to punish it he remits the sinner as he assures him by the death of Christ he will not punish upon his repentance but he fully remits both when he delivers the person upon the tryall of the great day from all the penalties which he hath deserved by his sins So that our compleat justification and salvation go both upon the same terms and the same Faith which is sufficient for one must be sufficient for the other also What care then ought men to take lest by mis-understanding the notion of Believing so much spoken of as the condition of our salvation they live in a neglect of that holy obedience which the Gospel requires and so believe themselves into eternal misery But as long as men make their obedience necessary though but as the fruit and effect of Faith it shall not want its reward for those whose hearts are purified by Faith shall never be condemned for mistaking the notion of it and they who live as those that are to be judged according to their works shall not miss their reward though they do not think they shall receive it for them But such who make no other condition of the Gospel but Believing and will scarce allow that to be call'd a Condition ought to have a great care to keep their hearts sounder than their heads for their only security will lye in this that they are good though they see no necessity of being so And such of all others I grant have reason to acknowledge the irresistible power of Divine Grace which enables them to obey the will of God against the dictates of their own judgements But thanks be to God who hath so abundantly provided for all the infirmities of humane Nature by the large offers of his Grace and assistance of his Spirit that though we meet with so much opposition without and so much weakness within and so many discouragements on every side of us yet if we sincerely apply our selves to do the will of God we have as great assurance as may be that we shall be kept by the power of God through Faith unto Salvation FINIS Hebr. 2. 3. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation WHen the wise and eternal Counsels of Heaven concerning the salvation of Mankinde by the death of the Son of God were first declared to the World by his own appearance and preaching in it nothing could be more reasonably expected than that the dignity of his Person the authority of his Doctrine and the excellency of his Life should have perswaded those whom he appeared among to such an admiration of his Person and belief of his Doctrine as might have led them to an imitation of him in the holiness of his life and conversation For if either the worth of the Person or the importance of the Message might prevail any thing towards a kinde and honourable reception among men there was never any person appeared in any degree comparable to him never any Message declared which might challenge so welcome an entertainment from men as that was which he came upon If to give Mankinde the highest assurance of a state of life and immortality if to offer the pardon of sin and reconciliation with God upon the most easie and reasonable terms if to purge the degenerate World from all its impurities by a Doctrine as holy as the Author of it were things as becoming the Son of God to reveal as the Sons of men to receive nothing can be more unaccountable than that his Person should be despised his Authority slighted and his Doctrine contemned And that by those whose interest was more concerned in the consequence of these things than himself could be in all the affronts and injuries he underwent from men For the more the indignities the greater the shame the sharper the sufferings which he did undergo the higher was the honour and glory which he was advanced to but the more obliging the instances of his kindness were the greater the salvation that was tendered by him the more prevailing the motives were for the entertainment of his Doctrine the more exemplary and severe will the punishment be of all those who reject it For it is very agreeable to those eternal Laws of Justice by which God governs the world that the punishment should arise proportionably to the greatness of the mercies despised and therefore although the Scripture be very sparing in telling us what the state of those persons shall be in another life who never heard of the Gospel yet for those who do and despise it it tells us plainly that an eternal misery is the just desert of those to whom an eternal happiness was offered and yet neglected by them And we are the rather told of it that men may not think it a surprize in the life to come or that if they had known the danger they would have escaped it and therefore our Blessed Saviour who never mentioned punishment but with a design to keep men from it declares it frequently that the punishment of those persons and places would be most intolerable who have received but not improved the light of the Gospel and that it would be more tolerable for the persons who had offer'd violence to Nature and had Hell-fire burning in their hearts by their horrid impurities than for those who heard the Doctrine and saw the Miracles of Christ and were much the worse rather than any thing the better for it But lest we should think that all this black scene of misery was only designed for those who were the Actors in that dolefull Tragedy of our Saviours sufferings we are told by those who were best able to assure us of it that the same dismal consequences will attend all the affronts of his Doctrine as if they had been offer'd to his own person For it is