adjudged just right to the Rewards promised him for performing the foresaid Conditions The dueness of the Reward to Christ in a way of strict Justice is his Righteousness Ius ad premium it was to him a Reward of Justice and not of Grace because Justice proportioned the Conditions to the Reward and the Reward to the Conditions if it were not so governing Justice never glorified or discover'd it self in the dispensing of Rewards To finish this Point consider 1. The Reward to which Christ hath a Right includes all that was promised to Christ or to others on the account of his Satisfaction and Merits Not only that he should be exalted and have a name above every name Pâ—â—â— 2.8 with whatever Glory or Homage which was to be render'd to him as a Saviour But it comprehends all by the Father promised and by himself bequeathed to his Members as Justification Adoption the Sanctifying Spirit Perseverance and Eternal Glory to his Regenerate Seed As also Regeneration and Faith to all the Elect that they may be raised to be a Seed to him and united with him 2. The Lord Jesus was solemnly adjudged to have performed all the Conditions and to have a Legal Right to all this Reward His Righteousness was adjudged he was justified as foretold Is. 50.8 God by Voice declared this but it was more manifest in his Resurrection and yet more in his Solemn Enthroning in the Heavens where he sits at Gods right hand Heb. 8.1 Yea he had Authority given him to execute his own Right Ioh. 5.27 Exh. Rejoyce and Glory in the Perfection of Christs Righteousness You see that in all respects it's compleat The Law of Redemption prescribed as became Gods Essential Justice to propose To these Governing Justice annexed a due Reward upon performing the Conditions the perfectly Holy Jesus had a right to all the Reward and was solemnly adjudged to have performed the Conditions and to have that Right to the Reward His Right is founded in a full performance of the Conditions which includes a full Conformity to the Law of Works yea and what far exceeds it In this then we may glory there 's no blot in his performance there 's no flaw in his right Can Sinners need anymore than this applied for it will serve to all the purposes it 's designed to Oh! Christian honour it by laying the stress of thy Hopes and Comfort on it and clearing thy Interest in it above all good it answers guilt weakness yea thy want of all things except that without which it cannot be applied to thee nor its effects attained viz. a Penitential Faith When thy Body rotteth in the Grave because of Sin thy Spirit will be safe and Eternally live on the account of this Righteousness Rom. 8.10 thou mayest chearfully venture thy Soul upon it 6 Pro. The Lord Jesus is and always will be possessed of this Righteousness in his own Person In the Lord have I Righteousness and Strength Is. 45.14 with respect to this it 's said our Redemption is in Christ by which we are justified Rom. 3.24 The Meriting Acts are over as Acts but the Merit never ceaseth His Sufferings are past but the Righteousness acquired thereby remains it 's not only their Vertue simply that continues but the Righteousness or Right founded thereon abideth He hath a Right to Faith for all the Elect who are yet uncalled he hath a Title to Pardon for all True Believers he hath a Right to Eternal Glory for all Persevering Saints There is our Right best secured It is for the Righteousness that is in Christ that we are acquitted and adopted and on it as in him we must still depend Exh. Sinners and Saints look to Christ as having in him a full Righteousness Let this Commend him to thy Acceptance and Trust. Sinners you need him on this very account to answer for your Unrighteousness all his Offers and Calls should have power with you from this very motive he hath a perfect Righteousness it were else in vain to believe in him it were to no purpose to repent and turn to him were not he by this Righteousness mighty to save thee an answer to his Call might not be expected But know with assurance that he is a Fountain deep enough for thy Uncleanness Zech. 13.1 The Son of Righteousness hath healing under his Wings Mal. 4.1 and peace and glory in his power You may trust the Promises by which the Gospel allureth you to Christ for as amazing as the Good is which they contain they are by his Righteousness Yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1.20 but take care of separating his Person from his Righteousness you must accept of him as a whole Christ if you hope for good by his Righteousness and your Faith must be directed to him in a firm dependance and entire subjection or he 'll be to you as unuseful as if he had not this fullness of Righteousness 7 Pro. All Graces and Saving Benefits are dispensed to Men in the Righteousness of Christ. By his Satisfaction he render'd it consistent with the Perfections of God to visit