speaks of that World wherein Sacrifices and Burnt-offerings were used and the Levitical Law was observed although not sufficient for perfect expiation and so rejected for that end and withal he speaks of that World wherein the chearful obedience of Christ to the will of his Father was seen for he saith Lo I come to
do thy will O God which is repeated afterwards but will they say that this World was not the place into which Christ came to obey the Will of his Father and how could it be so properly said of the future World Lo I come to do thy will when they make the design of his ascension to be the receiving the reward of his doing and suffering the will of God upon Earth But yet they attempt to prove from the same Author to the Hebrews that Christs entrance into Heaven was necessary to his being a perfect High-Priest for he was to be made higher than the Heavens and if he were on earth he should not be a Priest but he was a Priest after the power of an endless life Neither could he say they be a perfect High-Priest till those words were spoken to him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee which as appears by other places was after the Resurrection But all the sufferings he underwent in the world were only to qualifie him for this Office in Heaven therefore it is said That in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest c. This is the substance of what is produced by Crellius and his Brethren to prove that Christ did not become a perfect High-Priest till he entred into Heaven But it were worth the knowing what they mean by a perfect High-Priest Is it that Christ did then begin the Office of a High-Priest and that he made no offering at all before No that they dare not assert at last but that there was no perfect Sacrifice offered for sin otherwise Sâ—cinus contends That Christ did offer upon earth and that for himself too So that all kind of offering is not excluded by themselves before Christs entrance into Heaven But if they mean by perfect High-Priest in Heaven that his Office of High-Priest was not consummated by what he did on earth but that a very considerable part of the Priest-hood of Christ was still remaining to be performed in Heaven it is no more than we do freely acknowledge and this is all we say is meant by those places For the Apostles design is to prove the excellency of the Priest-hood of Christ above the Aaronical which he doth not only from the excellency of the Sacrifice which he offered above the blood of Bulls and Goats but from the excellency of the Priest who did exâ—el the Aaronical Priests both in regard of his calling from God which is all the Apostle designs Heb 5. 5. not at all intending to determine the time when he was made but by whom he was made High-Priest even by him that had said Thou art my Son c. and in regard of the excellency of the Sanctuary which he entâ—ed into which was not an earthly but ia heavenly Sanctuâ—ry and in regard of the perpetuity of his function there Not gâ—…ing in once a year as the High-Priests under the Law did but there ever living to make intercession for us Now this being the Apostles design we may easily understand why he saith That he was to be a heavenly High-Priest and if he had been on earth he could not have been a Priest The meaning of which is only this that if Christs Office had ended in what he did on earth he would not have had such an excellency as he was speaking of for then he had ceased to be at all such a High-Priest having no Holy of Holies to go into which should as much transcend the earthly Sanctuary as his Sacrifice did the blood of Bulls and Goats Therefore in correspondency to that Priesthood which he did so far excell in all the parts of it he was not to end his Priesthood meerly with the blood which was shed for a Sacrifice but he was to carry it into Heaven and present it before God and to be a perpetual Intercessor in the behalf of his people And so was in regard of the perpetuity of his Office a Priest after the Law of an endlesslife But lest the peâ—ple should imagine that so great and excellent a High-Priest being so far exalted above them should have no sense or compassion upon the infirmities of his people therefore to encourage them to adhere to him he tells them That he was made like to his Brethren and therefore they need not doubt but by the sense which he had of the infirmities of humane nature he will have pity on the weaknesses of his people which is all the Apostle means by those expressions So that none of these places do destroy the Priesthood of Christ on earth but only assert the excellency and the continuance of it in heaven Which latter we are as far from denying as our Adversaries are from granting the former And thus much may suffice for the second thing to prove the death of Christ a proper sacrifice for sin viz. The Oblation which Christ made of himself to God by it CHAP. VI. That the effects of proper Expiatory Sacrifices belong to the death of Christ which either respect the sin or the person Of the true notion of expiation of sin as attributed to Sacrifices Of the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to them Socinus his proper sense of it examined Crellius his Objections answered The Iews notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sacrifices not bare conditions of pardon nor expiated meerly as a slight part of obedience Gods expiating sin destroys not expiation by Sacrifice The importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to Sacrifices Expiation attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ in the same sense that it was to other Sacrifices and from thence and the places of Scripture which mention it proved not to be meerly declarative If