Wisdom Justice and Holiness that saving the honour of these he might pardon and advance to dignity rebells against Heaven upon their returning to their subjection and allegiance that the honour and credit of these might be maintained and yet the offenders not perish And this atrocious death of the Son of God for sin did do God great honour in the face of the Sun and of the World did assert his holiness and ha 〈…〉 proclaim his Righteousness and is a loud Thunder-clap of terror against such as shall again a second time and after such hope brought in undo themselves And by this all the dishonour that would have come to God by pardoning submitting and yielding enemies and rebells is cleared and wiped off and the repute of the Law as well secured and kept up and offenders considerate no more imboldened to sleight Him and his Laws and Threats by looking on him as no great enemy to sin than if the penalty had been executed upon all Men for ever I shall add no more here because I have prevented my self in speaking largely of this before 6. That God might be just and a justifier of faln man that God might be just and merciful 1. That God might be just it would not be sense to stop here for God would have been just without this Propitiation inflicting the punishment on sinners themselves but then he would have been meerly just and no justifier of faln man because man could never have satisfied he would have been always paying and yet the debt always to pay still so that there could never have been any Justification of sinners 2. But that he might be just and a justifier He set out Christ a Propitiation for the remission of sins Here you see two causes of Christ's death The love of God to Man one and the justice of God the other He was induced to this amazing act by his Philanthropy his love of man and zeal of justice He so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed on him might not perish but might have everlasting life And here his justice did not swallow up his Mercy nor his Mercy his Justice but they are of quite distinct considerations Here is a loud Testimony of his Love to us and love to his Law and Justice of love to us that Christ should die rather than we perish and of love to his Law and Justice in that he hereby took order that they should not be injured by his pardoning of us Yet observe well here for the understanding of the things I have spoken of and shall speak of depend much upon it that this love was not the love of Complacency or Rectoral love for that is and was the fruit of Christ's Death but a love of pity such as was consistent with Rectoral and Legal hatred Zaleucus might lawfully have a love of pity to his Son before his invented Satisfaction but Rectoral wrath and hatred He was bound in honour as a iust Rector to execute the Law to keep it sacred and unblemished and this restrained his natural pity from doing an injury to justice And this Love that I am speaking of was the Love of one that was bound in honour and justice to be an enemy as things stood but yet of one willing to find out some way that he might with safety to his honour and justice be a friend as Governour that is might justly not inflict the penalty Thus you see the love of Pity that sent Christ was not the fruit of Christs Death But his love of Complacency his justifying love Pardoning love Rectoral love that is the fruit of his Death 7. Justifier of Sinners of faln Man that is implied in the word Propitiation and remission of sin and in the whole texture of the words And here I will shew you he died for Justification of the greatest of sinners upon their acceptance of him yea and of sinners then long since dead 1. For the Pardon and Justification of the greatest Sinners worst of Men whose throat was an open Sepulcher and their feet swift to shed blood as is expressed before in this Chapter The greatest Sins cannot exceed the price paid for they are but the Sins of Man but the Sufferings were the Sufferings of God They that were guilty of the hainousest act that ever the Sun saw of that horrid act of Crucifying Christ upon their repentance and being pricked in their hearts were forgiven as we read in the Acts of the Apostles 2. For the Pardon and Justification of Sinners then dead before Christ's death God now declareth his righteousness in the remission of those past sins Whether all those that were justified and saved under the Old Testament did know of this to come satisfaction or not I do not now dispute But this is plain whether they knew of it or not they were not justified and saved without God's having respect to this to come Propitiation it was by virtue of this which is now declared It is now declared to Men and Angels that it was upon the account of the Satisfaction intended and promised They were justified by virtue of Satisfaction designed and undertaken by Christ and in due time to be exacted and paid but through the forbearance of God the exacting of the price for sins past and fore-committed was deferred till the time of the Gospel A Meritorious cause is a Moral cause and for a Moral cause to operate and have its effect it is not necessary that it do exist it sufficeth that it have an Esse cognitum a beeing in knowledg A man may be properly said to have bought that which he hath not yet paid for and may have the actual benefit of his purchase if he hath undertaken the payment and the other accepts of and rests satisfied with his promise and undertaking Grotius lib. de Satisf thus interpreteth this place remission of sins past And it seemeth probable enough to be the meaning of this difficult place Sanguis Christi profuit antequam fuit Both the Ancients were and we are saved by