1 Cor. 2. 2. I determined not to know any thing amongst you save Iesus Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even him Crucified The Person of Christ under that consideration as Crucified and the Reasons are as Cogent as the thing is clear For 1. In the Knowledge of Christ that very Christ whom the Father sent into the World consists Eternal Life This is Life Eternal to know thee the only true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent 2. VVe are Commanded to love this Iesus another great fault our Author finds with these Men but how to love him and not to be acquainted with him may be reckoned amongst the Impossibilities 1 Pet. 1. 7. At the appearing of Iesus Christ whom having not seen ye love in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoyce with Ioy unspeakable and full of Gloâ—…y The Apostle commends their love to and faith in an unseen Saviour whence it 's easie to conclude that it was the Person of Christ they loved for the Scriptures they had seen the Gospel the Church they had seen an Office I confess they could not very well see and yet they are praised for loving him that was not seen 3. VVe are commanded to Worship this Jesus to give Divine Honour to Him Iohn 5. 23. That all should Honour the Son even as they Honour the Father And accordingly we read that the Disciples did Worship Him Luke 24. 52. Nay the Command is given to the Angelical Nature Heb. 1. 6. Let all the Angels of God Worship Him But it 's a strange kind of Worship that we give Darklings One of the smartest Rebukes Christ gave the Samaritans was that they Worshipped they knew not what but We says Christ know what we Worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 VVe must not only know who He is but what He is whom we worship 4. It 's our plain duty to acquaint our selves with God that we may be at peace Iob 22. 21. But Christ is true God very God witness the Athanasian and Nicene Symbols 5. VVe are in particular commanded to believe in Him John 14. 1. Ye believe in God believe also in me And it concerns us to know by what authority he Imposes his Commands upon us what is his Varacity that we may depend upon his Promises and what is his Power to carry us through the difficulties that ever attend conscientious Duties to Eternal Life I am the more for acquaintance with Christs Person because it 's so great a Venture to trust the unknown This Prudence all men will be sure to exercise in Common affairs much more where Souls and Eternal Life lie at stake and such did the Apostle Practise 2 Tim. 1. 12. I know whom I have believed 6. The whole Design of the Scripture leads us to an acquaintance with the Father Son and blessed Spirit Hence was the Apostle so Zealous that the Colossians might come unto all Riches of the full assurance of Understanding to the acknowledgment of the Mysterie of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Even of the Father and of Christ in whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge VVhich are those Provoking words that have so often Ruffled our Authors thoughts into Disorder 7. The whole of the Scripture is an unaccountable Riddle without the Knowledge of Jesus Christ VVe are told there how God has been atoned by the Sacrifice of Oxen Sheep what a sweet smelling savour he has sented in the burned Flesh of the Holocaust which without Consideration of the Person of Christ and Reference to Him is Irrational To speak of the Death of Christ himself as reconciling God and man is also wholly Unintelligible without due regard to Him as Mediator what Office he bore what Place he filled in whose Stead he stood what that Covenant was that between the Father and his Son was agreed upon For according to our common apprehension of Things God should rather have Destroyed the World for Crucifying his Son than have been Reconciled and Propitiated by his Death Now I know well our Author will Reply that he good Man is no Enemy to acquaintance with Christs Person provided always we do not VViredraw New Doctrines from it and Extract greater and deeper Mysteries thence than are to be found out in the Gospel To which we Rejoyn That it 's not Christs Person that teaches us the Doctrine but the Doctrine that Acquaints us with his Person We study not the Person of Christ to find out Gâ—…spel Mysteries but to resolve them Not to Discover the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of New Truths but to Demonstrate to us the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Old But if after all that can be said our Author will be Clamorous we must be Content and Satisfie our selves with this that it 's the Nature of the Creature and some things we know are so untractable by their Constitution that though you Bray them in a Morter amongst Wheat with a Pestle yet their Crabbed Froward Awkward Tempers will not depart from them CHAP. III. Sect. 3. How unsafe it is to found Religion upon a Pretended Acquaintance with Christs Person I Foresee this Section will certainly prove Unanswerable the Comfort is it 's the onely one that appears to be such in the whole Book The Reader will judge with me that he must needs have a hard Task on 't and perhaps equal to any of Hercuâ—…es his Labours that shall maintain it safe To found Religion upon Hypocrisie and yet this must be his lot who will defend That it 's safe to build Religion upon a pretended Acquaintance with Christs Person Some report that that Goodly Beast which for Honours sake we will call a Porcupine keeps alwayes Two Avenues to her Cell that let the Wind sit where it will it shall never blow full in the Dore and let her Enemies besiege her how they can she has a secret Sally-port to creep out at With the same wisdom has our Author provided for his own Retreat in this Section For if any shall be so fool-hardy as to assault him with an Argument That it 's our Duty to be acquainted with Christs Person and for that end to search the Scriptures which testifie of him direct and lead us to him that so upon the Person of our Redeemer we may build our Faith as upon that Rock against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail he can readily reply upon you True but it 's onely a Pretended Acquaintance with Christs Person that I so zealoâ—…sly declaim against I perceive it 's no small advantage in all Disputes to have the Priviledge to state the Question to our own good liking and he that has once got a Faculty for it is out of Gun-shot unless he be so incorrigible a Coxcomb as not to be aware of his own Interest That the Religion of Sinners is built upon a Mediator as the Religion of the Innocent was upon the Being of a God That this Mediator is the Lord
that he hath appointed an Atonement for us and given no less Person than his own Son for our Ransome The Reader cannot but observe that he is there giving us Another Scheme of Religion from an Acquaintance with Christs Person without Scripture and then when he comes to take the Matter in hand he can from the Person of Christ demonstrate Gods good Will his pardoning Mercy and what not when others indeed venture upon Conclusions without Scripture they give some uncertain conjectures get some feeble hints some dim appearances and smattering Iâ—…cklings of the Matter but to Us it speaks nothing less than Apodictical and great Demonstration 2. The Reader will observe how perfectly he Overthrows the very design he would exalt for undertaking to prove How unsafe it is to found Religion upon a Pretended acquaintance with Christs Person and assigning this for a Reason that this is to build Religion upon uncertain Conjectures which we acknowledge to be Cogent When he comes to wind up his bottomes he tells us Though we had seen Christ in the flesh we could never have ghess'd at the End and Design of it had not he Christ Acquainted us with it So that the short and long of this great Demonstration is this That it 's uncertain to found our Religion upon Christ's Person because we could have known nothing of Religion unless we had been Acquainted with him He will lift himself off this flatt by replying that he means nothing but Christs acquainting us in and from his Gospel and we rejoyn that that which will bring him off will bring off his Neighbours for who ever affirm'd any more 3. He has herein at unawares stabb'd his main Cause to the heart For if there be no necessary connexion between the Person of Christ his Death and Suffering and the Salvation of Mankind but that as he assures us the End and Design of Christ in dying must be known onely by Revelation then it will unavoidably follow that Christ dyed for some greater Ends than to give us an Example of Patience and Submission to the Will of God to Confirm what he Preach'd seeing we needed no Revelation to acquaint us that a holy man is to be imitated in all holy things living or dying and that he thought at least his Doctrine was true or else he would never have exposed and layd down his Life to justifie it Now it 's plain however our Author does now and then humour us with Propitiation Ransom Atonement Expiation these are all reducible by his Engine to Christs confirming what he preach'd Pag. 320. All that I can find in Scripture concerning the Influence that the Sacrifice of Christ's Death hath upon our Acceptation with God is that to this we owe the Covenant of Grace which is Nothing else in his sence but God's Promise of saving us if we obey his Laws 4. He is slipt into the very same guilt with which he loads though unjustly his Adversaries viz. The Dividing the Person and Gospel of Christ. He was of a good Mind once p. 3. if he could have kept him in 't That the Person of Christ is not at oddes with his Gospel and that Christ and his Religion were well agreed but he has quitted his Post and dogmatically asserts That whosoever would understand the Religion of our Saviour must learn it from his Doctrine and not from his Person And why not from his Person in or by his Doctrine It 's a harder matter than our Author is aware to hear a Sermon preach'd without a Preacher and almost as difficult to believe it without good warranty that the Preacher has good Authority for what he delivers All the Authority of the Scripture is resolved into the Authority of Christ and therefore it concerns us to fetch our Religion from Christ by his Word 5. I must needs observe to the Reader one piece of cleanly conveyance and Legerdemain which our Author is forced frequently at a standing pull to serve himself of to draw Dun out o' th' Mire and that is to shew you a fair round Tester and then fob you off with a Counter to shew you a Horse in the Premises and pass to an Asse in the Conclusion He has pasted and posted it up in the Title of this Section How unsafe it is to found Religion upon a Pretended acquaintance with Christs Person but when he addresses himself to prove his Thesis he falls a persecuting the old thing of Learning Religion from an Acquaintance with Christs Person He who has the famous Art of Arguing from the essential Differences of things can he find no accidental difference at least betwixt Principium essendi and Cognoscendi Betwixt the Foundation of our Religion and the Means of conveying the Knowledge thereof unto us A thing may be first in Knowledge which is last in Being there has been some such Distinction in former Ages There was a time when the old World learnt it's Religion from Angels as our Author thinks from Prophets from the Government of the World will he say that the Religion of those dayes was founded upon any thing short of God upon Angels Men Sun Moon Stars Say the same in our Case Jesus Christ has revealed what we are to know and believe of the Father Son and Spirit in his Word he has reveal'd it yet our Faith Hope Love Obedience is founded on and ultimately terminated in God alone by Christ He that believes a Promise obeyes a Precept does believe the veracity of Christ in that Promise and obey the Authority of Christ in that Precept That Credit we give to Letters Patents praemunited with the Royal Seal is resolved ultimately into the Kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Obedience we give to a Law is founded upon the Authority of the Legislator We learn our Duty from a printed Act of Parliament from a Proclamation but that which is the formal Reason of our Duty is the Relation wherein we stand to our Prince So childish is our Author in his Reasonings he begins to make a Cauldron and tinckers up a sorry kettle Amphora coepit institui currente rotâ cur urceus exit He undertook to prove the unsafeness of the Foundation of our Religion but he 's glad to come down a button-hole lower and prove onely the danger of learning of our Religion from a pretended acquaintance with Christs Person without Scripture-Revelation 6. He tells us there is not a Natural and Necessary connexion between the Person of Christ his Death c. and the Salvation of Mankind Very discreetly worded Not a natural and necessary connexion What 's matter if it be not Natural if it be Necessary Let it be owned Necessary any way that 's fair and honest and let him choose whether it shall be necessary by Nature or no. If our Author understands himself here it 's very well I am sure some others do not Does he mean therefore of all Mankind that there 's no natural connexion betwixt Christs Person
