their obedience to their great Creator to restore them to the uprightness and integrity of their natures and thereby to a state of friendship with God This was the end of his holy Laws and precious Promises and exemplary Life and meritorious Death and glorious Resurrection and powerful Intercession for us to deliver us from the Power and Dominion of Sin to make us first holy as God is and then to receive us into that Blessed place where God dwells But now acquaintance with the Person of Christ makes just such a discovery of sin as it did of the naturalness of God's Justice to him i. e. that the desert and demerit of sin is such that it is impossible to make any atonement or satisfaction to the justice and wrath of God but only by the Death of Christ otherwise Christ had died in vain that is that God could not forgive it without full satisfaction which nothing but the Death of Christ could make Thus we learn our disability to answer the mind and will of God in all or any of the obedience he requireth that is that it is impossible for us to do any thing that is good but we must be acted like Machines by an external force by the irresistable power of the Grace and Spirit of God this I am sure is a new discovery we learn no such thing from the Gospel and I do not see how he proves it from an acquaintance with Christ. But still there is a more glorious discovery than this behind and that is the glorious end whereunto sin is appointed and ordained I suppose he means by God is discovered in Christ viz. for the demonstration of Gods vindictive justice in measuring out to it a meet recompence of reward and for the praise of God's glorious grace in the pardon and forgiveness of it That is it could not be known how just and severe God is but by punishing sin nor how good and gracious God is but by pardoning it and therefore lest his justice and mercy should never be known to the World he appoints and ordains sin to this end that is Decrees that men shall sin that he may make some of them the Vessels of his wrath and the examples of his fierce vengeance and displeasure and others the Vessels of his mercy to the praise and glory of his free Grace in Christ this indeed is such a discovery as nature and revelation could not make For nature would teach us that so infinitely a glorious Being as God is needs not sin and misery to recommend his glory and perfections and that so holy a God who so perfectly hates every thing that is wicked would not truckle and barter with Sin and the Devil for his glory And that so good a God had much rather be glorious in the happiness and perfection and obedience of his Creatures than in their sin and misery and Revelation tells us the same thing that as much as sin is for the glory of his vindictive justice yet God takes no pleasure in punishing delights not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that he should return and live that is he had rather there were no occasion for punishing than be made glorious by such acts of vengeance and therefore though God be so holy as to punish incorrigible Sinners and so merciful as to forgive all true Penitents through our Lord Jesus Christ yet he did not ordain and appoint and decree sin to this end for vindictive justice and pardoning mercy are but secondary Attributes of the Divine Nature and therefore God cannot primarily design the glorifying of them for that cannot be without primarily designing the sin and misery of his Creatures which would be inconsistent with the goodness and holiness of his Nature Thus Nature and Revelation teaches though these men pretend to have learn't otherwise from an acquaintance with Christ. Thus much for the knowledge of our selves with respect to sin which is hid only in the Lord Iesus But then we learn what our righteousness is wherewith we must appear before God from an acquaintance with Christ. We have already learnt how unable we are to make atonement for our sins without which they can never be forgiven and how unable we are to do any thing that is good and yet nothing can deliver us from the justice and wrath of God but a full satisfaction for our sins and nothing can give us a title to a reward but a perfect and unsinning righteousness what shall we do in this Case how shall we escape Hell or get to Heaven when we can neither expiate for our past sins nor do any good for the time to come why here we are relieved again by an acquaintance with Christ his Death expiates former iniquities and removes the whole guilt of sin but this is not enough that we are not guilty we must also be actually righteous not only all sin is to be answered for but all righteousness is to be fulfilled Now this righteousness we find only in Christ We are reconciled to God by his Death and saved by his life that actual obedience he yielded to the whole law of God is that righteousness whereby we are saved we are innocent by vertue of his Sacrifice and expiation and righteous with his righteousness Now this is a mighty comfortable discovery how we may be righteous without doing any thing that is good or righteous And I confess we could never have known this but by an acquaintance with his Person for his Gospel makes a different representation of it tells us expresly that he is righteous who doth righteousness that without holiness no man shall see God that the only way to obtain the pardon of our sins is to repent of them and forsake them and the only thing that gives a right to the promises of future glory is to obey the Laws and imitate the example of our Saviour and to be transformed into the nature and likeness of God and though our obedience be not in every thing exact and perfect if it be sincere we shall be accepted for the sake of Christ and by vertue of that Covenant of Grace which he hath sealed with his blood which admits of an Evangelical instead of a strict legal perfection such different discoveries doth an acquaintance with the Gospel and with the Person of Christ make The third part of our Wisdom is to walk with God and to that is required Agreement acquaintance a way strength boldness and aiming at the same end and all these with the Wisdom of them are hid in the Lord Iesus The sum of which in short is this that Christ having expiated our sins and fulfilled all righteousness for us though we have no personal righteousness of our own but are as contrary to God as darkness is to light and death to life and an universal pollution and defilement to an universal and glorious holiness and hatred to love yet the righteousness of Christ