nothing but the common flattery and self-deceit of humane nature which makes any imagine that though they do not now either believe or obey the Gospel they should have done both if they had heard our Saviour speak as never man spake and seen him do what never man did For the same disposition of minde which makes them now slight that Doctrine which is delivered to them by them that heard him would have made them slight the Person as well as the Doctrine if they had heard it from himself And therefore it is but reasonable that the same punishment should belong to both especially since God hath provided so abundantly for the assurance of our Faith by the miraculous and powerfull demonstration of that divine spirit which did accompany those who were the first publishers of this Doctrine to the world And therefore the Author of this Epistle after he hath in the words of the Text declared that it is impossible to escape if we neglect the great salvation offered us by the Gospel in the following words he gives us that account of it that at first it began to be spoken by the
appeal be made to the Courts of Judicature what arts are then used either for concealing or hiring witnesses so that if their Purses be not equal the adverse party may overswear him by so much as his Purse is weightier than the others I heartily wish it may never be said of us what the Orator once said of the Greeks Quibus jusjurandum jocus testimonium ludus they made it a matter of jest and drollery to forswear themselves and give false testimonies But supposing men keep within the bounds of justice and common honesty yet how unsatiable are the desires of men they are for adding house to house and land to land never contented with what either their Ancestors have left them or the bountiful hand of Heaven hath bestowed upon them Till at last it may be in the Prophets expression for their covetousness the stone cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber answer it i. e. provoke God to give a severe check to the exorbitant and boundless desires of men as he hath done by this dayes calamity Thus while the City thought with Babylon to sit as a Lady for ever while she dwelt carelesly and said I am and there is none else besides me evil is come upon her and she knows not from whence it comes and mischief is fallen upon her and she hath not been able to put it off and desolation is come upon her suddenly which she did not foresee 3. Contempt of God and his Laws That we read of v. 4. where the Prophet speaks by an Irony to them Come to Bethel and transgress c. he knew well enough they were resolved to do it let God or the Prophet say what they pleased For these Kine of Bashan were all for the Calves of Dan and Bethel and some think that is the reason of the title that is given them These great men of Samaria thought it beneath them to own Religion any further than it was subservient to their civil interests They were all of Jeroboams Religion who looked on it as a meer politick thing and fit to advance his own designs by I am afraid there are too many at this day who are secretly of his minde and think it a piece of wisdom to be so Blessed God that men should be so wise to deceive themselves and go down with so much discretion to Hell These are the Grave and retired Atheists who though they secretly love not Religion yet their caution hinders them from talking much against it But there is a sort of men much more common than the other the faculties of whose minds are so thin and aiery that they will not bear the consideration of any thing much less of Religion these throw out their bitter scoffs and prophane jests against it A thing never permitted that I know of in any civilized Nation in the world whatsoever their Religion was the reputation of Religion was always preserved sacred God himself saith Josephus would not suffer the Jews to speak evil of other Gods though they were to destroy all those who tempted them to the worship of them And shall we suffer the most excellent and reasonable Religion in the world viz. the Christian to be profaned by the unhallowed mouths of any who will venture to be damned to be accounted witty If their enquiries were deeper their reason stronger or their arguments more perswasive than of those who have made it their utmost care and business to search into these things they ought to be allowed a fair hearing but for men who pretend to none of these things yet still to make Religion the object of their scoffs and raillery doth not become the gravity of a Nation professing wisdom to permit it much less the sobriety of a people professing Christianity In the mean time such persons may know that wise men may be argued out of a Religion they own but none but Fools and mad men will be droll'd out of it Let them first try whether they can laugh men out of their Estates before they attempt to do it out of their hopes of an Eternal happiness And I am sure it will be no comfort to them in another world that they were accounted Wits for deriding those miseries which they then feel and smart under the severity of it will be no mitigation of their flames that they go laughing into them nor will they endure them the better because they would not believe them But while this is so prevailing a humour among the vain men of this Age and Nation what can we expect but that God should by remarkable and severe judgements seek to make men more serious in Religion or else make their hearts to ake and their joynts to tremble as he did Belshazzars when he could find nothing else to carouse in but the Vessels of the Temple And when men said in the Prophet Zephany chap. 1. 