Christ and God hath now set him forth a Propitiation for those past sins And indeed till Christ thus came the Satisfaction was not paid but through the forbearance of God thus served the turn that it was undertaken and promised and typified and represented by the Sacrifices and Types which shadowed it out but the Truth Reality and true Sacrifice came not till Christ And God did forbear to inflict wrath on them because he should at length have satisfaction and now he declareth his Righteousness in exacting the prefigured Satisfaction They drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them which Rock was Christ Hence it is not improbably concluded by some that he is called The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world * Yet I rather encline to them that read it written from the foundation of the world in the book of the Lamb slain Because in the same Book
of compensation and expiation in their stead What possible reason can be given why no Sacrifices were to be offered for them that were to be taken away out of the land of the living 3. Now Christ is called our Sacrifice Walk in love as Christ also hath Eph. 5. 2. loved us and hath given himself for us an Offering and Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour He alludeth to the expression of the Old Testament where God is said to smell a sweet savour or a savour of rest in their Sacrifices He is called as was said before Gen. 8. 21 Lev. 1. 9. by the name of his own Types Lamb without spot Behold the Lamb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lamb of God the eminent Lamb the true propitiatory Lamb indeed that did that in reality which others but represented that did really take away and expiate the sins of the World So he is called our Passeover I will here answer two Objections more before I pass to another general head Object But can one satisfie himself Christ was God and so the party offended as well as Man Answ Passing by what may colourably be said upon consideration of the distinctions of Persons I answer 1. Do we not read of God reconciling the World to himself God was 2 Cor. 5. 19. the Agent in it and this he could not do but by finding out some way to satisfie and propitiate himself that he might not impute their sins 2. Did not Zaleucus in part help to satisfie his own Law by his own suffering losing one of his own eyes as we heard in the story fore-mentioned And this is not accounted an imprudent act but commended highly by the Authors that relate it as a worthy noble act and expedient and I told you we have only one thing to object against it which cannot be objected here 3. Tell me O vain dark man that wouldst teach God that repliest against God What way was there else possible Think a little on that What way so ever you will propound as suppose of less satisfaction by some meer creature or no satisfaction you may see the reason why you like it better is because you have not the hatred of Sin and love of Holiness and care of Law and Justice that God hath nor indeed such as you ought to have or else you must say You would have had God suffer Mankind remedilesly to perish and then it is because you have not that love to Mankind that God and Christ had And this last is the most seeming rational ground of our offence and surely we will easily be prejudiced against and offended with what God doth when God displeaseth us because he did not leave us irrecoverably to perish without remedy O curvae in terris animae caelestium manes O the crooked mind ef dark man Object But some have objected It is impossible one cannot suffer for another I have already answered what can be objected about the injustice but here the impossibility is objected Answ 1. God's ways are above our ways and understandings Shall we say that is impossible which he hath said he hath done because we cannot understand it 2. It is not oriously possible God's forbidding Men to punish one for another argueth the thing possible he would not forbid impossible things The Heathens knew it very possible we may see by their offering up the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul 3. It is so highly possible that it hath been and is common amongst Men. How common is the translation of punishment from one to another as in Hostages and men undertaking to bring out the offender liable to the mulct of the offender Solomon writeth much about avoiding suretiship because the debter failing he must pay Which takes it for granted as a thing common 4. If the Papists who yet would not be accounted Socinians and many of them are not should scoff at this doctrine of Justification by Christ's Righteousness and Satisfaction as absurd impossible as some of them do you may tell them how shamefully they contradict themselves and grant it eminently possible by their proclaiming a Justification by the merits and sufferings of Saints Saint Francis his Wounds and Becket's Blood yea the Virgin 's Milk will justifie Men yea the scourgings and severities and good deeds of Men of their religious Orders will so stand Men in stead as if they had done those things themselvs And yet some of them can make little or nothing of Christ's Death 5. To declare his Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to declare plainly his Righteousness There is such a rectitude in God's Nature as causeth him to hate sin and inclineth him to punish it and this natural justice inclineth him to punish fin in the person that commits it but yet not as fire burneth that cannot do otherwise but this inclination or this which we must conceive as analogical to an inclination is subject to his wisdom and orderable by it And this Oeconomy or dispensation concerning