is a sufficient nay the only foundation of our agreement and upon that of our walking with God though St. Iohn tells us If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lye and do not the truth but if we walk in the light as God is in the light then have we fellowship one with another and then the blood of Iesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sins Iohn 1. Ch. 1. v. 6 7. And our only acquaintance with God and knowledge of him is hid in Christ which his word and works could not discover as you heard above And he is the only way wherein we must walk with God and we receive all our strength from him and he makes us bold and confident too having removed the guilt of sin that now we may look Justice in the face and whet our Knife at the Counter door all our Debts being discharged by Christ as these bold acquaintance and familiars of Christ use to speak And in Christ we design the same end that God doth which is the advancement of his own glory that is I suppose by trusting to the expiation and righteousness of Christ for Salvation without doing any thing our selves we take care that God shall not be robbed of the glory of his free Grace by a competition of any merits and deserts of our own These are those great Gospel Mysteries and Soul-saving truths which are learnt from an acquaintance with Christ's Person which his Gospel is so silent in or speaks so darkly and imperfectly of that it was impossible to understand them without being first acquainted with his Person And that you may the better understand the whole design and contrivance of it I shall put every thing into its just and natural order God then from the beginning designed to glorifie his justice and his mercy and because there had been no occasion either to punish or pardon unless man had sinned he appointed and ordained sin for the glory of his vindictive justice and pardoning Grace and accordingly since nothing can withstand the Decrees and appointments of God it pleaseth God that Man should sin but when he hath sinned he is extreamly displeased with it and now his Justice must be satisfied for it is impossible for God to forgive the the least sin without a compleat and perfect satisfaction this falls hard upon those miserable wretches whose ill fortune it was without any faults of theirs to be left out of the Roll of Election and who have no way to satisfie the Divine Justice but by their Eternal Torments by this it appears how rigorously just God is that he will never pardon the least sin when he can serve his own glory by the misery and confusion of Sinners But this is but one part of the glory of God to be just in punishing sin the other is to shew mercy in sparing and rewarding the Sinner now here was the great difficulty how God should be just and merciful too when Justice requires a full satisfaction and mercy excludes all desert For the demerit of sin being infinite no Creature can expiate sin but by enduring infinite that is endless Torments and those who must be always miserable can never be the subjects of God's mercy To unite these two extreams and reconcile such contradictions was a work of infinite Wisdom as well as goodness And it was effected thus God sends his only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ into the World to fulfil all righteousness in his life and to make a full satisfaction for sin by his Death For his blood being of infinite value as being the blood of the Son of God could expiate an infinite guilt and so make a compleat satisfaction to Justice which is more glorified by the Death of Christ than by the Eternal miseries of all the Sinners in the World because it discovers the naturalness of Justice to God which is the Position to be maintain'd that he could not pardon without full satisfaction that is that he is so just that he hath not one dram of goodness in him till his rage and vengeance be satisfied which is I confess a glorious kind of Justice But now the Iustice and vengeance of God having their actings assigned them to the full being glutted and satiated with the blood of Christ God may pardon as many and great sins as he pleases without fear of the least imputation of injustice and now a glorious and more comfortable Scene of mercy begins to appear now God embraces Sinners as a kind Father and accounts them perfectly innocent in vertue of that satisfaction Christ hath made for their sins but this is not enough the law of God must be fulfilled as well as his justice satisfied we must be righteous as well as innocent otherwise we may escape punishment but can expect no reward though I confess I should have thought that Christ had satisfied for sins of omission together with sins of Commission and as by his satisfaction for our doing what we ought not to do we are reputed by God as having never done any thing amiss so by his satisfaction for our neglecting what we ought to have done we might by the same reason be reputed by God perfectly righteous to have done all that we ought to have kept the whole Law but it seems this was not sufficient and therefore as the satisfaction of Christ is imputed to us for the forgiveness of sins so the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us to make us perfectly righteous and this makes the Grace of God perfectly free without any suspition of merit or desert in us And now God and Sinners may agree very well and walk comfortably together for though they have guilt enough and he Justice enough to destroy a World yet there is no danger since Christ hath satisfied Justice and though he be infinitely holy and pure perfect light and Sinners abominably filthy yet there is no fear he should loath and abhor them when they are Cloathed with the white and spotless Robes of Christs righteousness and they are so well acquainted now with the design of God to advance the glory of his free Grace in their Salvation that they are very secure that neither their past sins nor present habitual impurities can do them any hurt but they shall be saved with a notwithstanding their sins These are those fundamental Doctrines with which these men have blessed the World from a pretended acquaintance with Christ's Person which are so unlike the holy Religion of our Saviour that for distinction sake it ought to be called the Religion of Christ's Person in opposition to the Religion of his Gospel And since we have discovered the Principles of this new Religion of Christ's Person I cannot forbear inquiring briefly into the practical inferences from it that we may at once view the grand Mystery of this Religion both in its principles and practice Now the practice of this Religion consists in accepting of