12. that God neither did good nor evil presently it follows therefore their goods shall become a booty and their houses a desolation the day of the Lord is near a day of wrath a day of trouble and distress a day of wasteness and desolation as it is with us at this time Thus we see how sad the parallel hath been not only in the judgements of Israel but in the sins likewise which have made those judgements so severe 4. The severity of the Judgement appears not only from the Causes but from the Author of it I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah God challenges the execution of his Justice to himself not only in the great day but in his judgement here in the world Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it When God is pleased to punish men for their sins the execution of his justice is as agreeable to his nature now as it will be at the end of the world We all know that he may do it if he please and he hath told us that he doth and will do it and we know withall that without such remarkable severities the world will hardly be kept in any awe of him We do not finde that Love doth so much in the World as Fear doth there being so very few persons of tractable and ingenuous spirits It is true of too many what Lactantius observes of the Romans Nunquam Dei meminerunt nisi dum in malis sunt they seldom think of God but when they are afraid of him And there is not only this reason as to particular persons why God should punish them but there is a greater as to Communities and Bodies of men for although God suffers wicked men to escape punishment here as he often doth yet he is sure not to do it in the life to come but Communities of men can never be punished but in this World and therefore the Justice of God doth often discover it self in these common calamities to keep the
that either it is impossible for man to know when his choice is free or if it may be known the constant experience of all evil men in the world will testifie that it is so now Is it possible for the most intemperate person to believe when the most pleasing temptations to lust or gluttony are presented to him that no consideration whatever could restrain his appetite or keep him from the satisfaction of his bruitish inclinations Will not the sudden though groundless apprehension of poyson in the Cup make the Drunkards heart to ake and hand to tremble and to let fall the supposed fatal mixture in the midst of all his jollity and excess How often have persons who have designed the greatest mischief to the lives and fortunes of others when all opportunities have fallen out beyond their expectation for accomplishing their ends through some sudden thoughts which have surprized them almost in the very act been diverted from their intended purposes Did ever any yet imagine that the charms of beauty and allurements of lust were so irresistible that if men knew before hand they should surely dye in the embraces of an adulterous bed they could not yet withstand the temptations to it If then some considerations which are quite of another nature from all the objects which are presented to him may quite hinder the force and efficacy of them upon the mind of man as we see in Josephs resisting the importunate Caresses of his Mistris what reason can there be to imagine that man is a meer machine moved only as outward objects determine him And if the considerations of present fear and danger may divert men from the practice of evil actions shall not the far more weighty considerations of eternity have at least an equal if not a far greater power and efficacy upon mens minds to keep them from everlasting misery Is an immortal soul and the eternal happiness of it so mean a thing in our esteem and value that we will not deny our selves those sensual pleasures for the sake of that which we would renounce for some present danger Are the flames of another world such painted fires that they deserve only to be laughed at and not seriously considered by us Fond man art thou only free to ruine and destroy thy self a strange fatality indeed when nothing but what is mean and trivial shall determine thy choice when matters of the highest moment are therefore less regarded because they are such Hast thou no other plea for thy self but that thy sins were fatal thou hast no reason then to believe but that thy misery shall be so too But if thou ownest a God and Providence assure thy self that justice and righteousness are not meer Titles of his Honour but the real properties of his nature And he who hath appointed the rewards and punishments of the great day will then call the sinner to account not only for all his other sins but for offering to lay the imputation of them upon himself For if the greatest abhorrency of mens evil wayes the rigour of his Laws the severity of his judgements the exactness of his justice the greatest care used to reclaim men from their sins and the highest assurance that he is not the cause of their ruine may be any vindication of the holiness of God now and his justice in the life to come we have the greatest reason to lay the blame of all our evil actions upon our selves as to attribute the glory of all our good unto himself alone 2. The frailty of humane Nature those who finde themselves to be free enough to do their souls mischief and yet continue still in the doing of it find nothing more ready to plead for themselves than the unhappiness of mans composition and