carries a sound to a mere English Ear very like to Union but if we examine either the Synonymous word Communion or the Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are rendred Fellowship and Communion and how those words are used in Scripture we may abundantly satisfie our selves that they signifie something very distinct from Union or Relation Fellowship and Communion are words of the same import and the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is indifferently render'd by either of them 1 Ioh. 1. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And truely our Fellowship c. And v. 6. If we say that we have fellowship with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Communion of the Holy Ghost and the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is once translated Fellowship 2 Cor. 6. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For what Fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness Now what the general Nature of Fellowship Communion or Participation and Communication is the Apostle will clear up to us Phil. 4. 15. Now ye Philippians know That no Church communicated with me as concerning Giving and Receiving but ye onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he explains if there be need of that v. 16. Ye sent once and again unto my necessity Communion therefore or Communication is the Mutual bestowing of those good things which are in each others power grounded upon some Union and Relation between the Parties And this is more fully expressed by that Scripture phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To have hold exercise or maintain Communion or Communication of all those good things which may be expected from each other in a Relation 1 Ioh. 1. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must profess my self therefore wholly dissatisfied with our Authors New Notion of Communion That it signifies the same thing with Union That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are Terms adequately Measuring each other There must be first a Relation before there can be a communicating of those good things which presuppose the Relation Thus the Love of a Father to his Child his Care over him his Bounty to him is founded in his Relation to him as his Son and the Child 's filial Love Duty Fear are all bâ—…tomed upon the Relation which he holds to his Father Thus we conceive first a Real Union between the Head and the Members before we can conceive the Head should communicate spirits to all the parts to quicken them to Motion And this the Apostle expresses Col. 2. 19. That they who do not Hold the Head that are not united to Christ can never receive from him those supplies or Communications of Spiritual Nourishment that they may encrease with the encrease of God And thus must there be an Union between the Husband and the Wife before there can be a Communication of what is in each others power That is they must give what they are before they can give what they have And this Order and Method is well observed in the Liturgy though our Author is pleased to make himself very merry with it where the Man first takes the Woman to be his wedded Wife and then assigns or makes over what he has to her Use with all my worldly Goods I thee endow For he that gives Himself will never stick at a'l the Rest. And thus the first thing that God gives to his in Covenant is Himself Heb. 8. 10. I will be their God and then follows the Communication of all his Covenant Mercies v. 12. I will be mercifull to their Iniquities and remember their sins no more And in the same Order the Soul proceeds in its Restipulation with God 2 Cor. 8. 5. First gave their â—…wn selves to the Lord. Now as the Union or Relation is for kind so also are the Communications that flow from or follow upon the Relation and Union If the Union be a more general Union the Relation a more common Relation the Communications in due proportion will be more general and Common we are Related to all men none are so remote but they are our Neighbours but yet we have a more special and peculiar Relation to all Christians And hence is it that the Apostle apportions out to us the Nature of those good things that we ought to commuicate to both Gal. 6. 10. Doe good to all but especially to them that are of the houshold of Faith The great God as Creator is Related to all and therefore does good to all Psal. 36. 6. Thou preservest Man and Beast Yet as he stands more nearly related as a Father to some than others so he commnicates more choyse and peculiar Favours to them Hence is that Prayer of David Psal. 106. 4. Remember me O Lord with the favour thou bearest to thine own People O visit me with thy Salvation that I may see the Good of thy Elect ones And because the Electing Love of the Father and the Redeeming Love of the Son are exactly parallel therefore has Christ a general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as a special 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4. 10. He is the Saviour of all men specially of them that Believe It was never doubted but the Relation of a Master to his Servant ought to produce suitable Communications to that Relation And yet those of a Fatheâ—… to his Child are of another and sweeter Nature those of the Husband to the Wife yet more endearing and those of the Head to the Members still more intimous and intrinsecal Now that Communion is a Communication of Good things flowing from Union the Apostle will not suffer us to doubt Gal. 6. 6. Let him that is taught in the Word communicate unto him that teacheth in All Good things Where the Relation between the Teacher and the Disciple is the Foundation of that Communication of all good things but if indeed our Author will abide by his Notion That Union and Communion are both one Then if his Parishioners do but hear him preach they may spare the Impertinency of Tythes it is but Actum Agere and Commuâ—…ion is satisfied in the Notion of Union so that they have here a general Release of all Minute and Praedial Tythes under his own hand from the beginning of the World to this Day The Sophistry of our Authors Argument from 1 Joh. 1. 3. we have already considered and discovered He leads us now to 1 Cor. 1. 9. God is faithfull by whom ye are called into the Fellowship of his Son Jesus All the advantage he can expect from these words is upon a presumption of his Readers Simplicity that he will not spye small faults to be called into fellowship with Christ cajouls the Ear into a Conceit of Union But that which spoyls all is our Translation reads unto the Fellowship or Communication or Participation of his Son and the Mischief on 't is the Greek reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But let us see however how
draw with him towards a Conclusion Our Author is beginning to make an end but he must first discharge his stomach of a little froth and gall and spit up some venome that lies in his chest in the face of his Adversaries without which he could not possibly conclude his Chapter He tells you summarily what great feats he has done and what greater Atchievements he will adventure on What he has done amounts to this he has discovered great Mistakes in other mens Divinity but cannot espy any in his own he can spy a Mote in his Neighbours eye but considers not his own Beam He has also discover'd the rise of these Mistakes to be from the various usage of the Name Christ in the Writingâ—… of the Apostles The more excusable it seems they are if they had occasion from thence to erre which they might the more easily doe because as he observes well the Writings of Paul are obscure He has also discover'd to us the temper and humour of those Mistaken men They are zealous to advance Christs Person to the prejudice and reproach of his Religion which yet our Author himself when a Qualm of sweet Nature comes over his Heart thinks to be Impossible p. 17. The greater Opinion we have of his Wisdom and Reverence for his Person the more sacred Regard we have for his Lawes He has also discovered a horrid Plot to introduce a fancifull Application of Christ to our selves instead of the substantial Duties of the love of God and Men and an universal Holiness of Life But this is but a plot of his own making unless he had some supernatural Assistances from Beneath He has also for ever discharged the world upon his Blessing from closing with Christ getting into Christ and above all from overloving Christ and admiring his Excellencies and Perfections his Fulness Beauty Loveliness and Riches Wherein if he prevail to his mind he has for ever Obliged the Prince of Darkness to him and done more service to his black Kingdom than he with his Legions hath been able to effect these Sixteen hundred years What he intends further to doe he has reduced to four heads to which I referre the Reader and upon the whole Matter doe onely make this one Observation That through this whole Chapter he has cheated and tormented us with a sorry old Threadbare fallacy A benè compositis ad malè divisa The Persons whom he reviles dare not put asunder those things which God hath joyned together They love the Person of Christ and not therefore break but keep his Commandements They think that Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ and Repentance from dead works are very consistent may and must sweetly meet together and Kiss each other They would be glad to see those who revile them to love and admire Christs Person and shall be content to be reproved so far as they neglect and undervalue his Precepts but they are not to be frighted out of their Love to Him who loved them and gave himself for them They do freely confess that they admire at the Love of the Father in sending his onely begotten Son into the World upon such a design as to save Sinners and they do equally admire the Love of the Lord Jesus Christ that he was so willing to come into the world to be tempted persecuted reproached and at last to dye and give his Life a Ransome for many And though they have heard many Reproaches and Blasphemies uttered against their Saviour yet they have not met with one solid concluding Argument why they should not love him And therefore if they must be vile upon these Accounts they resolve in the strength of Christ to be vile more vile still and shall bind all the Ignominy that is cast upon them for Christs sake unto their Temples as a Crown and Diadem For indeed they do persist in that perswasion with some Obstinacy that it was the Person of Christ who dyed for them it was He upon whom the Chastisement of their Peace did lye it was He whose Soul was made an Offering for sin and upon whom God laid the Iniquities of us All. And therefore our Author must bear with them if they love him as much as they can because they have reason to fear they shall not love him as much as He has deserved They remember a Dreadfull word If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha and would not for all the world fall under the weight of it Their love to his person makes them studious to please him fearfull to offend him zealous to glorifie him and if the will of God be so humbly content to suffer for him They have not met with any Author that has till of late endeavoured a Confutation of Christs personal Excellencies perfections fulness beauty loveliness and riches and they that have made the Attempt have