a Satisfaction was as Governour and Rector of the world that he might not dishonour Himself in pardoning to secure the glory of his Justice which would otherwise have been aspersed by sins impunity and to please himself in displaying the glory of his Attributes God is just and this was an act of justice governing justice to declare at this time c. We are prone to think that this time of the Gospel was only a time of love grace and compassion to sinners but we see it was also a time of Demonstration of Justice of the strictest justice and most inflexible holiness and hatred of sin He hereby sheweth how little he respecteth persons that if the dearest Son of his love will intercede undertake for the pardon of sinners He shall pay dear for it Here is inexorable Justice indeed There were indeed former demonstrations of God's justice in the Destruction of the Old World Overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Babylonian Captivity but never any like this at this time to vindicate his injured Law and Honour before Men and Angels It is natural to God to have a regard to himself to his own honour and concernment that he make not himseif contemptible slighted as a patron of sin or no great en 〈…〉 to it And as Rector it beho 〈…〉 assert his Majesty and keep up the repute of his Law and Government How unworthy is it of a Rector by impunity and indulgence to seem to have a confederacy with the breakers of his Law Though he pardon offenders yet it must be in such a way as there may be no ground of suspition as if he was pleased with sin become such a one as themselves or not highly displeased with the violators of his Law it must be upon dreadfully-awing honourable terms What can you imagin Christ's Death was a compensation for or a satisfaction unto but to those high and glorious Attributes of his
say if you think or desire rationally Should God say O ye guilty Rebels I have found a Ransome I have found out a way that I can now pardon you with safety to my Honour and Justice Now as ingenuous men speak and tell me what I shall do for you Should I pardon you and give you Heaven and Happiness though you should continue to live in all Villany hating me and my holy ways slighting my Law and Government We would answer No. This would not become the holy and universal Magistrate and King of the World this would be unworthy of God For then we might say We are delivered to commit all these abominations this we have begun to do an nothing will be restrained from us which we can imagine to do and there will be none to put us to shame Speak then like honest men that have some sparks of ingenuity We should say Make not the terms perfect obedience for we brake that old Covenant that had these terms when we had our perfect strength and now we are weakned wonderfully shattered wonderfully by our fall Ans Make the condition the terms this That if we humbly acknowledging our desert of damnation repenting us of our iniquities and seeking to thee for forgiveness shall sincerely desire and endeavor to please thee and keep thy Commandments and shall bewail it with grief when we fall short and fail in this our duty that then we shall have the benefit of this Propitiation So that only our wilful chosen casting off thee and thy Government shall undo us And make it that though we should have long refused thee yet if at length we thus repent and return we shall find this mercy This is well said thus far And though this be not now enough for us yet this seemeth to comprehend all the condition required of men to justification and salvation before the appearance of Christ in the flesh There were Promises of Forgiveness Justification and right to Heaven made known to the World by Noah the Preacher of Righteousness and others upon the condition of repentance and returning to God If thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted was said to a great sinner This was Gospel not Law for that requires that a man never have been a sinner The Book of Job is generally with reason held to be written before the Law of Moses and his Friends knew and taught this Doctrine and name it as coming from the Ancients by Tradition If any Job 8. 5 6 7 8. Chap. 33. 27 28. Chap. 22. 21 22 23 man shall say I have sinned and perverted that which is right and it profits me not he will deliver his soul from going down into the pit And these Promises were made by virtue of this death of Christ Moses entereth the people into this Covenant To be the Lord's people and promiseth on that God will be their God and he sprinkleth blood and saith Behold the blood of the Covenant which the Lord hath made with you this day upon their engaging to be the Lord's people and to obey his voice to signifie it was made in the blood of Christ And he saith I have set before you life and death in that I command you to walk in his ways And that which he commanded was not the old conditions which were impossible viz. Never to have been sinners It is not in the Heavens or beyond the Sea but is nigh thee in thy heart and in thy mouth It was to love God in sincerity and walk in his ways And the Apostle cites this and saith it is Gospel even the word of faith which they preached Rom. 10. 6. Yea and the sons of strangers that joyn themselves to the Lord to love the name of the Lord and take hold of this Covenant to them â—e would give c. And so the Prophets If the wicked turn from his wickedness he shall live he shall not dye This was the Gospel this promise was made in the blood of Christ for the Law admits of no pardon upon repentance And any that were justified and saved upon the performance of these conditions were saved only by the death of Christ promised and undertaken and this obedience and turning to God is a great part of the Gospel-condition So that obedience is called Faith and disobedience Infidelity He that believeth Joh. 3. 