the degenerate state of the world If God had designed they are ready to say that man should lead a life free from sin why did he confine the soul of man to a body so apt to taint and pollute it But who art thou O man that thus findest fault with thy Maker Was not his kindness the greater in not only giving thee a soul capable of enjoying himself but such an habitation for it here which by the curiosity of its contrivance the number and usefulness of its parts might be a perpetual and domestick testimony of the wisdom of its Maker Was not such a conjunction of soul and body necessary for the exercise of that dominion which God designed man for over the creatures endued only with sense and motion And if we suppose this life to be a state of tryall in order to a better as in all reason we ought to do what can be imagined more proper to such a state than to have the soul constantly employed in the government of those sensual inclinations which arise from the body In the doing of which the proper exercise of that vertue consists which is made thâ— condition of future happiness Had it noâ— been for such a composition the difference could never have been seen between gooâ— and bad men i. e. between those who maintain the Empire of reason assisted by the motives of Religion over all the inferiour faculties and such who dethrone their souls and make them slaves to every lust that will command them And if men willingly subject themselves to that which they were born to rule they have none to blame but themselves for it Neither is it any excuse at all that this through the degeneracy of mankinde is grown the common custom of the world unless that be in it self so great a Tyrant that there is no resisting the power of it If God had commanded us to comply with all the customs of the world and at the same time to be sober righteous and good we must have lived in another age than we live in to have excused these two commands from a palpable contradiction But instead of this he hath forewarned us of the danger of being led aside by the soft and easie compliances of the world and if we are â—ensible of our own infirmities as we have â—ll reason to be he hath offered us the â—ssistance of his Grace and of that Spirit of â—is which is greater than the Spirit that is â—n the World He hath promised us those weapons whereby we may withstand the â—orrent of wickedness in the world with far greater success than the old Gauls were wont to do the inundations of their Countrey whose custom was to be drowned with their arms in their hands But it will be the greater folly in us to be so because we have not only sufficient means of resistance but we understand the danger before hand If we once forsake the strict rules of Religion and goodness and are ready to yield our selves to whatever hath got retainers enough to set up for a custom we may know where we begin but we cannot where we shall make an end For every fresh assault makes the breach wider
and suspicions of God what distrusts of humane Nature what unspeakable ingratitude and unaccountable folly lies at the bottom of all this uncertainty O fools and slow of heart to believe not only what the Prophets have spoken but what our Lord hath declared God himself hath given testimony to and the Holy Ghost hath confirmed 3. But is not your Interest concerned in these things Is it all one to you whether your souls be immortal or no whether they live in eternal felicity or unchangeable misery Is it no more to you than to know what kind of Bables are in request at the Indies or whether the customs of China or Japan are the wiser i. e. than the most trifling things and the remotest from our knowledge But this is so absurd and unreasonable to suppose that men should not think themselves concern'd in their own eternal happiness and misery that I shall not shew so much distrust of their understandings to speak any longer to it 3. But if notwithstanding all these things our neglect still continues then there remains nothing but a fearfull looking for of judgement and the fiery indignation of God For there is no possibility of escaping if we continue to neglect so great salvation All hopes of escaping are taken away which are onely in that which men neglect and those who neglect their only way to salvation must needs be miserable How can that man ever hope to be saved by him whose blood he despises and tramples under foot What grace and favour can he expect from God who hath done despight unto the Spirit of Grace That hath cast away with reproach and contempt the greatest kindness and offers of Heaven What can save him that resolves to be damned and every one does so who knows he shall be damned if he lives in his sins and yet continues to do so God himself in whose only pity our hopes are hath irreversibly decreed that he will have no pity upon those who despise his goodness slight his threatnings abuse his patience and sin the more because he offers to pardon It is not any delight that God takes in the miseries of his Creatures which makes him punish them but shall not God vindicate his own honour against obstinate and impenitent sinners He declares before-hand that he is far from delighting in their ruine and that is the reason he hath made such large offers and used so many means to make them happy but if men resolve to despise his offers and slight the means of their salvation shall not God be just without being thought to be cruel And we may assure our selves none shall ever suffer beyond the just desert of their sins for punishment