exposed themselves to the universal censure of all that wear the Name of Christian and therefore they do ingenuously acknowledge that they doe admire and honour them and do humbly hope Christ at his coming will not rebuke them for it And when they are invidiously traduced as setting the Person of Christ at oddes with his Gospel they are satisfied that they have not done it in Principle and lament that they have in any the least degree done it in Practice And as they know that the Charge as apply'd to them is a pure impure slander so they conceive it 's vey difficult if not impossible in it self nor can they apprehend how any can really and truely maintain a due esteem of Christ in their hearts but they must have a proportionable value and regard for all his Commandments and Injunctions That these things are become Riddles to any professing the Name of Christ they tremble at as a sad symptome that the Gospel is hid to them and from them They do also in the general approve of any Labours managed with a due regard to the Majesty of God and the Lord Jesus Christ in order to the discovery of any Expressions in their Writings or Discourses which might in the least be misinterpreted to degrade and thrust down Holiness from its Throne but withall they are unwilling to be railed out of a good Opinion of Christs Person seeing that however they may have sinned in breaking his Laws it will not mend the matter to lessen the honour they justly have for Himself and had rather be severely chidden for their sin than scoffed out of their Duty But of these Matters thus far CHAP. II. Of what use the Consideration of Christs Person is in the Christian Religion IN the Entrance of this Chapter I observe our Author is feelingly concern'd to amove from himself the sinister suspition of a Design to render Christ useless And he makes a solemn Protestation not onely of his own Innocency but is ready to become Surety and Compurgator for all his Accomplices A design sayes he which I confess I
that Sacrifice once for all to be offer'd up to God for that end 6. And it was Necessary that the gracious God who had trusted the World so long with Pardon Peace and Life should at last be satisfied and not alwayes be put off without due Compensation to his Justice and Truth 7. The Case and Condition of the Elect of God made by the common Apostacy Enemies to God and under the Curse annex'd to the Violation of the Law upon this one Supposition that God would pursue his Original Love and Purposes of Grace to them that a due Compensation should be provided for his wronged Justice Sin had perplexed matters and involved things in such Intricacies that Humane Wisdom could not find out an Expedient How God might be Just and yet the Justifier of him that believes how Mercy and Truth should meet together how Righteousness and Peace should kiss each other Many Salvo's have been propounded to the World many Expedients set on foot but upon severer scrutiny have been found Physicians of no value not able to heal the wounds of an inquisitive Conscience awaken'd with the sense of the Souls worth and Gods wrath in the Judgement to come All these things does the Lord Christ alone compromise adjust all these Accounts and reconcile these Intrests The Justice of God is satisfied the Law fulfilled the Truth of God secured his Holiness vindicated and all his Attributes unreproached 'T is true indeed God is a free Agent and absolutely consider'd might have left the world to perish under the Curse but seeing it pleased him to carry on his design of Love still notwithstanding the intervention of sin what others may pretend I know not but to our Apprehensions as there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him so there is one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him 2 Cor. 8. 6. 2. The Work of Christ whilest in the World was the discharge of his whole Mediatory Undertaking as Prophet Priest and King To divide Christ is to destroy him As half a Heart is no Heart in Gods Acceptation so half a Christ is no Christ as to any saving advantage the Soul can possibly reap from him He was therefore 1. A Prophet to acquaint us fully with the Preceptive will of God in which rank we must place that great Command of Faith in Christ 1 John 3. 23. And this is his Commandement that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ. He acquainted us also with the Promissory Will of God as the great Encouragement of our Souls in walking resolvedly with God in wayes of New Obedience He acquainted us also with the Purposes of God which should follow his Promises and Precepts to invigorate them with Efficacy and Success And this he does by the Ministry of his Word but more especially by the Holy Spirit inwardly and powerfully and yet sweetly not offering violence to our Faculties but making us a willing People in the day of his Power 2. He was a Priest and as such he offer'd himself a true and proper Sacrifice to God thereby answering the Sacrifices of the Old Testament which though they were Typical yet in their way were true and Real Sacrifices and all this in pursuit of the Fathers Love and his own 1 Joh. 4. 10. Herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our sins what Intercessions as a Priest he made for those the Father had given him we need no other pattern of than that Prayer John 17. per totum 3. His Kingly Office he exercised in gathering governing defending protecting his Church abolishing those Laws which were accommodated to that other Dispensation and would not fit its present posture and instituting New Ordinances of Worship agreeable to the oeconomy of the New Testament which Office yet he exercised in such a way that little of Glory and Majesty appeared therein to a Carnal Eye the Grandeur thereof being vailed under the form of a Servant 3. The general Design of this Work we may assure our selves was exceeding Glorious nothing but admirable could be the Product of such an undertaking with what Joy and Triumph was it entertain'd by the Angels who were less concern'd therein than poor fallen Man Luke 2. Glory be to God on high on Earth peace good will towards men 1 Tim. 1. 15. This is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the World to save sinners the chiefest of Sinners Which Great End that he might attain he dealt with God as a Priest to reconcile him to us with Us he dealt as a Prophet enlightning our Minds in the Knowledge of God and our selves and as a King subduing our hearts by his Spirit of Grace to accept of those Terms which might secure the Glory of God in our Eternal Salvation But the main Design I shall express no otherwise than in the words of the Church of England Art 2. who suffered and was crucified dead and buried to reconcile his Father to us and to be a Sacrifice not only for Original but all Actual sins of Men. From whence we learn 1. That Reconciling and Sacrificing Work is onely proper for a state of Humiliation it 's annex'd to his Death Sufferings Sacrifice 2. That the Death of Christ according to the mind of this Article supposes God to be incensed against and angry with Sinners and therefore he suffered to Reconcile God to us 3. That the Death and Sufferings of Christ are of sufficient value to secure Gods Honour and appease his Anger 4. That Original Sin how small a mote soever it may seem in some mens eyes is yet such a troublesome Beam in Gods eyes that it requires the same Blood of Christ to be a Sacrifice for it 5. That all Actual sins even the smallest if any may be called small need the Blood of Christ to reconcile God to the Sinner without which they will infallibly destroy the Soul Thus far the Church of England of whose Doctrine our Author has great Reason to be very tender if not for the Truths sake yet for his Credits sake having subscribed it and above all for St. Georges sake Buttolphs-lane for otherwise it may be easie for some poching prolling Fellows to dismount George-a-horse-bâ—…k and get into our Authors Saddle CHAP. III. Sect. 2. Of Acquaintance with the Person of Christ. INterest is beholden to the Eagle for two of its greatest Excellencies a quick Eye to discover and sharp Pounces to seize the Quarry When once it had appeared in some pregnant Instances that the High-road to Preferment lay in the way of exposing Religion under the Persons of the Non-Conformists it 's incredible how soon sagacious Interest discern'd and made her advantage The old dull Methods of Marrying the Chamber-maid or Trucking with the young Gentleman grew as Obsolete as Systematical Divinity An unhappy happy
about the Necessity of Good Works For says he when they are pressed with those Scriptures that urge the Necessity of Good Works What do they then Nay that he could not tell but carries on a suspended Sence for almost two whole Pages and in the end leaves it unintelligible Nonsence But however let us hear those Texts that are so pressing for Good works and a holy Life Why VVithout Holiness no Man shall see God The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all Unrighteousness and Ungodliness of Men. Truly these Scriptures do press upon our Consciences and Practices but not upon our Principles Well then there are others that assert Our Acceptation with God depends upon a Holy and Vertuous life I promise you that presses indeed But it does not press me Our Acceptation with God depends upon a Holy life as the Qualification but it depends upon Christ for Procurement But the places are Acts 10. 35. God is no Respecter of Persons but in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Well let us examine whom this Text does press most The Apostle Peter in that excellent Discourse ver 43. tells us To him Christ give all the Prophets witness that through his Name whosoever believeth in Him should receive Remission of sins Whatsoever of acceptation with God then they that fear God and work Righteousness do obtain still it 's through the Name of Christ. The Text then presses not us he must call for more weight if he designs to Press us to Death But as I remember pag. 44. our Author with much Confidence would bear us down that the Iews who knew nothing at all of Christ yet undeâ—…stood God to be a Sin-pardoning God And yet the Apostle assures us 1. That all the Prophets gave witness to Christ. 2. That their Testimony was this That they were to expect Remission of sins through the Name of Christ. 3. That the Means of acquiring the Remission of sins through Christ was by believing in Him And now let him ask his own Shoulders whether this Text does not press him But there is another Scripture that will break their bones Mat. 5. 20. Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And what was their Righteousness Why he tells us They were a company of Immoral Hypocrites who placed all their Righteousness in observing the Ceremonies of the Law without the purity of their Hearts and Lives Well and we think a Man may Travel a great many Leagues beyond such Debauches and never come near the Kingdom of Heaven Let them then Groan under the weight of it who place their Religion in Ceremony and prophane Drollery it presses not them who professing Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ and Repentance from Dead works subject themselves to his Gospel Well but there is one more that will Grind them to Powder ver 19. He that breaks the least of these Commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven And this will certainly press them who Renouncing their part in the Satisfaction given to God by Christ trust to their own Imperfect repentance wherein there are so many Flaws as will amount to the breach of some Commandment and then our Author has quite shut them out of the Kingdom of Heaven To conclude this Section our Author has one round Fling at Doctor Owen and it is ex Officio no doubt I suppose he may hold some fair Estate by this Tenure That he Persecute the Doctor with Fire and Faggot as far as a pair of Shooes of a great price will carry him The Question is What necessity there is of Obedience The Doctor had said That Universal Obedience and good Works are Indispensibly necessary to Salvation by the sovereign appointment and Will of God To this our Author answers This is not one syllable to the purpose Why then It 's the end of the Fathers electing Love That 's not one syllable to the purpose It 's the end of the Sons redeeming Love That 's not one syllable to the purpose It 's the end of the Spirits sanctifying Love That 's not one syllable to the purpose Well but it 's necessary to the Glory of the Father Son and Holy Ghost That 's not one syllable to the purpose neither If neither the Sovereignty of God over us the Love of God to us nor the Glorifying of God by Us be to the purpose of Obedience let our Author speak to the purpose So he will God hath commanded Obedience but where 's the Sanction of the Law Will he Damn all that will not Obey for their Disobedience Where 's the Sanction of the Law I am sure that Question is very little to the purpose It 's the Command it self that makes a Duty that creates a necessity The Authority of the Law-giver lays the Obligation upon the Subject It 's our Interest to Obey upon the account of the Sanction but it 's our duty to Obey upon the Command it self But not to hold him in suspense God will Damn all those that will not Obey for their Disobedience Our Author has now quite run himself a Ground and is Pumpt dry of his Drollery and therefore turns Catechist and Persecutes us with Impertinent Queries I have heard some say that an Ideot may tye more Knots in an Hour than a Wise-man can untye in a day But however though we might plead it's Coram non Iudice yet for once let him suppose himself in his Desk and his poor Catechumens humbly waiting upon his Foot-stool Quest. Will God Damn those who do not Obey for their disobedience Answ. Yes and it please you Sir Qu. But will he save and reward those who do Obey for their Obedience An. He will reward their Obedience but not save them for their Obedience Qu. But will the Father Elect none but those that are Holy An. Yes and it like your good Learning he Elects them that they may be Holy but not because they are Holy Ephes. 1. 4. Ephes. 2. 10. Qu. But wil the Son Redeem none but those that are holy An. Yes indeed Sir a great many for a Redeemer supposes them to be sinners and Captives under sin Qu. But will he reject and Reprobate all that are not Holy An. God has not Reprobated all that were or are not holy for then he had Reprobated all the World but he will reject all that continue unholy to the Death Qu. But tell me Doth this Election and Redemption suppose Holiness in us or is it without any regard to it An. Neither the one nor the other It 's Fallacia plurium Interrogationum They neither presuppose Holiness in us nor are they without all regard to Holiness it is a necessary Effect but not a Cause of Election and Redemption Qu. Dost thou stand chopping Logick with thy Betters If we be Elected and Redeemed without regard
Difficulties of being in Christs Person and yet at the same time Christs Person being in us of the depending of our Fruitfulness upon that Union with whatever other Incongruities a strong Fancy may impute to it And then 3. If the Person of Christ be intended in the Question then his last and tedious Argument from Iohn 15. 1. which he has managed with so much Industry upon which he has bestowed so much Cost and in which he places so much Confidence concludes something very near to Nothing For the Abstract of his Medium is this that Christians are in the Church which will never conclude that therefore our Union to a particular Church is the Means of our Union to Christ much less that our Union to Christ consists in it From the Scriptures we are posted over to the Ancient Fathers who if we may believe him Interpret all those Metaphors which decypher the Union between Christ and Christians to signifie the Love and Unity of Christians among themselves He that will reproach his own Mother will not much Reverence the Fathers They do indeed argue from the Unity between Christ and Christians to an absolute Necessity of Unity between Christians themselves they are members of one body under one common Head and therefore it presses sore upon them that there be no intestine Broyls among themselves they are Sheep of the same Fold under one Shepheard and it were unnatural for Sheep to devour one another which is the Province of Wolves they are subjects in the same spiritual Kingdom under Christ the Sovereign Monarch of the Church and therefore all heats and animosities all seuds and broyls are alien from that place and Relation they fill up towards Christ and each other So the Fathers so the Scriptures argue Mal. 2. 10. Have we not all one Father hath not one God created us why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother The Process of the Argument is very clear if we be Children of one Father we ought to love our Brethren but to conclude from thence that A Childs Relation to his Father consists in the Love and Unity of the Children among themselves is somewhat more than ridiculous Thus from the Union between Christ and Christians there is an unanswerable Argument drawn for the Unity of Christians amongst themselves but that the Union of Christians with Christ does formally consist in their mutual Agreement and Concord each with other is a piece of Logick for which we are indebted to our Author but thus Chrysostom expounds Eph. 2. 19 20 21. where the Apostle speaks of that spiritual building which is erected on the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Iesus Christ himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being the chief Corner-stone to signifie the Unity of the Church in all Ages that both the Iewish and the Christian Church are united in Christ as the several parts of the building are kept together by the Corner-stone Now though Chrysostom be little beholden to our Author for traducing his honest meaning yet we are all beholden to Chrysostom For then 1. There have not been so many sorts of Churches in the World as he would perswade us but both Iews and Christians constitute one universal catholick Church though differing in the Oeconomy and some variety of Administration both the Jewish and Christian Church are the several parts of one and the same Building And then 2. The Iews we may presume knew something at least of Christ what he was to be to them what he was to doe for them if they and we Jews and Gentiles in all Ages are United in him To the same purpose St. Ambrose Yes I believe it as little to our Authors purpose as St. Chrysostom Duos Populos in se suscepit Christus Salvator fecit unum in Domino sicut Lapis Angularis duas parietes continet in Unitate Domûs firmatas which our Author Englishes thus Christ united two People in himself and made them one in the Lord as the Corner-stone unites two Walls in a building and makes it but one house Now if we cannot agree about the Construing a piece of familiar Latine we shall strangely differ in the Interpretation of its design and tendency And here Ambrose is less beholden to our Author than Chrysostom for that he may not cross our Authors sence he is made to speak Non-sence Christ united two people and made them one That is he made them one and made them one or he united them and united them for what uniting should be but making one I cannot divine But Ambrose his Latine runs thus Duos populos in se suscepit fecit unum in Domino He took two people upon himself and so made them one in the Lord He bore their Iniquities carryed their sins in his body upon the Cross and thereby reconciled them to God and then their reconciliation to one Another would be easie but our Author who is never wanting to his Concerns was not at leisure to take notice of that However says he this is the plain design of the place to prove that Christ hath taken away the enmity which was between Iew and Gentile and hath reconciled them both to God Well I can be content it should be the Plain design but not the Main design not the whole design of the place Some men think themselves wondrous witty in the Contrivance that they have found out some Reconciling work for Christs Death But then it must not be to reconcile God and Sinners but to remove an old grudge between Iew and Gentile which is an Invention of the latter dayes utterly unknown to the Ancient Fathers and the whole Catholick Church that they might not seem to say there 's no Reconciliation by the Blood of Christ I would turn over our Author for satisfaction in this point to the Reason not the Authority of Dr. E. Stillingfl against Crellius p. 558. 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 Apostacy from him If not what made him so severely 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 c Well then supposing God to be averse from men by reason of their sins shall this displeasure alwayes continue or not If it alwayes continues men must certainly suffer the desert of their sin If it doth not alwayes continue then God may be said to be reconciled in the same sence that an offended party is capable of being reconciled to him who hath provoked him Now there are two wayes whereby a party justly offended may be said to be reconciled to him that hath offended him First when he is not onely willing to admit of Terms of Agreement but doth declare his Acceptance
and only watch for the Creep-hole of a bare Possibility If they intended honestly they would lay things together as well as they can labour to find out the meaning of God's Spirit with Sobriety and Humility and never strain their Wits and vex and torture the Scripture with utmost Possibilities The Text tells us that the namâ—… whereby Christ shall be called is the Lord our Righteousness Now it 's granted that this was not designed to be his Praenomen or Cognomen that which should distinguish him in Common Discourse from other persons and therefore He shall be called is no less than He shall Really be our Righteousness Thus 1 Iohn 3. 1. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called that is that we should become the sons of God Isa. 9. 6. His name shall be called i. e. he shall Really be Wonderful Counsellor The Mighty God the Everlasting Father The Prince of Peace The true intent and meaning of which place I know how some have attempted to elude by this fine device of the Possibility of another meaning and whether our Author sharpned his weapon at their forge he knows best But 3. He returns an Answer worse than both the other Righteousness in Scripture is a word of a very large sense and sometimes signifies no more than Mercy Kindness Beneficence and so the Lord our Righteousness is the Lord who does us good But 1. Is it not vainly supposed That for Christ to do us good is inconsistent with being our Righteousness 2. Though Christ be a Redeemer of Mercy Kindness and Beneficence yet he is no-where called The Lord our Mercy The Lord our Kindness The Lord our Beneficence Which clearly proves that when he is called and really is The Lord our Righteousness the expression implies more than an Imparting or Communication of good things to us Hence some would say That if our Author's Conscience were not larger than the sense of this word he had never given so stretching an Answer But says he Righteousness signifies that part of Iustice which consists in relieving the oppressed Isa. 54. 17. Their Righteousness is of me saith the Lord which is a parallel expression to The Lord our Righteousness and signifies no more than that the Lord would avenge their Cause and deliver them from all their Enemies So that all the benefit we are to expect from Christ is Temporal Salvation and Deliverance To which I answer 2. That the Reason of Christ's glorious Name The Lord our Righteousness assigned by the Prophet that in his days Iudah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely is interpreted by the Angel Matth. 1. 21. to be this He shall be called Iesus for he shall save his people from their sins And the end why God raised up his Son Jesus in the World is expresly assigned to be To bless his people in turning away every one of them from their iniquities Acts 3. 26. Thus Rom. 11. 26. Out of Zion shall come the Deliverer and he shall turn away ungodliness from Iacob To turn away iniquity from us and to turn us away from iniquity is I hope something of a more useful import than to relieve the injured and oppressed and deliver them from their Enemies I do not at all envy our Author therefore the glory of his discovery that for God to justifie good men is to deliver them from the violence and injuries of their Enemies And I would gladly hope that all good men have something better wherein to glory In Ier. 33. 