16 on the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath everlasting life but he that believeth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that believeth not or obeyeth not the Son or is not perswaded by him So To day if ye will hear that is obey his voice Heb. 3 7 12 harden not your hearts as in the provocation Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God To whom sware he they should not enter into his rest But to them that believed not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or to them that were disobedient So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief We see how disobedience and unbelief are promiscuously used Heb. 4. 1. Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into rest any of you should seem to come short of it For unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them but the word did not profit them not being mixed with faith or obedience used promiscuously in them that heard it You may observe hence that they had the Gospel preached to them in the Wilderness and you may here see what the Gospel is A promise of rest and happiness to sinners to faln man and we see Heaven was promised under the type of Canaan and we see the Gospel is a conditional promise for if absolute the missing of Heaven and rest would have been ascribed to God's unfaithfulness and not to man's disobedience or unbelief and you see what the condition of the Gospel is by seeing faith and obedience counted as one Seeing therefore it remaineth Heb. 4 6. that some must enter in and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of disobedience and so the Margent of your Bibles have it also ver 11. And the Apostle tells us what Faith was necessary in those days Heb. 11. 5 6. Enoch had this testimony that he pleased God but without faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him It is essential to Religion to believe there is forgiveness with God that he may be feared The Gospel-condition is rather the diligent seeking of Him if you will place it in one of these acts only than the believing he is and is a rewarder of them that come to him for this may be without that seeking but not that seeking without this I think it was not an essential condition to Justification and Salvation in those days to have an
What do you think the wicked Jews meant when they said If we let this man alone all men will believe on him What did they mean some one act and that one act that many now hold to be only necessary to salvation though not agreed ordinarily what it is Surely they meant They will believe he is the Messiah and so love him obey him stick to him If one bid you believe in such a Physician trust in him and he will cure you cannot you easily understand he means also Take his Counsel follow his directions by believing in him So when he saith Believe and thou shalt be saved he meaneth Believe and carry as one that believeth love obey turn 4. Sometime called Repentance Repent that your iniquities may be blotted John preached repentance for the remission of sin Surely you will grant that is for Justification And Christ did not take away this Condition nay he preached it himself Except you repent you shall perish He meant believe obey also 5. Called Conversion Turn them from darkness to light that they Mar. 4. 12 may receive remission Lest they should see with their eyes and be converted and their sins should be forgiven them Implying the terms that God hath bound himself to by promise through Christ's death to the world so as he cannot in faithfulness break If converted he must forgive having made this new Law of Grace 6. Called Obedience Being made perfect through suffering having fully satisfied he became the Author of eternal salvation to those that obey him Surely this holdeth out the terms on which men shall have the justifying saving benefit of Christ's death But there is implied in this also the belief of the truth of the Gospel So Hear and your souls shall live That is obey for life for justification for right to salvation 7. Keeping the Commandments Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have right to the tree of life Not the hearers of the Law are just before God but the doers of the Law shall be justified Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord but he that doth the will of my Father shall inherit the Kingdom If the Erek 18. 21. wicked turn from all his sins which he hath committed and keep all my statutes he shall live all the transgressions that he hath done shall not be mentioned This is not the Law of Works but the Gospel for the Law promiseth no mercy to the returning wicked Consider these three places In Jesus Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing but Gal. 5. 6. faith which worketh by love In Jesus Gal. 6. 15. Christ neither circumcision c. but a new creature Again In Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 7. 19. neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing but the keeping the Commandments of God Do not these three expressions mean the same thing the same Gospel-condition 8. Regeneration New Creature Except a man be born again c. Not by works of righteousness which we have Tit. 3. 