as the Apostle tells us in the words before the Text is nothing but a just recompence of reward And if there were such a one proportionable to the violation of the Law delivered by Angels how shall we think to escape who neglect a more excellent means of happiness which was delivered by our Lord himself If God did not hate sin and there were not a punishment belonging to it why did the Son of God die for the expiation of it and if his death were the onely means of expiation how is it possible that those who neglect that should escape the punishment not only of their other sins but of that great contempt of the means of our salvation by him Let us not then think to trifle with God as though it were impossible a Being so mercifull and kind should ever punish his Creatures with the miseries of another life For however we may deceive our selves God will not be mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting I shall only propound some few Considerations to prevent so great a neglect as that of your salvation is 1. Consider what it is you neglect the offer of Eternal Happiness the greatest kindness that ever was expressed to the World the foundation of your present peace the end of your beings the stay of your mindes the great desire of your Souls the utmost felicity that humane Nature is capable of Is it nothing to neglect the favour of a Prince the kindness of Great Men the offers of a large and plentifull Estate but these are nothing to the neglect of the favour of God the love of his Son and that salvation which he hath purchased for you Nay it is not a bare neglect but it implyes in it a mighty contempt not only of the things offer'd but of the kindness of him who offers them If men had any due regard for God or themselves if they had any esteem for his love or their own welfare they would be much more serious in Religion than they are When I see a person wholly immersed in affairs of the World or spending his time in luxury and vanity can I possibly think that man hath any esteem of God or of his own Soul when I finde one very serious in the pursuit of his Designs in the World thoughtfull and busie subtle in contriving them carefull in managing them but very formal remiss and negligent in all affairs of Religion neither inquisitive about them nor serious in minding them what can we otherwise think but that such a one doth really think the things of the World better worth looking after than those which concern his eternal salvation But consider before it be too late and repent of so great folly Value an immortal Soul as you ought to doe think what Reconciliation with God and the Pardon of sin is worth slight not the dear Purchase which was bought at no meaner a rate than the Blood of the Son of God and then you cannot but minde the great salvation which God hath tender'd you 2. Consider on what terms you neglect it or what the things are for whose sake you are so great enemies to your own salvation Have you ever found that contentment in sin or the vanities of the World that for the sake of them you are willing to be for ever miserable What will you think of all your debaucheries and your neglects of God and your selves when you come to dye what would you give then if it were in your power to redeem your lost time that you had spent your time less to the satisfaction of your sensual desires and more in seeking to please God How uncomfortable will the remembrance be of all your excesses oaths injustice and profaneness when death approaches and judgement follows it What peace of mind will there then be to those who have served God with faithfulness and have endeavoured to work out their salvation though it hath been with fear and trembling But what would it then profit a man to have gained the whole World and to lose his own soul Nay what unspeakable losers must they
with what authority did he both speak and live such as commanded a reverence where it did not beget a love And yet after a life thus spent all the requital he met with was to be reproached despised and at last crucified O the dreadfull effects of malice and hypocrisie for these were the two great enemies which he alwayes proclaimed open war with and these at first contrived and at last effected his cruel death What baseness ingratitude cruelty injustice and what not will those two sins betray men to when they have once taken possession of the hearts of men for we can finde nothing else at the bottom of all that wretched conspiracy against our Saviour but that his doctrine and design was too pure and holy for them and therefore they study to take him away who was the author of them 3. We consider in what way and manner our Saviour underwent all these sufferings and this as much as any thing is here propounded to our consideration For it is not only who or what but in what manner he endured the contradiction of sinners that we ought to consider to prevent fainting and dejection of minde So another Apostle tells us that Christ suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered be threatned not but committed himself to him that judged righteously He uses none of those ranting expressions which none of the patientest persons in the world were accustomed to of bidding them laugh in Phalaris his Bull and when they were racked with pains to cry out Nil agis dolor he tells them not that it is their duty to have no sense of torments and to be jocund and pleasant when their flesh is torn from them or nailed to a Cross if this be any kinde of fortitude it is rather that of a