16. the Church is called The Lord our Righteousness because she only glories in the Righteousness of Christ her Head and Husband to whom being so nearly related and with whom being so closely united his Righteousness is her Righteousness and therefore she who upon the account of the imperfection of her Inherent Righteousness can find no not the least matter of boasting before God yet has whereof to Triumph in Christ her Saviour Isa. 45. 24. Surely shall one say In the Lord have I Righteousness In the Lord shall all the seed of Iacob be justified and shall glory Now the Apostle whom I take to be a competent Interpreter of Scripture assures us that God has taken special care that in his dispensing of Grace to sinners No flesh shall glory in his presence 1 Cor. 1. 29. which he has well provided for ver 30. since Christ is made unto us of God for Righteousness and therefore he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord Which is exactly parallel to that of Isa. 45. 24. In the Lord shall all the seed of Iacob be justified and shall glory Come we now to our Author's Interpretation of Isa. 61. 11. which is of the same leaven with the former I will greatly rejoyce in the Lord my soul shall be joyful in my God For he hath clothed me with the garments of Salvation and covered me with the robe of Righteousness c. This Text one may perceive struck cold to his heart and he gives us as cold an Answer that 's ready to freeze between his lips The Garments of Salvation says he and the Robe of Righteousness signifie those great Deliverances God promised to Israel Signifie I would our Author would write a Dictionary of the Signification of words We use to say A bad Answer is better than none Reform the Proverb for shame for such an one is worse than none 1. It 's evident that the Triumph of the Church was upon the view of Jesus Christ vers 1. Anointed to preach Good-Tidings to the meek to bind up the broken-hearted to proclaim liberty to the Captives and the opening of the Prison to them that are bound To proclaim the acceptable Year of the Lord Which our Saviour Christ applies to himself Luk. 4. 18 19. when he was far from working out for the Iews those great Deliverances by improbable means which should make them glorious in the eyes of men 2. The Virgin Mary quotes this very place Luke 1. 46 47. My soul doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour where the joy of her heart broke out at her lips in Contemplation of that Eternal Redemption wrought out by him in whom she could more seriously glory as her Saviour than as her Son And it 's a wonder to me then men can patter over their Magnificat every day and not observe it 3. It 's observable that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Decketh signifies to Adorn as a Priest and implies that Christ as our High-Priest shall present us acceptable to God upon his Account 4. There 's nothing more familiar with the Spirit of God than to clothe Evangelical Mercies in a Mosaical Dress and to express New-Testament Salvation in Old-Testament Phrase Thus Gospel-Believers are understood by Israel the Church by the Temple Evangelical Ministers by the Legal Priests and the covering of Sin by the covering of Nakedness and by
his Death His Death confirmed his Doctrine His Doctrine was he that believes and obeys shall be justified and saved Hereupon we believe it to be true and in process of time come to obey it our obedience justifies us and therefore the Blood of Christ may be said to justifie us And whereas Iudas his Covetousness the Jews Herod's Cruelty Pilates Flattery had a direct tendency to the Death of Christ why we may not be properly said to be justified by them also at this rate I profess I cannot apprehend Religion is fallen into most cruel and unmerciful hands in this latter Age who to give a â—…aint colour to any little sorry fancies of their own care not to interpret Scripture in such ways as shall certainly open a dore to elude the plainest Truths God is said to have made the World Now if any has a mind to eternize his Name which without some rare discovery cannot be let him take our Author's Course and he is secure of a Monument That is indeed a Scripture phrase but if you examine it throughly it signifies no more than that God made a company of Atoms and put them in Motion and then let them alone they will dance you so long in infinite spaces till they jostle themselves into that form wherein you see things at this day And thus here 's a fair Account how God may be said to have made the World because he made that which made the World and the Cause of the Cause you know may be said to be a Grand-Father-Cause of the thing Caused But this is infinitely beyond what our Author will allow the Blood of Christ of Causality in our justification for it 's only a Confirming Cause of the Promise and that in Commission with other things and they have a greater stroke in the business than it self then when we come to believe that Promise and that belief proves strong enough to perswade us into Obedience then we are justified for the sake of that Obedience But 5. The Consideration of the Text it self Rom. 5. 9. is enough to discredit this idle conceit for ever for Christ is said to dye for us and in order to our justification in the same sence that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of old 〈◊〉 who laid down Life for Life Blood for Blood Body for Body v. 6. Christ dyed for the â—…ngodly v. 7. For scarcely for a righteous Man will one dye yet peradventure for a good Man some one would even dare to dye v. 8. But God commendeth his love to us that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us v. 9. Much more then being now justified by his Blood c. 2. Christ says he is called a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood that is by a belief of the Gospel Covenant Rom. 3. 25. But how short this comes of the Apostle's design is obvious from the place Christ is set forth by God to be a propitiation through faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believes in Iesus But is God ever the more declared to be a just God demonstrated to be a Righteous God because Christ has confirmed his Doctrine and we believe and obey it The obedience of most men is so imperfect that when they have done all they will need mercy and that will declare one of God's attributes But what provision is here made that God may be declared Righteous and Iust All that he has assigned to the Blood of Christ turns not away the least of God's displeasure against sin or the sinner Christ dyed to confirm the Doctriâ—…e Well but still God is displeased with sinners for what Reason is there why God should be less displeased with them because Christ dyed to confirm his Doctrine Well but hereupon Man believes this Doctrine to be true but yet God's Anger is never the more turned away from the sinner because he believes what God says is true For what Reason is there why God should be less displeased with him who believes the Truth and yet will not obey his Commands So that neither the Blood of Christ nor Faith neither do reconcile God to us or propitiate him for us well at last Man gives obedience to the Commands and then God is propitiated and reconciled So that the true Scripture should have been had our Author had the pâ—…nning of it God hath set forth Man to be his own propitiation through his own obedience And why might it not have been said that God set forth the Martyrs to be a propitiation through Faith in their Blood For they willingly and chearfully shed their dearest Blood to confirm the Truth of the Gospel and upon their Confirmation of it some have believed it and upon their believing it have obeyed it and then by that obedience are reconciled to God And thus may Paul be said to have dyed for our sins and Peter to have been Crucified for us and both of them to have been set forth by God to be a propitiation through Faith in their Blood Nor let any say that the Death of the Martyrs was not so strong a confirmation of the Gospel as the Death of Christ For if we believe the Truth and obey it upon more infirm Evidence yet if that evidence produce a strong Faith and that a vigorous obedience such an obedience will not find less acceptance with God because it was begotten by weaker Motives 3 The Scripture says he uses these Phrases promiscuously to be justified by Faith and to be justified by the Faith of Christ and to be justified by Christ and to be justified through Faith in his Blood and to be justified and saved by Grace Nay by believing that Christ is the Son of God John 20. 31. And that God raised him up from the dead When our Author has a design upon any great Truth of the Gospel then the clearest expressions the wisdom of God's Spirit shall use are Phrases allusive figurative metaphorical tropical forms of Speech But the Scripture uses not these expressions promiscuously only our Author confounds them craftily Each of them have indeed something in common with the rest and no wonder all the Offices the Active and Passive Obedience of Christ the whole work of the Spirit the actings of Faith and every saving-Grace meet in this one great Project the glorifying of God the Electing love of the Father the Redeeming Love of the Son and the Sanctifying love of the Holy Spirit in the Iustification and Salvation of a Believer But yet each of these expressions carries in it something peculiar to it self for the Scripture abhors to speak at his dull and cloudy rate who by diversifying one and the same thing in twenty several shapes can vend it for so many several things when 't is but the same notion disguised in a new-fashioned expression One denotes the interest of Faith another speaks the concern of him who is Iehovah
Infallible Spirit laid claim to an Eternal Reward therefore to that Reward they might justly lay claim Psal. 73. 24. Thou shalt guide me with thy Counsel here below in my Passage and Pilgrimage and afterwards when I have run my Race and finisht my Course receive me to Glory The Epilogue to the whole is this The Righteousness of Christ is our Righteousness when we speak of the Foundation of the Covenant by which we are accepted but if we speak of the Termes of the Covenant then we must have a Righteousness of our own The Righteousness of Christ will not serve the turn Christs Righteousness and our own are both necessary to Salvation The first as the Foundation of the Covenant the other as the Condition of it Two things are here asserted First that Christs Righteousness is the Foundation of the Covenant Secondly that our Righteousness is the Condition of the Covenant A brief Examination of which things shall ease the Reader of any further attendance upon these Discourses 1. The Righteousness of Christ is the Foundation of the Covenant of Grace Let us hear his Proofs not a word Peracta est haec Fabula Spectatores valete plaudite We have heard of Procuring Meriting Founding a Covenant but not a syllable of Evidence Methinks I see the Reader filled with shame and wonder wonder that he who could so pleasantly scoff at the Scripture Expressions of building upon Christ as on a Foundation p. 105. and so merrily inveigh against Dr. Owen for asserting Christ to be the only Foundation of our Communion with God should now so zealously talk for Christs being the Foundation of the Covenant and shame that after such expectations of Proof he should find himself bilk'd in the stock That the Reader may not wholly therefore lose his pains I shall entertain him with my own apprehensions in this matter The Covenant of Grace may be considered either in iâ—…'s Constitution or Execution The Constitution of the Covenant is Gods firm and unchangeable purpose of saving his Elect to the praise of his glorious Grace For the word Covenant which in the English Notion has seduced our Understandings in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which the Spirit of God expresses those things to us signifie a disposition appointment or ordering of Matters whether there be restipulation or no Thus the fixed purpose the determinate Counsel of God in Scripture is called a Covenant though the things about which that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Counsel of God is conversant be not capable of re-promising any thing and have onely an Obediental Capacity in them answering the absolute extraordinary Power of God Thus Ier. 33. 