15. done but according to his mercy hath he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost One would think you might gather hence what the Apostle Paul means by Works and what by Faith the Gospel-condition 9. Sanctification Except I wash thee thou canst have no part in me And without holiness none shall see the Lord. Godliness hath the promise of this life and that which is to come Is not Justification right to Heaven among the number of those things Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings learn to do well Come now though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though red like crimson they shall be as wool I could name many other Names as Fearing God Hoping in him Trusting in him c. But I will name but one more 10. Sometime it is expressed by words that import a Continuance and this is indeed the condition of the continued Justification and right to Heaven To them he will give eternal Col. 1. 21 22 23. life who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for immortality Yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you blameless and unreproved in his sight if you continue in the faith grounded and setled and be not removed away from the hope of the Gospel which you have heard and was preached to every creature under Heaven That is upon condition that as you have received the Christian Faith so you continue in it to the end notwithstanding all sufferings by the encouragement of that hope which this Gospel supplies unto you If we 1 Joh. 1. 7 walk in the light as he is in the light the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin There is no condemnation to Rom. 1. 8. them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Whose house are we if we hold Heb. 3. 6. fast our confidence unto the end But yet believers are justified at present But you are sanctified but you are justified saith the Apostle you are so upon your first cordialconsent to the Gospel-terms It is here as in all other things of the like nature What makes a Servant but Consent When the Master is willing to have him and propounds the terms he consents to the terms I have set Life and Death before you and told you the condition of Life by Christ Would we go and consider this condition and the reasonableness of it and the glorious things that would come by it and would we go and in the strength of God and Christ call Heaven and Earth to record yea and Hell to witness That we consent give up our selves to be ruled and saved by Christ would we enter into Covenant to be the Lord's people and his Christ's to walk in all well-pleasing and not to allow our selves in any known sin or in the neglect of any known duty and to use the means God hath appointed to know his will and for the destruction of sin and this as honest men really intending performance even till death being so far from designing treacherously to turn aside in difficulties that it is our greatest fear and dread lest we should deal falsly in this Covenant From this time you are justified by this Law of Grace and have right to Heaven though you should have black and sad thoughts and think you are not and you may pray with encouragement Keep this in the thoughts of our heart for ever and confirm our hearts unto thee and God will keep those that thus commit themselves unto him But yet this is true if you should fall utterly away this Law of Grace would cease to justifie you because you withdraw this consent and so cease to have the condition of it and the reason why we do not lose Justification and right to Salvation is Because God keepeth his fear in our
hearts lest we should draw back and his soul have no pleasure in us Do not say This is not to be supposed for you ought to put such suppositions to your selves viz. If I should now leave off to be wise and to do good I should perish For what else doth God threaten for If the righteous forsake his righteousness he shall dye As a man that never maketh this Supposition If Christ had not died I had perished or if God had not converted me cannot but be very unthankful which Suppositions are at least as equally impossible as the Supposition of your total Apostacy So a man that never maketh these Suppositions If I should fall away I should lose all cannot but be very unwary and remiss in care and watchfulness Concerning those several Names the Gospel-condition is called by let me add this Observation I know sometime these words may be and are used in Scripture in their proper sense for one act and no more And it may be sometimes by confess may be meant no more than confess And sometime Faith is used only for Faith as when he saith He that cometh to God must believe that God is There by believing is meant only assent And so when we read of Faith's operativeness it means only the belief of the Truth and so would I be understood when I at any time speak of Faith's operativeness as purifying their hearts by Faith yet whenever any Promise is made to any Grace or Act whatsoever of Justification Salvation Pardon there it implieth the whole Gospel-condition and all Graces essential to Christianity It must be understood caeteris paribus if other things answer thereto And this I can prove evidently to you by this argument else a man would have right by the Promise upon his Confessing though he did not forsake and by believing that Christ is risen from the dead though he should refuse to obey the Gospel and God would be unfaithful in denying him the things promised If you promise a Vintner so much money to send you such a Butt that stands in his Cellar and he sends you the empty Vessel if you can assure me that you are not by truth and promise bound to pay him then I am equally sure that you meant the Vessel and the Wine also you spake Synecdochically Methinks I may say as the Town-Clark of Ephesus once did with greater reason than he These things are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things that cannot be spoken against Object Is not this working for