Gladiator than of a wise man or a Christian. The worst of men either through a natural temper of body or having hardned themselves by custom have born the greatest torments with the least expression of grief under them And Panaetius one of the wisest of the Stoicks is so far from making insensibleness of pain the property of a wise man that he makes it not the property of a man The inferiour Creatures are call'd Brutes from their dullness and insensibleness and not meerly from want of reason any further than that one follows from the other bruta existimantur animalium quibus cor durum riget saith Pliny those animals are call'd Brutes which have the hardest hearts and the nearer any of them approach to the nature of man the more apprehensive they are of danger and the more sensible of pain thence Scaliger saith of the Elephant that it is maxima bellua sed non maximè bruta though it be the greatest beast it is the least a Brute Stupidity then under sufferings can be no part of the excellency of a man which in its greatest height is in the Beings the most beneath him But when danger is understood and pain felt and Nature groans under it then with patience and submission to undergo it and to conquer all the strugglings of Nature against it that is the duty and excellency of a Christian. If to express the least sense of grief and pain be the highest excellency of suffering the Macedonian boy that suffer'd his flesh to be burnt by a Coal till it grew offensive to all about him without altering the posture of his arm lest he should disturb Alexanders sacrifice out-did the greatest Philosophers of them all Possidonius his pitifull rant over a fit of the Gout so highly commended by Pompey and Tully O pain it is to no purpose though thou beest troublesome I will never confess thou art evil falls extremely short of the resolution of the Macedonian boy or any of the Spartan Youths who would not in the midst of torments so much as confess them troublesome And what a mighty revenge was that that he would not confess it to be evil when his complaint that it was troublesome was a plain argument that he thought it so It is not then the example of Zeno or Cleanthes or the rules of Stoicisme which Dionysius Heracleotes in a fit of the Stone complained of the folly of that are to be the measures of patience and courage in bearing sufferings but the example and Precepts of our Lord and Saviour who expressed a great sense of his sufferings but withall the greatest submission under them When Lipsius lay a dying and one of the by-standers knowing how conversant he had been in the Stoicks writings began to suggest some of their Precepts to him Vana sunt ista said he I find all those but vain things and beholding the Picture of our Saviour near his bed he pointed to that and cryed haec vera est patientia there is the true pattern of Patience For notwithstanding that Agony he was in immediately before his being betray'd when he sees the Officers coming towards him he asks them whom they seek for and tells them I am he which words so astonished them that they went back and fell upon the ground thereby letting them understand how easie a matter it was for him to have escaped their hands and that it was his own free consent that he went to suffer for he knew certainly before hand the utmost that he was to undergo and therefore it was no unreasonable impetus but a settled resolution of his minde to endure all the contradictions of sinners When he was spi◠upon mocked reproached and scourged none of all these could draw one impatient expression from him The malice and rage of his enemies did not at all provoke him unless it were to pity and pray for them And that he did with great earnestness in the midst of all his pains and though he would not plead for himself to them yet he pleads for them to God Father forgive them for they know not what they do How much more divine was this than the admired Theramenes among the Greeks who being condemned to dye by the thirty Tyrants when he was drinking off his cup of Poyson said he drank that to Critias one of his most bitter enemies and hoped he would pledge it shortly Socrates seemed not to express seriousness enough at least when he bid one of his friends when he was dying offer up a Cock to AEsculapius for his deliverance Aristides and Phocion among the Greeks came the nearest to our Saviours temper when one pray'd that his Countrey might have no cause to remember him when he was gone and the other charged his Son to forget the injuries they had done him but yet by how much the greater the person and office was of our Blessed Saviour than of either of them by how much the cruelty and ignominy as well as pain was greater which they