20. If you can break my Covenant of the day and my Covenant of the night that there should not be day and night in their Season ver 25. Thus saith the Lord If my Covenant be not with day and night and if I have not appointed the Ordinances of Heaven where Gods fixed Law concerning the Succession of Day and Night to the period of all time is called his Covenant and which is still more to our purpose by the stability of this grand Law of Nature he is pleased to instruct us in the fixedness of his better Covenant that of Grace ver 21. Then may also my Covenant be broken with David my Servant ver 26. Then will I cast away the Seed of Jacob and David my Servant This purpose of God this disposition of Grace is immutable Rom. 9. 11. That the purpose of God according to Election might stand The Execution of this fixed Constitution follows which is Gods wise and gracious managing of all things for the accomplishment of that glorious design which he had in the prospect of his Eternal Counsel which he steddily and regularly pursues through all the vicissitudes that his mutable Creature was obnoxious to whilst man stood God pursued his Counsel in giving him a Holy Law to guide him Seconded and back'd with promises and threatnings when Man with drew from God yet God could not deny himself but devolves this great Affair into the hand of a Mediator who with equal readiness and satisfaction in that Seed that should be given him as the purchase of his undertaking addresses himself to this glorious work of Recovering them back again to God and when the fulness of time was come took upon him our Nature partook of our Flesh and Blood because the Children whom God had committed to him were partakers of it This Redeeming Mediator undertakes with God as a Righteous Iudge that he may not lose the glory of any of his Attributes and unto God as a Father that he shall not lose any of the Children that he had given him and therefore he becomes a Priest a Sacrifice a price of Ransom a Curse to satisfie the Judge and his Law and a Prophet and King to recover us Actually in our state to God Thus is he the onely Foundation 1 Cor. 3. 12. The Foundation not of the Constitution but of the Execution of the Covenant 1. On Gods part whatever grace and mercy was in his eternal purpose that is given out to us by Jesus Christ The Promises are made by free-grace as their Reason but made good by Jesus Christ as the means of procuring the promised Mercy which had been forfeited for all the promises of God in him are yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1. 20. He accepts us in the beloved Eph. 1. 6. Forgives us through him ver 7. Iustifies us by Christ Rom. 3. 24. Sanctifies and saves us by Christ Tit. 3. 4 5 6. And 2. On our part through him we approach to God John 14. 6. Heb. 10. 19 20. By him we believe in God 1 Pet. 1. 21. He is our hope of Glory Col. 1. 27. He is the ground of our Faith the Foundation upon which our Souls are laid 1 Pet. 2. 5. To whom coming as to a living stone we also as lively stones are built up a Spiritual house Thus is he the Foundation of conveying all the blessings of the Covenant to us Eph. 1. God blesseth us with all Spiritual blessings in Christ but that Christ is the Foundation of the Covenant it self that I crave leave to deny and to render the Reasons of my denial 1. Sect. Christ cannot be the Foundation of the Covenant because Christ himself is promised in the Covenant as the great Comprehensive Blessing of the Covenant Isa. 49. 8 9. I will give thee for a Covenant that thou maist say to the Prisoners go forth to them that are in darkness shew your selves Whence it 's evident first that the free-free-love of the Father is the Reason of his giving his Son to be our Deliverer Secondly that Christ is the great undertaker to Execute that Counsel of God in our actual Deliverance Luke 1. 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who hath Visited and Redeemed his People and hath raised up a Horn of
am wholly a stranger to as I believe all those are who are so much charged with it When we hear a man zealously purging himself of some Notorious Crime noysed abroad onely in the general without praevious Accusation it 's apt to fly-blow our Heads with jealousie he may be Tardy an over-forward Vindication being reputed more than half an Accusation But I dare be one of his Twelve-Godfathers in this matter that he does not make Christ useless but will allow him to be of some use that is to say that Christ is good for something and in effect a little Better than though next to Nothing and I can with more security become Bound for Him because he has given me good Counter-security that I shall not forfeit my Recognizance P. 330. I could never perswade my self no not for your heart though you had attempted it that the perfect Obèdience and Righteousness of His Life was wholly excluded So that whatever rendred Christ beloved of God contributed something to our Acceptation P. 331. We ought not to think that we receive No Benefit by the Righteousness of Christ. And I hope something is better than Nothing Nay such is his Charity he can be content to Allow that God was somewhat more pleased with the Obedience of Christ than the Faith of Abraham ibid. And that his Sacrifice was of greater value than the Blood of Bulls and Goats p. 19. Naughty men are they then that wrong Him and Them so as to insinuate that they design'd to make Christ useless the rather because they proceed upon so bad a Ground We are charg'd with making Christ useless onely because we dare not make his Laws so And thus it seems they have unhandsomely payd him in his own Coyn who charges them with making his Laws Useless onely because they dare not make his Person so And yet to deal plainly with Him for all this I find a Double charge upon the File against him 1 That though he has not made Christ altogether Useless yet he has made him Needless Though he can use Him yet he could have spared him though he can make a shift with him he could have made a Rubbing shift without Him Ut tecum possum vivere sic sine te So p. 46. I should rather have thought that Gods requiring such a sacrifice as the Death of Christ was not because he could not do otherwise And if Gods Iustice could be contented without that sacrifice I may presume it shall not stick at our Authors good Nature p. 43. Had Christ never appeared in the World yet we had Reason to believe that God is thus Wise and Good viz. to Pardon sinners And as he labours to Prove Enoch Noah Iews and Gentiles who knew nothing at all of Christ p. 44. yet understood God to be a God pardoning iniquity without him And surely if the World jogg'd on for four thousand years without Christ it might have worn out the Remainder without him too 2 I find a second Charge against him That though he make not Christ useless as to some common ordinary and general Ends which might have been attain'd and reach'd without him yet he renders him wholly Useless as to those special those main and glorious purposes for which he came into the World The making satisfaction to Divine Iustice the Imputation of his Righteousness to Believers his powerfull and effectual sanctifying them by his Spirit for whom he undertook Whereof we shall meet with abundant Evidence in the progress of his Discourse So that a Declaration contrary to the Fact is of small weight with considering Readers and sinks it self below all consideration But to return Two things fill up this Chapter First That the Person of Christ is of some Consideration and Secondly That the consideration of his Person is of some use onely the difficulty to be assoyled by His Abilities is Of what use the consideration of his Person should be 1. Then the Person of Christ is of some consideration but e're he ventures upon that Province he bethought Himself it would be a Task worthy his great Parts to indoctrinate our Plumbeous Cerebrosities in the Nice Point What the Person of Christ is P. 15. By the Person of Christ I mean what all men ought to mean nay there 's no doubt of that All men at their utmost Peril ought to mean to a hairs breadth just as our Author means Christ Himself Had it not been a Prodigy as great as ever was in the World if by Christs Person had been meant any body else Such then is Christ's Person The Consideration thereof follows And as he assures us the onely proper consideration here is the Greatness of his Person This is the onely or however The onely Proper or at least the onely Proper consideration here whatever other improper considerations of it there may be in other places or cases upon other accounts or occasions at other times it skills not for Here at this Time and in this place the onely Proper Consideration is the Greatness of his Person And yet methinks the exceeding loveliness of his Person standing betwixt God and lost Sinners his laying down his Life as a Ransome payd to God his standing as a Surety in our stead his bearing our sins in his Body on the Cross might have claimed a Place and come in for a share in our consideration of his Person But thus much for that 2 The Use of this consideration follows And some good Use he has assign'd it 1 And first it 's a plain demonstration of Gods love to Mankind that he sent so dear and so great a Person into the World as his onely begotten Son to save Sinners It is so indeed but a very weak demonstration of Gods Love to his own Son to send him into the World to grapple with all those Miseries he met withall in his Soul in his Body from Enemies from Friends from Men from Devils nay from himself whom it pleased to bruise him and lay upon him the Iniquities of us all to make his soul an Offering for sin nay to be made sin for them who himself knew none to Die a cursed Death and all this without any Absolute or Indispensible necessity Contrary to all the Rules of Decorum Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice Nodus inciderit And it would be of use to consider also the Love of Christ his Willingness to Accept the Terms of being a Redeemer though He knew well they were severe and would cost him Sweat and Blood and yet He cheerfully Undertook Underwent and went through with them He voluntarily assumed a Body that He might become a Sacrifice Heb. 10. He was willingly for a little while made lower than the Angels by Dispensation who was above them by Nature for the suffering of Death Heb. 2. 9. He understood well the Debtor was Insolvent and yet he became Surety He knew well the Righteousness of God and yet He was ready to put in sufficient