Justification or Righteousness Is there no danger in seeking to be justified and saved by works Ans No danger at all in this sense and yet great danger in another sense but it is so far from being dangerous in this sense that it is indispensably necessary to salvation They only shall be blessed that keep his Commandments in Gospel-sincerity that they may have right to the tree of life that is that they may be justified And I dare confidently say that never any did sincerely obey God whatever confused notions some good men have had in their brains that they held only speculatively but for this end among others that they might have right to Heaven which is Justification for as humane nature now is and I think I may say the same concerning the state of Innocency it is not capable of undergoing the difficulties of obedience but for such ends To escape the curse and attain the blessing which is to attain Justification and escape Condemnation And to say otherwise is to say God hath indeed made promises of remission of sins and Heaven to those that repent turn from sin and obey the Gospel but I will not regard these promises I will not be moved by them I will do none of these things for these ends but I will only act out of love Which yet I could shew you would be impossible For how can I love him who I think hath done me no good and how can I think he hath done me any good when I think my own salvation is no good as I certainly do if I do not desire and endeavour it And God hath threatned those that go on in sin with a Curse and Hell But I will not refrain sin for these ends that I may escape Hell I will only act out of Love I will be above Scripture I will neither be moved with promises nor threats But there is another sense which the Apostle speaketh of as damnable The Pharisaical Jews would have Justification and Righteousness without pardon would purely and meerly be justified so as not to be pardoned that it should be no favour to justifie them but their due without grace and pardon and that maketh him prove out of David the necessity of pardon Rom. 4. and that would be in effect to say without the Satisfaction and Righteousness of Christ and if so Christ died in vain this would make void his death they would have their obedience to the Moral Law which they commonly interpreted as reaching only to the outward act either to be perfect or so little defective that the great meritoriousness of being Abraham's Seed and circumcised and their strict observance of the Ceremonial Law and other Traditions never commanded would make up what wanted And their Righteousness being compleat of it self their Justification would be of due debt from the old Law through Justice and not of Pardon and Grace through a Propitiation And so too many among us look upon their good works as meritorious though they be sinners and know it yet they think the good works of Alms and other things which they look upon as no duties will satisfie for those sins and think God would do them wrong if he do not for their good deeds pardon their evil deeds think their good works are very good and deserving much from God and their evil not very evil and so God would be very hard yea unjust if he should condemn them If this was true then no need of Christ he then dyed in vain then salvation would be of debt from natural Justice from the old Law and not of Grace and Mercy and Pardon through Christ Will any dare to say If what I have spoken be true that he will pardon none but repenting returning believing sinners that it is not of Pardon Mercy Grace but of debt from the old Covenant which allows no Pardon I confess Paul's Epistles about Justification are hard to be understood and I am confident many Expositors are and have been notoriously mistaken about these things and that by Faith he meaneth as I do Faith and Obedience to the Gospel I have written something to shew to my Acquaintants the meaning of these places which I think make them appear rational and plain to this sense and absit verbo invidia will do so to rational men But it is not fit to speak so largely here I wish you to read considerately Cap. 3. v. 5. of his Epistle to Titus Can you
Abraham's time Abraham thought it probable there might be fifty righteous persons in Sodom though it proved indeed otherwise and he was better acquainted with the state of those times than we are at this distance And to come to the Jews before Christ's time that had the Oracles of God and to whom the Lord sent Messengers rising up betime and sending them because he had compassion on them saying Turn and live And If the wicked turn from his wickedness and keep all my Commandments be shall live Yet it is next to an impossibility but that those amongst them that knew little or nothing of this great price or Satisfaction that scarce understood any thing of their Prophesies Types and Sacrfices but that those should have muddied and fluctuating thoughts about this pardon of sin when deeply convinced of God's Holiness and hatred of sin and of the hainousness of their sins how it could stand with his Justice and Honour to give eternal life to such unworthy wretches upon their repentance and poor broken obedience Good hearts sensible of God's Holiness and the hainousness of sin would be apt to say Though he will pardon sin yet it may be not such great sins as ours What unanswerable Arguments taken from God's Justice and Holiness might they seem to have against it No wonder if they that knew so little of this great Transaction though sincere ones were all their lives subject to bondage through fear of death No wonder if they were as Servants and our condition the state of Sons in comparison of theirs though the almost visibly convincing knowledg they had of God and his placableness and mercy did prevail with them to perform the Gospel-condition to be true Israelites sincere servants of God Blessed be God that hath revealed those things to us that were hid comparatively from many wise prudent yea and holy men What helps have we which they wanted to turn to God! What helps to the love of God and to all cheerful obedience He so wonderfully loving us first even while ungodly as we may clearly and with open face comparatively to them now see Rom. 5. 