it had been so it had more properly belonged to his Resurrection than his death The Death of Christ not taken Metonymically for all the Consequents of it because of the peculiar effects of the death of Christ in Scripture and because Expiation is attributed to him antecedently to his entrance into Heaven No distinction in Scripture of the effects of Christs entrance into Heaven from his sitting at the right hand of God The effects of an Expiatory Sacrifice respecting the person belong to the death of Christ which are Atonement and Reconciliation Of the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Reconciliation by Christs death doth not meerly respect us but God why the latter lessused in the Now Testament Atwofold Reconciliation with God mentioned in Scripture Crellius his evasion answered The Objections from Gods being reconciled in the sending his Son and the inconsistency of the Freeness of Grace with the Doctrine of Satisfaction answered and the whole concluded THE last thing to prove the death of Christ a proper Expiatory Sacrifice is
God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To this I answer 1. That the reason why the person propitiated is not expressed is because it was so much taken for granted that the whole Institution of Sacrifices did immediately respect God and therefore there was no danger of mistaking concerning the person who was to be atoned 2. I wonder Crellius can himself produce no instance where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used with respect to the Sacrifices and the persons whose offences are remitted by the Atonement but where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath a relation to that it is still joyned with a Preposition relating either to the person or to the offences if no more were understood when it is so used than when God himself is said to do it why is not the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well said of the Priest as it is of God From whence Grotius his sense of Hebr. 2. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is far more agreeable to the use of the phrase in the Old Testament than that which Crellius would put upon it Therefore since the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is attributed to Christ we ought to take it in the sense proper to a Propitiatory Sacrifice so it is said by Moses where God is left out but is necessarily understood after the people had provoked God by their Idolatry Ye have sinned a great sin And now I will go up unto the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That I may make an Atonement for your sin What way could Moses be said to make this Atonement but by propitiating God yet his name is not there expressed but necessarily understood So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in the most proper sense for appeasing the anger of a person Gen 32. 20. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Sam. 21. 3. which places have been already insisted on in the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that those places wherein Christ is said to be a propitiation for our sins are capable of no other sense will appear from the consideration of Christ as a middle person betwen God and us and therefore his being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot be parallel with that phrase where God himself is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Christ is here considered as interposing between God and us as Moses and the Priests under the Law did between God and the people in order to the averting his wrath from them And when one doth thus interpose in order to the Atonement of the offended party something is alwayes supposed to be done or suffered by him as the means of that Atonement As Iacob supposed the present he made to his Brother would propitiate him and David appeased the Gibeonites by the death of Sauls Sons both which are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the shedding of the blood of Sacrifices before and under the Law was the means of atoning God for the sins they committed What reason can there be then why so received a sense of Atonement both among the Iews and all other Nations at that time when these words were written must be forsaken and any other sense be embraced which neither agrees with the propriety of the expression nor with so many other places of Scripture which make the blood of Christ to be a Sacrifice for the Expiation of sin Neither is it only our Atonement but our Reconciliation is attributed to Christ too with a respect to his Death and Sufferings As in the place before insisted on For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son and more largely in the second Epistle to the Corinthians And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Iesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him And to the Ephesians And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by his Cross having slain the enmity thereby To the same purpose to the Colossians And having made peace through the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself by him I say whether they be things in Heaven or in Earth and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death Two things the substance of Crellius his answer may be reduced to concerning these places 1. That it is no where said that God was reconciled to us but that we are reconciled to God and therefore this reconciliation doth not imply any averting of the anger of God 2. That none of these places do assert any reconciliation with God antecedent to our conversion and so that the Reconciliation mention'd implyes only the laying aside our enmity to God by our sins I begin with the first of these concerning