also the Love Honour and Admiration of them for whom he endured it And if some few Holy men be a little Transported with the Love of Christ methinks it 's easily pardonable very few die of that Disease no danger this Age should be Hot in the fourth Degree of Love to a Redeemer that our Author should be necessitated to Write a Book for fear it should Poyson us For my part I meet with no such Paroxisms of Divine Love that his Iulip should be so much cry'd up but I would fain please my self with this that whilst he seems Frigidam suffundere his Real Design is to make us all more in Love with Christ by a Spiritual Antiperistasis 2. This gives great Reverence and Authority to his Gospel that it was Preacht by so Great a Person as the Son of God And therefore whilst he is in the good Humour let him Retract those Severe and Toothed Satyrs wherewith he has Torn and Lasht those poor Honest Men for loving his Person but Neglecting his Laws when he tells us here The greater Reverence we have for his Person the more sacred Regard we have for his Laws Perhaps he was then under an Accession of Gout Stone or Cholick or some of the peevish Distempers which made him so Testy and Teachy with his best Friends but now he 's a little come home to himself he 's in as Sweet Treatable and Debonaire a Humour as one could wish if it would but last I confess some may think that All this is nothing but a Complement which he passes upon Christ's Person or a little Holy-water he sprinkles in his Face and that there Lurks a Snake under these fair Flowers For he plainly makes Laws and Gospel Edaequate and Commensurate Terms This gives Reverence to the Gospel for Laws always partake of the Fate and condition of the Law-giver The Gospel as Contradistinguisht to the Covenant of Works denotes the glad Tidings of Salvation by a Mediatour or the joyful News that there was Forgiveness with God that He might be feared As contradistinguisht to the Old Testament-state it is the glad Tidings of the Son of God sent into the World that taking upon him our Nature he might therein become a Curse for us and by his perfect Obedience to the Law might Purchase and Procure Eternal Life And are Christs Laws and His Gospel become Convertible Is there no Revelation No Promise Nothing done for us which cannot come under the Nature of a Law The Laws of Christ then are Holy and Just and Good that the Greatness of his Person Consiliates Reverence and due Regard to them we acknowledge that Law and Gospel are words of equal Extent we deny and do think our Author will be harder put to it to prove Christ to signifie Law than to signifie Gospel Much less are we satisfied in his Comparison Numa pretended he received his Laws from the Goddess Aegeria to procure a greater Veneration to them Thus God c. Say you so Did God procure Veneration for his Laws with such a cunning Trick a Pia fraus as Politick Numa did Or is Christ grown an Instrument of Government as he tells us hereafter Gods Justice is Well I hope he Meant honestly or else it will be somewhat hard to be tied to Mean just as he Means 3. The Greatness of his Person gives great Authority to his Example for he came to be our Prophet and our Guide to Teach us by his Precepts and his Life Believe it this is something like The World is well amended since pag. 5. For then Preaching the Gospel was the Exercise of his Regal Power And now here he has brought it into Decorum again and at present is under a Pang of Modern Orthodoxy But his Example gives us an Evident Demonstration wherein the Perfection of Humane Nature consists for he lived up to the Perfection of Humane Nature and the only way to be Perfect is to Live as he Lived Why then I doubt we must never be in any sence Perfect all the days of our Lives for in the very next Page he proves That Christs becoming Poor though he was Rich a Servant though he was Lord of Life are such Expressions of Love as we can never fully Imitate and so Adieu to all Perfection to the Worlds end It was indeed Prudently done to Imitate the Wisdome of Nature to Plant his Antidote so near his Poyson that if he scatter'd Infection in one Page to fortifie our feeble Spirits against the Impressions of it in another A little Observation will Dismiss this Period And 1. One would think that to live as Christ lived was not so much the way to Perfection as Perfection it self Your dull Syntagmatical Divines use to distinguish between the Means and the End or the way to the Wood and the Wood it self but great Spirits are above Pedantick Laws and therefore to please all Parties for once let the way to be Perfect be to be Perfect 2. I observe that the Scripture owns some to be Perfect who never lived all out nay nothing near so well as Christ lived 1 Chron. 15. 17. The heart of Asa was perfect all his days and yet we read that In his Disease he sought not to the Lord but to the Physitian he took not away the High places he was wroth with the Prophet Hanani and put him in Prison and yet perhaps our Author can Evade That notwithstanding this he might come up to his Pattern for Christ himself once or twice put on the Person of a Iewish Zealot There was then a time when a man might have been perfect and yet not Live up to the absolute Perfection of Christ but I perceive it s lost and is to be numbered amongst the Resperditae of Pancirol To conclude How far Christ is to be Imitated is a Question of greater Difficulty than at first sight may be Imagined Some Works he performed as God others as Mediatour and others as a Man Those which he performed as God the Miraculous Operations of the Deity none need be disswaded from Imitation of for no stronger a Reason than because 't is Impossible To Raise the Dead cast out Devils Cure Diseases with a Word or Touch are Matter of our Admiration not Imitation I know indeed some of our Modern Schoolmen will tell us That though we cannot Imitate Christ herein to the height yet we may imitate him as far as we can Thus though Raising the Dead be a little too Many for you yet you may come to the Grave of your dead Friend command him to come forth but if he be Sullen and will not stir hand nor foot let him take his Course and lie there still like his Grace in cold Clay clad You have done your Duty and may satisfie your Conscience that you have Imitated Christ as far as you can by as Useful a Figure as any is in Rhethorick called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Works which Christ performed as Mediatour though
pretended to Love the Lord Jesus Christ provided we have but our Authours license to love him but now the Question will be this whether our Union to Christ consists in a mutual and reciprocal love And if our Authour had been judge a little while since he would have resolved it in the Negative That our Union to Christ consists in our Union to a particular Church and that it is a political union such a one as is between Prince and Subject and consists in a belief of his revelations obedience to his Laws and subjection to his Authority I shall only note a few things and dismisse it 1. That there is a love of Benevolence and good Will a designing purposing love in Christ towards us before we bear his Image and Superscription this love he bears towards those that are unlike him Rom. 5 8. God Commendeth his love to us that when we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us verse 10. When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son 2. There must of necessity be the intervention of an Union a likenesse a Conformity of Natures before there can be supposed a love of mutual complacency and reciprocal delight in each other for this love this delight must have something to work upon As there must be a Conjugal Relation before the Husband can take delight in his Wife as his Wife and the Wife in her Husband as her Husband 3. That this love of good will in Christ is the Original Reason of our transformation into the Image of Christ whereby we become meet objects for that other love of Complacency 4. It s true that we love him as partaking of his Nature but then it s also as true that those Acts of love to and delight in Christ proceed from that New Nature which we derive from him 5. The Love wherewith Christ Loves us as the price of his blood is a differing love from that wherewith he loves us as his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works 6. I rejoyce however that we are owned to be Christs workmanship Created to good works which it were not so we had more reason to love our selves to admire and deifie our own natural Abilities which effected that glorious workmanship And I see of late our Authour takes to the Church Catechism which had he attended to in time had saved him half the Labour of his Book My good Child know that thou art not able to do these things of thy self to love God to believe in him to fear him with all thy heart with all thy mind withal thy strength to worship him to give him thankes to put thy whole Trust in him c. nor to walk in the Commandements of God and serve him without his special Grace which thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer 7. The more we exercise our selves in the Love of Christ the more like him we grow and the stronger bonds are layd upon our Souls to maintain the Union inviolable but still there must precede an Union which is the true Foundation of the Exercise of this Love of Delight and mutual Complacency Ay but says he Love is the great Cement of Union which unites Interests and thereby more firmly unites hearts Let him call it the Cement or the Soder or the Glew it 's all one to me I conceive that Interest is the Cement of Love and not Love the Cement of Interest Men love because it 's their Interest so to doe but whether that Love that flutters up and down the world a thing so unstable and desultory that we cannot tell where to have it be a fit Pattern for the heigths and lengths and depths and breadth of the Love of Christ ora just Measure of it I very much question Many things we meet with that are full of delight but one may take a Surfeit of Sweet-meats and therefore I shall onely trouble the Reader with his Concluding Argument taken from the Sacraments Which are says he the Instruments and Symbols of our Union with Christ. And if by Christ he understands the Church it 's not worth the while to make a Controversie on 't we will grant That Union with the Church consists in Union with it and the surest Means to be United to the Church is to be United to it and this way seldom fails But if he had a mind to conclude something else he had done like a Neighbour to have informed us for I must needs confess I am in the dark But yet we shall not lose all our labour For these Sacraments represent both our external and real Union with him And it 's worth all our pains and patience to hear one of his Lectures upon this Subject First for our External Union Baptism is a publick Profession of the Christian Religion that we believe the Gospel own his Authority and submit to his Government Secondly These Sacraments signifie our Reall Union to Christ Thus Baptism signifies our Profession of becoming New men our profession of Conformity to Christ in his Death and Resurrection Now look how much Conformity to Christs Death and Resurrection is better than owning his Authority and submitting to his Government just so much is our Real Union better than our external which if one so exactly versed in the essential differences of things as our Author had not told us other wise ordinary Capacities had judged to be both one That little advantage there is the External Union carries it For as to our External Union Baptism he tells us is a Profession of it but as to our Real Union Baptism onely signifies a profession of it and then it will be somewhat better to make a Profession of submission to Christs Government than to make a signification of a Profession of Conformity to his Death I shall therefore rather acquiesce in the Judgement of the Catechism about the Signification of Baptism than in our Authors which makes this Question What is the inward and spiritual Grace Ans. A death unto sin and a New Birth unto Righteousness for being by Nature born in sin and the children of wrath we are hereby made the children of Grace 4 His last and most famous Observation is That Fellowship and Communion with God signifies what he calls a Political Union And would we knew what that was why it is this To be in fellowship with God and Christ signifies to be of that Society which puts us into a peculiar Relation to God that God is our Father and we his Children that Christ is our Head and Husband and Lord and Master and we his Disciples and followers his Spouse and Body It 's below the generosity of the Eagle to catch Flies an Employment more suitable to the impertinent humour of Domitian and therefore it may be expected that our Author should scorn to play so mean a Game as to impose upon our weakness with the Ambiguity of a poor word To be in Fellowship