blind Souls with his light and surprize the dead with spiritual life on Christs account the Spirit descends to strive with the rebellious and awake the sleepy His Regenerating Influences are the effects of Christs Merits he acts as the Spirit of Christ. I do not mean that Christ's Righteousness is imputed to Men in order to the working of Faith in them as it is in order to Pardon you may as well say it 's imputed to Men in order to the preaching of the Gospel to them for that 's an effect of Christ's Righteousness but these are the result of a Divine Constitution wherein Christ is acknowledged but no right in Men supposed The first Grace is absolute and an arbitrary act as to any claim the Sinners hath Though Christ hath a right to the Elects being brought to believe yet he transfers not his right to the Elect who till they believe are not united to him and so are Aliens to his Righteousness But God hath an Eye to the Merits of Jesus in all his Grants and Gifts from first to last from the least to the greatest When he forgives Sin it is a rendring to us what is purchas'd by Christ's Blood Eph. 4.32 It is a giving forth of what he hath bought We are made Kings and Priests as a proper Reward to Christ and a Testimony to his Righteousness Exh. Say of every Saving Benefit and of all Graces This I receive because the Lord Iesus hath a full Righteousness The Heavens had been Brass as to Vital Influences but for this The Word had been a dead condemning Letter but for this My Sins had been eternally sealed up among his Treasures Pledges of his Love to my Soul I had never found my Prayers would have been excluded audience Christian Hopes and Comforts I had not intermeddled with but that Christ is Righteous yea perfectly so But because his Righteousness
What allowance did he make for the weakness of their Flesh How kindly doth he assure them of Eternal Mansions with that Pathetick Accent If it were not so I would have told you Joh. 14.1 How earnestly did he pray for them Ioh. 17. How soon doth he visit them without upbraiding their sad Desertion c. Yea our blessed Jesus retains the same affectionate Heart towards us in Heaven after all he endured on Earth He ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. 7.25 as if that were the very business and end of his Living How precious should Christ be to us to us to live should be Christ his Dominion we should acknowledge and obey his Law who so dearly bought his Government Rom. 14.9 Let us be entirely resigned to him and with joy endure the utmost for his Name for we are redeemed by his Blood Be careful and studious to imitate him as what expresseth our Esteem of him and most answers the great Ends of his Undertaking Rom. 8.29 Tit. 2.14 4. That sorer Punishment denounced in the Gospel against such as neglect Salvation by Christ is exceeding just Heb. 10.29 Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing c. It 's equal they die in their Sins notwithstanding the Remedy since they refuse it and that the Wrath of God abide on them who despise his Reconciling Love But that 's not all the Gospel proportions its Threatnings to the aggravated Sins of Unbelief and Impenitency that we will not come to Christ for the Life he purchased by his Death is worse than our first forfeiture of Life By this we trample on Christ as odious and esteem his Blood profane and vile We spurn at the tenderest Bowels and contemn the riehest Grace We approve of our Apostacy and hug our Chains We downright tell God to his face I chuse to be Damned rather than be saved by Christ. Can any think it strange that their Fall should be the lower their Flames the hotter and the Reflections of a tormenting Conscienee more penetrating It 's in flaming fire Christ will take vengeance on such as obey not the Gospel who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power The Blow intended for such is too great for a created Instrument to give therefore it will be immediate by the Presence of the Lord yea it will be so awful as shall make the Power of God's Arm glorious in inflicting it Marvelous is the Instance by which God intends to glorifie any Attribute sore will be that Misery by which God will get Eternal Glory to the strength of his Power in making Wretches miserable Oh! tremble at Gospel Vengeance and credit Gospel Threatnings lest you feel them and thereby Christ not only become useless but also terrible to you What will your case be when he shall avenge his despised Blood and execute that which is the condemnation Joh. 3.19 And know O! obstinate Sinner thy Ruine is as sure as it is dreadful Heb. 2.3 How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation There 's no possibility of escaping thy own awaken'd Mind being Judge Hath God a dearer Son to give for thee Will God be a Liar and Perjured for thy sake Can'st thou hope for this as thou must since he hath so often