abstracted from his office of Mediator though he might if he pleased for he considers those excellencies which are not peculiar to the office of Mediation but which would have belong'd to him as God and Man whether he had been Mediator or not but what becomes of his distinction of the Graces of Christs Person as Mediator from the Graces of his Person as God and Man when there are no Personal Graces in Christ but what belong to his Deity or Humanity and then you can find no other Person to be the subject of these Personal excellencies unless his office of Mediation must go for a distinct Person which is a new kind of heresie But whatever becomes of the sense of the distinction there is a very deep fetch in it the observing of which will discover the whole Mystery of the Person of Christ and our Union to him for these men consider that Christ saves us as he is our Mediator and not meerly consider'd as God or Man and they imagine that we receive Grace and Salvation from Christs Person just as we do water out of a Conduit or a gift and largess from a Prince that it flows to us from our Union to his Person And therefore they dress up the Person of the Mediator with all those personal graces and excellencies which may make him a fit Saviour that those who are thus united to his Person of which more in the next Section need not fear missing of Salvation Hence they ransack all the boundless perfections of the Deity and whatever they can find or fancy which speaks any comfort to Sinners this is presently a Personal Grace of the Mediator they consider all the glorious effects of his Mediation and whatever great things are spoken of his Gospel or Religion or Intercession for us these serve as Personal Graces too that all our hopes may be built not on the Gospel Covenant but on the Person of Christ so that the dispute now lies between the Person of Christ and his Gospel which must be the foundation of our hope which is the way to life and happiness To make this appear I shall consider that account which Dr. Owen gives us of the Personal graces and excellencies of Christ which in general consist in three things First His fitness to save from the grace of Union and the proper and necessary effects thereof Secondly His fulness to save from the Grace of Communion or the free consequences of the Grace of Union and Thirdly His excellency to endear from his compleat sutableness to all the wants of the Souls of men First That he is fit to be a Saviour from the Grace of Union and if you would understand what this strange Grace of Union is it is the uniting the nature of God and Man in one Person which makes him fit to be a Saviour to the uttermost He lays his hands upon God by partaking of his nature Zachar. 13. 7. and he lays his hands on us by partaking of our nature Hebr. 2. 14. 16. and so becomes a days-man or Umpire between both now though this be a great truth that the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ did excellently qualifie him for the Office of a Mediator yet this is the unhappiest man in expressing and proving it that I have met with for what an untoward representation is this of Christs Mediation that he came to make peace by laying his hands on God and men as if he came to part a Fray or Scuffle and he might as well have named Gen. 1. 1. or Matth. 1. 1. or any other place of Scripture for the proof it as those he mentions but to let that pass in his Chap. 3. he discourses this more at large and thither I shall follow him Where he tells us how glorious Christ is in his Deity and how desirable in his Humanity and what are the glorious effects of the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature As for the first how excellent and desirable Christ is in his Deity From the Deity of Christ he observes the endless bottomless boundless grace and compassion that is in him It is not the grace of a Creature no not of the humane Nature it self that can serve our turn if it could be conceived as separate from the Deity surely so many thirsty guilty Souls as every day drink deep and large draughts of grace and mercy from him would if I may so speak sink him to the very bottom nay it could afford no supply at all but only in a moral way and that is a very pitiful way indeed But when the Conduit of his Humanity is inseparably united to the infinite inexhaustible Fountain of the Deity who can look into the depths thereof If now there be grace enough for sinners in an alsufficient God it is in Christ On this ground it is That if all the World should if I may so say set themselves to drink free grace and mercy and pardon drawing waters continually from the Wells of Salvation if they should set themselves to draw from one single promise an Angel standing by and crying Drink O my Friends yea drink abundantly take as much grace and pardon as shall be abundantly sufficient for the World of sin which is in every one of you they would not be able to sink the grace of the promise of the Person of Christ you mean one hairs breadth The infiniteness of Grace with respect to its Spring or Fountain the Deity of Christ will answer all objections What is our finite guilt before it a World of sin is something though it hear no proportion indeed to infinite Grace shew me the Sinner that can spread his iniquity to the dimensions if I may so say no man ever had more need nor made better use of so says of this grace here is mercy enough for the greatest the oldest the stubbornest transgressor c. enough in all reason this what a comfort is it to sinners to have such a God for their Saviour whose Grace is boundless and bottomless and exceeds the largest dimensions of their sins though there be a World of sin in them But what now if the Divine Nature it self have not such an endless boundless bottomless grace and compassion as the Dr. now talks of For at other times when it serves his turn better we can hear nothing from him but the naturalness of Gods vindictive Iustice. Though God be rich in mercy he never told us yet that his mercy was so boundless and bottomless he hath given a great many demonstrations of the severity of his anger against sinners who could not be much worse than the greatest the oldest and stubbornest transgressors But supposing the Divine Nature were such a bottomless Fountain of Grace how comes this to be a Personal Grace of the Mediator For a Mediator as Mediator ought not to be considered as the Fountain but as the Minister of Grace God the Father certainly ought to come