8. God commendeth his love to us in that while we were sinners and enemies and ungodly Christ died for us And if so much more now when we are converted and so justified by his blood we may easily believe We shall be saved from wrath through him for then we have a Right by Promise ver 10. For if when we were enemies living in opposition to Heaven and so he as Rector an Enemy to us if then he found a ransome and we were then reconciled to God in the death of his Son quoad meritum so far as concerns the price and the conditional pardon made out thereupon much more being actually reconciled as we are upon the performing the Gospel-condition we shall be saved by his living to intercede for us and to see we have the fruit of his Death and our Faith the salvation of our souls v. 11. And not only so but when thus converted we joy in God as having now received the atonement There was an atonement in his death before but now we have interest in it having performed the Gospel-condition we are actually and not only quoad meritum justified by it What madness is in our hearts if we refuse to hear Him that hath thus convincingly spoken to us from Heaven O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was evidently held out crucified amongst you He means by the Ministry of the Gospel for Christ was crucified at Jerusalem and not at Galatia And the same may by the same reason be urged on us O foolish yea more than foolish even bewitched Creatures we to do such an unreasonable thing as to refuse to obey the Gospel even we before whose eyes Christ is evidently held forth crucified If we perish we may every one of us say with him in Terence Et prudens sciens vivus vidensque pereo I perish knowingly and with my eyes open We may say with the Apostle God in times past suffered yet not altogether but comparatively as the following words shew all Nations to walk in their own ways Acts 14. 16. yea and the Jewish Nation in comparison of us And God Acts 17. 30. neglected those times of ignorance as the words should be translated but now commands even with almost compelling-evidence and power all men every where where Christianity comes to repent 3. This informs us That fallen man could never have fulfilled the Law or satisfied Justice for the breach of it else Christ needed not to have died for this end That God might be just for God might then have been just and the justifier of faln man after their good deeds and sufferings or satisfactions without Christ's death whereas the Apostle tells All are concluded under sin and that therefore all that were or are justified were are and shall be justified were are and shall be justified only this way by the pardon of sin through this Propitiation upon their Faith Repentance and new Obedience To account our Reformations Humiliations Faith Obedience in the place of a Satisfaction Expiation for our evil deeds is to pervert the design of the whole Gospel Christ is become of Gal. 5. 4. none effect to you whosoever of you seek to be justified by the Law How contradictory to this whole Doctrine is the avowed Popish Tenent of Merits Though some of their deluded ones amongst us are kept so ignorant of their own Religion as to tell us Their Church holdeth no such thing as the meriting eternal life by their works I know they are all to pieces about this as well as about other things they hold it Heresie to deny But did these never hear or read them discoursing of their works of Super-erogation that they can not only merit but so over-merit as to supererogate and have much to spare for those that need Merits Many of them as Bellarmine confesseth speak at a higher rate for Merit than he himself and yet this moderate man is too high of all conscience Jam verò opera bona justorum Bellar. de Justif lib. 5. cap. 17. meritoria esse vitae aeternae ex condigno non solum ratione pacti acceptationis sed etiam ratione operis probatur his Argumentis c. He maintains here The good works of pious men are meritorious of eternal life ex condigno and that not only upon the account of God's Covenant and Acceptation which is a contradiction in the very words but upon the account of the very works themselves And he tells us Cap. 12 One drop of Christ's blood was of merit enough to have saved the whole World for the infinite Dignity of the Person and cites the Decretal Epistle of Clement the sixth to prove it and then adds At non dissimilis debet esse ratio meriti in Capite membris Igitur