declared yea sworn that the impenitent Unbeliever shall never enter into his Rest. Undo not thy self by Hopes without any Word of God for them yea so expresly against his Word which so many thousands already feel the certainty of Obey the Gospel for Salvation thou must or its sorer Vengeance thou shalt Eternally undergo 5. The Faith and Joy of a sincere Christian are well grounded notwithstanding his many Offences and great Forfeitures Our Sins are many and great can God forgive them I am exceeding unworthy how shall God deal with me as his Child or admit my wearing a Crown of Glory Can I expect this or have any joyful hopes concerning it Truly these are necessary Challenges if the Price of Salvation be unknown But consider O Soul that thy Pardon and Eternal Glory are purchased by the Obedience of the Son of God in our Nature and secured to thee by the Covenant made and ratified in the Virtue of Christ's Blood Thy Sins have not dishonoured God above the Glory which redounds to him by the Sufferings and Merits of thy Redeemer That was done and suffered by Christ which in the Balance of Justice more than compensates whatever is to be forgiven thee or is promised to thee No Perfection of God is aggrieved by any thing the Gospel grants to the Persons it designeth Art thou a godly Believer thô a weak one Even thou mayest rejoyce in God through our Lord Iesus Christ having now received the atonement Rom. 5.11 Having answered the first Quesâ—â—on What is the Obedience of Christ by which we are made Righteous I come to the second Question SERMON II. 2 Q What is it to be made Righteous by Christs Obedience A. THere 's hardly a word in Scripture of so various acceptations as the word Righteousness But I shall confine my self to what the Spirit of God designeth principally in the Text. To be made Righteous by Christ's Obedience is 1. To be made free from Condemnation as if we had not sinn'd and to be entitled to Acceptance with God and Eternal Glory as if we had kept the whole Law and both for the sake of Christ's Righteousness imputed to Penitent Belieâ—ers for Pardon and Adoption It is not to be made Men that never sinned for that 's impossible nor to be esteemed Men that personally kept the whole Law for that were false both which blessedness by Pardon doth demonstrate our forgiveness shews our disobedience 2. By the Merits and Spirit of Christ to be made obedient to the Gospel at least in those things which Christ hath graciously appointed to be the Conditions of our actual Enjoyment of saving Benefits as the effects of Christ's sole Righteousness In the first sense we are made Righteous in our Justification which is a forensick act and infers a relative change of our State from Guilty to Pardoned from Non-Accepted to Accepted and from being void of Right to have a Right to the Eternal Inheritance In the sense of the second particular we are made Righteous partly in our Effectual Vocation and partly in our Progressive Sanctification and Perseverance This is by the efficiency of the Spirit of Christ enclining and enabling us to the performance of the respective Gospel Conditions he enableth us to Believe for Justification to Repent for Pardon to Persevere in Faith and True Holiness for the possession of Eternal Glory Both these are by the Obedience of Christ. His Satisfaction and Merits have a causual influence on both though these
Part of his Humiliation 1. He grants the Point which ought to be the real Question 2. He sets up for his Chimera with a false State of the Question and its Terms 1. He tells us if you take Incarnation largely as Christ's taking our Nature and the common sinless Frailties of it together with his being in the Form of a Servant and made under the Law I know not why it should be denied to be a Part of his Humiliation p. 73. Reply Well Christ's taking our Nature is granted by him to be Part of this large Sense And who can fairly exclude the rest out of the Subject of this Question Was Christ's Incarnation Part of his Humiliation Did not Christ assume our Nature with these Frailties and in the Form of a Servant Is our Question concerning an Ens Rationis i.e. supposing Christ had taken our Nature without taking the Form of a Servant which was next to impossible or without its sinless Frailties which were then natural to it and not under the Law which was the next End of taking it What would it have been then i. e. if it had been what it never was nor never would have been whatever some Popish Schoolmen talk is that to be the Subject of this Question Is this meant by Incarnation Whereas as it indeed was or as Christ was incarnate and the only way he was incarnate Mr. M. grants it was Humiliation and so he fairly yields the Cause But where will you hold him In a few Lines he drops the Form of a Servant as not so proper a Part of Christ's Humiliation because Christ in his Exaltation hath