which we are to consider not barely the phrases used in Scripture but what the nature of the thing implyes as to which a difference being supposed between God and man on the account of sin no reconciliation can be imagined but what is mutual For did man only fall out with God and had not God just reason to be displeased with men for their Apostasie from him If not what made him so severely punish the first sin that ever was committed by man what made him punish the old World for their impieties by a deluge what made him leave such Monuments of his anger against the sins of the World in succeeding Ages what made him add such severe sanctions to the Laws he made to the people of the Iews what made the most upright among them so vehemently to deprecate his wrath and displeasure upon the sense of their sins what makes him declare not only his hatred of the sins of men but of the persons of those who commit them so far as to express the greatest abhorrency of them Nay what makes our Adversaries themselves to say that impiety is in its own nature hateful to God and stirrs him up to anger against all who commit it what means I say all this if God be not angry with men on the account of sin Well then supposing God to be averse from men by reason of their sins shall this displeasure always continue or not if it always continues men must certainly suffer the desert of their sins if it doth not always continue then God may be said to be reconciled in the same sense that an offended party is capable of being reconciled to him who hath provoked him Now there are two ways whereby a party justly offended may be
himself once to God were in Heaven or on Earth B C Crâ—ll cap. 10. sect 54. D E A B C Lev. 1. 3. V. 4. D E A Lev. 4. 25 30. V. 6. B Lâ—vit 6. 26. Lev. 4. 11 12. Levit. 6. 30. C Lev 16. 14 15. §. 10. All things necessary to a legal oblation concur in the death of Christ. D E A B C D E A B C Heb. 9. 12. D E Heb. 13. 12. A B C 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herodot l 2. c. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch de Iside D Xenoph. Cyâ—opaed l. 7. 8. Strab. l. 4. Plutarch Symp. l. 6. probl 8. E A B §. 11. Chriâ—ts entrance into Heaven could not be the Oblation of himself mentioned C D E Matth. 28. 18. A Phil. 2. 8 9 B C §. 12. Christsexercise of power in Heaven in no sense an Oblation to God D E A §. 13. Crelâ—ius his sense repugnant to the circumstances of the placeâ— Heb. 7. 27. 9. 26. 10. 10. Heb. 9. 12 13. 10. 4 5. B Heb. 10. 12. C Heb. 9. 26. D Heb. 10. 5 10 Crell cap. 10. sect 53. E A Heb 10. 7 9. §. 14. Objectâ—ons aâ—â—wered 〈◊〉 7 26. 8. 4 7. 16. B 5. 5. 2. 17. C Crell cap. 10. sect 53. Sociâ— pâ—aelect c. â—…lt D E A B C D E A B C D §. 1. Of the true notion of Expiation as attributed to Sacrifices E A Sociâ— de Christo servat p. 2. l. 13. Câ—ell cap. 10. sect 26. B Crell cap. 10. sect 38. C D Sociâ— de Servat p. 2. c. 11. Psal. 32. 1. E A B Lev. 4. 26. Verse 31. 35. C D Crellius his Oâ—jâ—ctions answered §. 2. Crâ—ll c. 10. sect 9. E A B C Cum roâ— neget Socinus hoc verbâ—m placandi significationem habere Crell c. 20. sect 38. D E A B §. 3. The Iewâ— notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Buxtorf â—exic Talmud v. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 C D Matth. 20. 28. E A Socia l. 2. c. 11. Docâ—t Socinus victimaâ—um oblationem obedientiam quandam Deo praestandam quanqâ—am levâ—m continâ—isse quam ex â—romisso Dei levium quoruâ—dam erratorâ—m ac peccatorum venia coâ—seâ—â—eretur Creli c. 10. sect 10. B C D E A B §. 4. Gâ—dâ— exâ—iâ—ting sin desâ—â—oâ—es nâ—â— exâ—xpâ—ation by sacrifices Câ—ell ib. sect 39. C Hâ—b 9. 22. D Verse 1â— 14. Verse 18 19 20 21 23. E A B C Lev. 17. 11. D E A §. 5. The importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to sacrifices B C D Crell c. 10. sect 23. 24. E A Itaque quod ad â—…es Graecas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attinet quicâ—s iâ— hoc arâ—uâ—â—nto non semel â—titur D. scriptor ad Heb. tâ— ad Christi Sacrificiâ—â— Sacâ—rdâ—â—i â—â—â—ctionem relatae â—o etiam 〈◊〉 â—sâ—râ—antur qâ—â—m Graeca â—iâ—gua recepâ—rat b. c. de â—xpâ—â—gatioâ—e râ—atus aversioâ—â— irae nâ—miâ—is aâ—t pâ—â—â—ae Crell c. 10. p. 499. B C D E A §. 8. Expiation attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ in the same sense that it was to other Sacrifices B Crell c. 10. sect 24. C D E A B C Crell c. 10. sect 26. D E A B §. 7. Expiation by Christ not meerly declaraâ—ive C Crell cap. 10. sect 28. p 506. D E A B Crell cap. 10. sect 28. C D E A B C D E A B C §. 8. The death of Christ not taken Metonymically for all the consequents of it D Câ—ell cap. 1. sect 103. Sect. 119. c. 10 Sect. 45. p. 527. E A Crell cap. 1. sect 112. B Rom. 5. v. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. C D E A B C §. 9. Expiation attributed to Christ antecedently to his entrance into heaven D Crell cap. 10. sect 50. E A B C D E A §. 10. No distinction in Scripture of the effects of Christs entrance into Heaven from his sitting at the right hand of God B Crell c. 10. sect 50. p. 537. C Matth. 28. 18. D Phil. 2. 8 9. E A §. 11. Of the Atonement made by Christs death B Crell c. 7. sect 3. C D E A Crell 7. sect 10. B C D E A B C D E A B §. 12. Of Reconciliation by Christs death Rom. 5. 10. 2 Cor. 18. 19 21. C Ephes. 2. 16. Col. 1. 20 21 22. D Crill c. 7. sect 15 16 17 18 c. E A Psal. 6. 1. 38. 1. Psal. 5. 5. 7. 11. 11. 5. Levit. 26. 30. B Crell de Deo Attrib l. 〈◊〉 c. 30. C D E A B 2 Cor. 5. 19. 20. C Crell cap. 1. sect 118. 〈◊〉 cap. 7. sect 24. D E A B C D Crell cap. 7. sect 30. E A §. 12. Objâ—ctions answered B C D E A §. 13. The freeness of Grace asserted in Scripture destroys not satisfaction B C D Gen. 20. 7. E Job 42. 7. A B C D E