the Lord should look upon such dead dogs as we are What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou shouldst visit him That thou shouldst give him such a Physician as thy Son to cure him with his blood What is man that thou shouldst magnifie and set thy heart upon him Admire and wonder at the love of the Son that Christ the Lion of the Tribe of Judah should be willing to dye for such dead dogs That God's fellow should be willing to be smitten and wounded that by his stripes we might be healed that he should give Himself his Blood and Soul a Ransome for Traytors for Enemies That he should intercede as Moses Blot me I pray thee out of the book of life and say as Paul Let me rather be accursed That he should say to his Father If they have wronged thee put it on mine account I will pay it written not with my hand but with my blood That he should say with Rebeccah On me be thy curse my Son That Christ should go into the fire that we may be as brands pluckt out of the fire That the most blessed should be willing to be cursed that we cursed ones might be blessed That such a Tree of life such a fruit-bearing Tree should be willing to be cut down and dye to save Trees of death dead dry and barren Trees cumbring the ground It is commonly said of men undone by Suretiship Their own kind hearts undid them We may say of our Redeemer His own kind heart laid him thus low brought these calamities upon him How dear should he be to us Quanto pro me vilior tanto mihi charior Labour to know the love of God and Christ which passeth knowledg that you may be able to comprehend with all Saints the heighth length depth and breadth of it Eph. 3. 18 19. Had we hearts as full of love as they could hold yea as full as all the hearts of Men and Angels could hold we could not love him as he deserves from us We had need with the Widow to beg and borrow Vessels to fill our hearts cannot hold enough Were we not cold frozen pieces of earth the fire would burn while we are musing This love of God and Christ would set our hearts on fire 3. Admire the Wisdom of God in this great Transaction This was matter of reproach amongst the Heathen their grand Objection against Christianity Deus vester Patibulo affixus est Your God was crucified and Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness But it is wisdom to them that are perfect and to them that are saved by Christ Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God 1 Cor. 1. 8 24 25. Never was such a strain of Wisdom heard of as this since the World began O the wise plot and contrivance of the Trinity for the salvation of lost man here are Treasures of Wisdom unsearchable riches of Wisdom Wisdom in a mystery to find out a way for the greatest Justice and Mercy to meet Wisdom bringing light to us out of Christ's darkness life out of his death making the fall of Christ the rising of the World Such Wisdom as the Princes of this World knew not such Wisdom as the subtil Devils could not fathom Wisdom confounding the Devils and making them to help forward our salvation by endeavouring our ruin in destroying Christ He destroyed his own Kingdom in seeking to destroy Christ's Kingdom 2. Exhort Keep humble and low thoughts of your selves yea be ashamed and confounded in your selves because of his kindness in being thus pacified toward you Look to the hole of the pit whence you were digged and see what you were by nature and what your lot and portion was Look at your selves at the best but as Beggars in the elder Brother's Clothes Say of your Righteousness Alas it was but borrowed Some are admiring their own virtuous lives the innocent lives they have lived these cannot but sleight the Death and Satisfaction of Christ This is a direct opposition to the Grace of the Gospel and Publicans and Harlots will have benefit by this before them that justifie themselves What needed Christ to dye for thee if thou be so good as thou wouldst make thy self The design of the Gospel is That every mouth might be stopped in boasting and all flesh be guilty in their own sight before God And this is one part of the condition of life and righteousness through Christ To be deeply sensible how just it would have been with God to have damned us And the full soul in this sense cannot but loathe this honey-comb And these Truths would be sweet unto us were we pinched with want and hunger 3. Prize your Souls set a high value on them since God did so Christ did so They were ransom'd at a high rate You have heard sometime of the ransome of a King as a huge matter it is nothing to the ransome of a Soul this is precious indeed Christ that well knew the worth of Souls paying so dear for them Our souls were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold do not sell them away for silver and gold for that which could not purchase them We were not free-born with a great sum was this freedom this reprieve and hopeful time of trial obtained sell them not away for trifles Thirty and two years and upwards was this Temple in building this Soul in redeeming by Jesus Christ the Son of God lose it not sell it not for the sinful fading pleasures of a few days destroy it not in three days 4. Look too that this Blood be not lost this great Counsel of Heaven lost as to us Look to your selves that we lose not the things which we have wrought but that we receive a full reward 2 Joh. v. 8. It is sad thing for a man to complain I have beaten the air and spent my strength in vain Have you done and suffered so many things in vain if it be yet in vain But much more should this prevail with us Take heed that you lose not the things that Christ hath wrought A sad thing for Ministers to complain We have spent our strength in vain but much more for Christ to say I have lost my labours tears wounds death as to these men The Righteousness and Pardon and Life which he hath purchased were not for Himself he hath no more need of them than the Heavens have need of rain or the Sun of light Cut off but not for himself therefore if you refuse this offer you endeavour interpretatively that it may be said of Christ He died as a fool dieth You say to Christ's face virtually You might have been wiser than to work and take pains for one that gives you so little thanks Is this thy kindness to thy Friend Is this thy thanks to thy Redeemer Hath not Christ deserved thee If the Devil and Sin have and