still the Form of a Servant Well recalled because so soon but it is to get creditable Company in his oversight for he chargeth the Apostle with the same Slip Humiliation c. Which the Apostle calls taking on him the Form of a Servant or rather being made under the Law Between which there may be conceived some Difference for Christ is still God's Servant c. p. 73. It 's well the Apostle added this in another Place But what gains our Author by this Halt 1. Either he engageth against him Phil. 2.7 where the Form of a Servant is Part of Christ's Exaninition and note that the best Authors esteem Christ's taking the Form of a Servant for his very Incarnation and not any humbling Circumstances consequential of it or else Mr. M. answers himself and his poor Argument too and sure that 's convictive For if Christ was humbled in taking on him the Form of a Servant though he keeps the Form of a Servant in his exalted State then Christ might be humbled in assuming our Nature though he keeps that Nature in his exalted State 2. Yea I think one may follow him to Gal. 4. 4. For if there the Apostle more properly mentions Christ's Humiliation and instanceth Christ's being made under the Law yet he fails not to join therewith Christ's being made of a Woman to share in the Humiliation with his being made under the Law It would seem Mr. M. thinks the Apostle had better served his Purpose if not written more accurately had he set made under the Law in the room of taking the Form of a Servant in Phil. 2. 7. But it will be no otherwise yet he sits not down with it for after all his mending and winding in vain to confine all Christ's Humiliation to his being made under the Law he hesitates and will be halving that too And therefore tells us He is not new under the law as he was in the Days of his Flesh. Then the Whole of Christ's being under the Law is not a Part of his Humiliation it must be confined to an As he was in the Days of his Flesh And what 's all this Toil for You 'll presently see it 's to keep all Humiliation within the Compass of the Curse as he had before P. 7. All the while Christ was in a State of Humiliation he was under the Curse A Point which that difficult Text Gal. 3.13 will never prove as to the whole time Let us now review what he hath brought his first State of the Question to which promised so well primo intuitu we have lost Christ's taking our Nature which was never intended we have lost the Form of a Servant as what is still retained in Heaven we have lost all that 's included in being under the Law except as it was in the days of his Flesh. 2. It 's time to see what use he 'll make of all this and how he supports his Chimaera by a further false Explaining of the Terms of the Question and this he doth by confining Humiliation to what is far less than it truly is and making Incarnation to be such an abstracted thing as it never was nor possibly could be 1. Humiliation is fulfilling the Law either in the Precept or the Curse of it P. 75 as before P. 7. he confined it to being under the Curse Reply The Disjunctive may help otherwise he hath given so hard a Definition of Humiliation by making it convertible with the Curse that it would sound ill to ascribe it to the Eternal Word unless on the account of our Flesh already Assumed yea or so as our Author intends by the Curse But the best of it is this is Gratis dictum but where is the Proof that 's a thing he seldom mindeth that he saith it is enough to bring you under his Damning Sentence if you deny Assent But 1. There is a very great part of Christ's Humiliation as the Son of God which is no part of the Humbling Curse as upon the Son of Man His Exaninition or laying aside of his Glory is Humiliation in the account of the Holy Ghost and this was true of the Son of God as to his very Assuming our Flesh abstructed from its Humbling Circumstances as I have fully proved Is it strong Reasoning then because the Humiliation of Christ hath more parts than one therefore that which is not that one part of it is no part at all of it 2. Christ did assume our Nature in Obedience to a Law even that of Mediation to which he had subjected himself as our Sponsor this also I have proved And sure if Obedience to the Law of Works as he grants would render the Incarnation a part of Humiliation Why will not Obedience to another Law especially from him who owed no Obedience but for our Redemption and by his own Consent 3. Mr. M. will hazard his ill-jumbled Hypothesis of Suretiship unless he 'll grant that supposing the Son of God would be a Redeemer of Man the very Law of Works required his Incarnation If so then Mr. M. hath allowed that it must be a part of Humiliation in his own proper Sense 4. Yea I know a Notion of his that must fall that supposing the Compact between the Father and Son antecedent to the Incarnation the Son stood obliged to Assume our Nature with its