justified in the sight of God and methinks it looks like a mere whimsey to fancy a Notion of Iustification in his sight that has neither pardon of sin included in it nor eternal life attending of it It 's strange to me to hear of Iustification before God against Temporal Evils And if Abraham had no other I think he was never perfectly justified 2. The Determination of the Church of England is no light matter with me Artic. 7. They are not to be heard that feign the Fathers looked only for Transitory Promises But it seems that in this one particular the Church was not infallible for they are to be heard and read and licensed and advanced too who dare fâ—…ign and write and preach That the Patriarchs either looked for none or at the best but Transitory Promises 3. When I read that Abraham was so earnest to see Christ's day by Faith and when he got a sight of it he was glad I begin to think with my self what should be the ground of so great a joy at so great a distance Spiritual Promise he is allowed none and was it worth the while to rejoyce in the foresight of some temporal Advantages that should come to the Jews when he should be turn'd to dust and nothing especially seeing the coming of Christ either brought spiritual Mercies 〈◊〉 the Seed of Abraham or none at all So that he had more cause to sit down and lament that he had no promise of Love from or Life with God either for his Person or Posterity Ay! but says he the Promise was not so clear but men might mistake iâ—… That may be I confess And so may the clearest that ever God gave to the sons of men If men will set their wits on work and serue and torture and vex and wrest every letter and syllable and in all this forsake the Conduct of God's Spirit and scorn the Catholick Judgment of the Church in all Ages to gratifie their Airy Crotchets I do not remember a Promise of God to secure them against mistaking his Promises Ay! but says he we know that the whole Iewish Church did so for many Ages If he knows it he knows more than I do but that is no great wonder and than any man alive besides his own Knowing self And yet they had more particular Promises concerning Christ than that was and yet expected only a temporal Prince I will deal openly with him I do not believe that the whole Iewish Church for any Age much less for many Ages no not for any one day in any Age did expect a Messiah to deliver them only from temporal evils That there was great degeneracy in that Church in some Ages I deny not there is so amongst Christians especially towards the latter times of their Church-state But that ever the whole Church so far degenerated as to lose the expectation of a Redeemer to deliver them from sin and its consequents and to endow them with spiritual Blessings I demand better proofs than Confidence before I subscribe And 1. For Abraham it 's evident he sought a heavenly Country and therefore I conclude That the believing Jews who had says our Author more particular Promises concerning Christ sought a heavenly one too or their more express Promises were ill bestowed on them Heb. 11. 9. By Faith he Abraham dwelt in the promised Land as in a strange Country The promised Land was a strange Country to him that sought a heavenly one whereof that was but the figure the rind and bark for that Promise had greater excellencies underneath to his discerning Faith ver 10. For he looked for a City that had foundations whose builder and maker is God Vers. 13. All these died in the Faith Confessing that they were Strangers and Pilgrims for they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a Country Vers. 16. But now they desire a better that it a heavenly Country therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God 2. It 's evident that the Messiah was promised Isa. 53. 4. To bear their sins and carry their sorrows Vers. 5. To be wounded for their transgressions and bruised for their iniquities Ver. 6. To have all their iniquities laid upon him Ver. 8. To be stricken for the transgression of God's people Ver. 10. To have his Soul made an Offering for sin And now to assert That the whole Iewish Church expected only a temporal Monarch is to throw such dirt in the face of God's people as is very scandalous 3. If any of them at any time expected temporal Deliverances temporal Honours Revenues c. from the Messiah it was not inconsistent utterly with an expectation of better things from him for the Disciples themselves had been hammering some such conceit in their heads Acts 1. 6. perhaps mistaking in the Chronology and Antedating that Mercy which in its season they might have reason to expect and yet by our Author 's good leave I will be so charitable as to presume they looked for pardon of sin and eternal life from Christ Nay I could name instances nearer home of those that expect from the Gospel large in-comes and yet we may reasonably believe have nobler things in their eye and would scorn his Atheistical spirit who would not forgo his part in Paris for his share in Paradise 2. He must know that Christ was to die for our sins without which according to our Doctor it 's impossible God should forgive sins considering the Naturalness of his Vindictive Iustice to him Now to untie this knot in the Bulrush 1. I question not that Abraham understood clearly That God was essentially holy and that his Rectoral or Governing Iustice was founded therein Gen. 18. 25. Shall not the Iudg of all the Earth do right That it should be with the righteous as with the wicked or with the wicked as with the righteous were far from God Which Consideration might stagger his Faith about the pardon of his own sin and his only relief could be from the Faith of the Messiah's undertaking with God In which he had this satisfaction that however he found difficulties in the way of believing yet still he gave credit to God and his Testimony concerning a Redeemer leaving the Modes and Circumstances of the Mediatory Office as a secret in God's bosom 2. I am confident our Author cannot prove that Abraham knew nothing of Christ's death This I know he had Sacrifices which might sufficiently instruct him in the demerit of sin and what the sinner had deserved and in the necessity of Compensation to be made to God's Justice for his violated Law and reproached Government And whether Abraham might not once open his mouth to God to be instructed in their noblest signification and design I cannot tell 3. I do not know of any absolute necessity that Abraham should understand the Circumstances that should lead towards the fulfilling of the Mediator's work or in what particular way God would justifie a sinner
fitted to return the Glory due to a Redeemer which an unhumbled unbelieving unconverted unsanctified Sinner could not possibly be 2 The Death of Christ devested of those its proper respects of a Sacrifice offered to God to atone and reconcile him a price paid to ransom and redeem us and a Punishment born to satisfie Divine Iustice was no infallible proof of the Doctrine which he preached For 1. Many have laid down their lives to Abett and endured extremity of Tortures rather than renege the Doctrine they have openly preached their Confidence the mean while supported either by a mistaken Conscience or perhaps some sinister respects All that it can prove in the largest judgment of Charity is That they suppose their Doctrine to be true or else would hardly lose their All rather than lose a Principle but not that therefore the Doctrine is true because the Preacher dies for it That which is false in it self will not become true by laying down our life for it In the Memory of the last Age there were some who sacrificed their lives to the Flames in defence of Contradictory Doctrines So that to say that the Death of Christ has no other use but To confirm the Truth of that Doctrine which he preacht is but a more modest civil and gentle way of saying it has no use at all 2. To whom should the Death of Christ confirm the Truth of his Doctrine to his Enemies or his Friends For his Enemies Many of his Sufferings the very greatest and sorest of his Sufferings were out of their notice either privately in the Garden or more privately in his Soul such as whereof they could take no cognizance and for these which were visible they looked on them as the just rewards of his violation of the Law As for his Friends his Death considered singly in it self without respect to its proper Ends was so far from confirming of their Faith or Belief of his Doctrine that it was that which shook their hopes and dasht their expectations out of countenance their Hearts died in his Death and those two expressed the Sense of more than their own diffidence Luk. 24. We trusted that it had been he that should have redeemed Israel But whether to Friends or Enemies the Death of Christ considered without his antecedent Miracles and subsequent Resurrection and concomitant Sacrifice was so improper a means to confirm that it had proved the clearest Confutation of his Doctrine that malice could have desired 3. The Death of Christ was so far from confirming this Doctrine That God would pardon Sinners that separate this one Consideration of it as satisfactory to Divine Iustice from his Death and it quite overthrows the credibility of the Doctrine and runs all the World down into utter despair For our Author must have a happy dexterity if he can conclude that because God dealt so severely with an innocent holy Person that therefore he will not fail to pardon repenting Sinners We must despair that ever repentance should make us personally equal with Christ If then God did these things in the green Tree what will be done in the Dry If Iudgment begun at God's own House where shall the Ungodly and Sinner appear He that spared not his own Son how much less will he spare the Sinner It could not be expected that any should believe Christ telling them God would pitty and pardon others who found him so severe to himself But that indeed the true Reason why God deals so graciously with the repenâ—…ing Sinner is because he had dealt so justly with his own Son voluntarily becoming his Surety and Substitute 4. There were proper proofs designed by God for the Confirmation of the Doctrine of Christ and no need at all to take sanctuary in that which nakedly considered was not so Those frequent clear stupendious Miracles wrought by Christ were fully adequate and commensurate to that End Reason will teach us to believe that God will not alter the course of Nature nor reverse its standing Laws to confirm a Lye to bear witness to a grand Imposture And surely they who would not believe Christ to be sent of God upon his Testimony to him in those Extraordinary Works would never believe it for his Death which was no wonder at all otherwise than as the fruit of his ineffable Love offering himself to God as a Sacrifice for Sin and so indeed it was the greatest Wonder of them all The Enemies of Christ triumpht in his Death that they had nailed his Cause with his Person to the Cross and that which they feared was his Resurrection A Miracle so far beyond all exception to confirm that he was sent of God and therefore his Doctrine must needs be true that their greatest care was to have prevented it by sealing the Stone and setting a Watch. 5. But supposing that the Death of Christ had confirmed his Doctrine and particularly this That God would pardon and save the Believing and Obedient Sinner Yet still what influence has this upon our Acceptance with God Will God accept our Obedience the more because we have greater helps to obey May our duty expect a greater Reward because we come easier by it But when all is said that our Author can say it 's our Obedience that hath the Influence upon our Acceptance with God and Christ's Death has only an Influence upon our Obedience The same Obedience given to the Commands of the Gospel without the motive of his Death had found equal if not greater Acceptance from him than when drawn from us by so cogent an Argument But if the Death of Christ may be said to have any influence upon our Acceptance with God because he thereby confirmed his Doctrine then the Death of the Martyrs also may be said to have an Influence upon our Acceptance with him for they by their Death 's confirmed the Truth which they preacht which Truth was the true Covenant of Grace And whereas many of them laid down their Lives with that Heroical Magnanimity with that gallantry of Spirit with more than that boasted Stoical valour kissing the Stake embracing the Flames triumphantly singing in the midst of their Torments professing they felt no more pain than in a Bed of Roses as if they were to ascend Heaven in that fiery Chariot to the Confutation of their Enemies the encouraging of their Friends and the credit of that Gospel they died for evidently assuring all that they were immediately supported from above to bear with patience nay with exultation those extremities which to Flesh and Blood were intolerable We see our Blessed Saviour on the contrary in his Sufferings strangely dejected amazed troubled in Soul earnestly begging that if it were possible that Cup might pass from him and crying out in the bitterness of his Soul That he was forsaken of God which consideration is enough to satisfy an impartial Enquirer That the Sufferings of Christ were fitted for some higher design than the confirming of