the same verse For Socinus in one verse of S. Johns Gospel makes the World be taken in three several senses He was in the world there it is taken saith he for the men of the world in general The world was made by him there it must be understood onely of the reformation of things by the Gospel and the world knew him not there it must be taken in neither of the former senses but for the wicked of the world What may not one make of the Scripture by such a way of interpreting it But by this we have the less reason to wonder that Socinus should put such an Interpretation upon Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree In which he doth acknowledge by the curse in the first clause to be meant the punishment of sin but not in the second And the reason he gives for it is amavit enim Paulus in execrationis verbo argutus esse S. Paul affected playing with the word curse understanding it first in a proper and then a Metaphorical sense But it is plain that the design of S. Paul and Socinus are very different in these words Socinus thinks he speaks onely Metaphorically when he saith that Christ was made a curse for us i. e. by a bare allusion of the name without a correspondency in the thing it self and so that the death of Christ might be called a curse but was not so but S. Paul speaks of this not by way of extenuation but to set forth the greatness and weight of the punishment he underwent for us He therefore tells us what it was which Christ did redeem us from The curse of the Law and how he did it by being not onely made a curse but a curse for us i. e. not by being hateful to God or undergoing the very same curse which we should have done which are the two things objected by Crellius against our sense but that the death of Christ was to be considered not as a bare separation of soul and body but as properly poenal being such a kind of death which none but Malefactors by the Law were to suffer by the undergoing of which punishment in our stead he redeemed us from that curse which we were liable to by the violation of the Law of God And there can be no reason to appropriate this onely to the Jews unless the death of Christ did extend onely to the deliverance of them from the punishment of their sins or because the curse of the Law did make that death poenal therefore the intention of the punishment could reach no further than the Law did but the Apostle in the very next words speaks of the farther extension of the great blessing promised to Abraham That it should come upon the Gentiles also and withall those whom the Apostle speaks to were not Jews but such as thought they ought to joyn the Law Gospel together that St. Paul doth not mean as Crellius would have it that Christ by his death did confirm the New Covenant and so take away the obligation of the Law for to what end was the curse mentioned for that What did the accursedness of his death add to the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and when was ever the curse taken for the continuance of the Law of Moses but that Christ by the efficacy of his death as a punishment for sin hat redeemed all that believe and obey him from the curse deserved by their sins whether inforced by the Law of Moses or the Law written in their hearts which tells the consciences of sinners that such who violate the Laws of God are worthy of death and therefore under the curse of the Law We come now to the force of the particles which being joyned with our sins as referring to the death of Christ do imply that his death is to be considered as a punishment of sin Not that we insist on the force of those particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as though of themselves they did imply this for we know they are of various significations according to the nature of the matter they are joyned with but that these being joyned with sins and sufferings together do signifie that those sufferings are the punishment of those sins Thus it is said of Christ that he dyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he suffered once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he gave himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he offered a Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which Crellius replyes That if the force of these particles not being joyned with sufferings may be taken for the final and not for the impulsive cause they may retain the same sense when joyned with sufferings if those sufferings may be designed in order to an end but if it should be granted that those phrases being joyned with sufferings do alwayes imply a meritorious cause yet it doth not follow it should not be here so understood because the matter will not bear it To this a short answer will at present serve for It is not possible a meritorious cause can be expressed more emphatically than by these words being joyned to sufferings so that we have as clear a testimony from these expressions as words can give and by the same arts by which these may be avoided any other might so that it had not been possible for our Doctrine to have been expressed such a manner but such kind of answers might have been given as our Adversaries now give If it had been said in the plainest terms that Christs death was a punishment for our sins they would as easily have avoided the force of them as they do of these they would have told us the Apostles delighted in an Antanaclasis and had expressed things different from the natural use of the words by them and though punishment were sometimes used properly yet here it must be used only metaphorically because the matter would bear no other sense And therefore I commend the ingenuity of Socinus after all the pains he had taken to enervate the force of those places which are brought against his Doctrine he tells us plainly That if our Doctrine were not only once but frequently mentioned in Scripture yet he would not therefore believe the thing to be so as we suppose For saith he seeing the thing it self cannot be I take the least inconvenient interpretation of the words and draw forth such a sense from them as is most consistent with it self and the tenour of the Scripture But for all his talking of the tenour of the Scripture by the same reason he interprets one place upon these terms he will do many and so the tenour of the Scripture shall be never against him and