they took all opportunities to convey the Doctrine of Christianity into the minds of those out of whose bodies they cast either diseases or Devils But is it not said that Christ could do no mighty works among them because of their unbelief and the power of his disciples could not be greater than his own To which I answer 1. It is no where said in the Scripture that Christ could do no miracles at all among them because of their unbelief for in one place it is said And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief He did miracles enough to convince them but when he saw their obstinacy he would not cast away any more upon them And in that other place where it is said that he could there do no mighty work it is presently added save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them And what absurdity is there that Christ should do no extraordinary miracle among them among whom he saw that himself and his miracles were both equally contemned It is not the method of divine goodness to bestow the largest kindnesses at first those who improve the beginnings of savour shall have more but those who despise the first may justly be rejected from any farther kindness 2. When it is said that he could not that expression doth not imply any impossibility in the thing but a deliberate resolution to the contrary so it is used Acts 4. 20. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard Who questions but there was a possibility in the thing that they might have held their peace but it was a thing which upon great deliberation they had resolved not to do So thou canst not bear them which are evil and we can do nothing against the truth but for the truth From which it appears that this can be no prejudice to the power of Christ in working miracles but only shews his just resolution not to do it considering the contempt wherewith he had been entertained among them 2. It is pretended by those men who set themselves to undervalue those miraculous gifts which the Apostles had that the gift of tongues might be only the effect of an Enthusiastick heat or some distemper of their brains as men in a high Fever are apt to speak such things and words which while they are in health they could never do But that such unreasonable imaginations do more argue a distempered brain than any thing we assert concerning these divine persons will easily appear from these considerations 1. That no violent heat whatsoever can form a new language to a man which he never knew before If language had been natural to man there might have been some reason for it but that we all know to be an arbitrary thing and as well might a blind man paint with an exact difference of colours or one write plainly who could never read as any person by the meer heat of his Phancy speak suddenly in a tongue which he never learnt There have been some who have said that the mind of man hath naturally all kinds of languages within it self and it wants nothing but some mighty heat to stir men up to speak in any kind of them But we are to take notice that those things are accounted wit when spoken against Religion which would have been non-sense and contradictions if spoken for it And certainly nothing could be more absurdly said than for the same men to make all the imaginations we have of things to come in by our senses and yet to say that the mind of man can have those things in it which he never learnt or heard If this supposion were true we might invert that saying of Festus to St. Paul much learning hath made thee mad for then madness or that which is the next to it a great heat of brain would make men the most learned If this were true there would be a much easier way of attaining to speak in the languages of all nations than that which many take to gain a very few of them for the heightening of Phancy either by Wine or a degree of madness would inspire men with skill in tongues to a miracle 2. But supposing such a thing possible which is far from being so yet it is very remote from our present case for the Apostles made it manifest to all persons that they were far enough from being inspired with the vapours of wine or touched with any Enthusiastick madness They spake with strange tongues but in such a manner as convinced great numbers of their hearers of the excellency of that doctrine which was delivered by them As St. Paul answered Festus I am not mad most noble Festus but speak forth the words of truth and soberness so they did not speak incoherent and insignificant words which madness makes men do nor any mean and trivial things meerly for ostentation of their gifts but they spake though with divers tongues the great or wonderful things of God So their auditors confessed with admiration These are not the effects of Wine or Madness as St. Peter at large proves against the unreasonable cavils of some who mocked and said they were full of new wine Which he doth with so great success that the same day 3000 persons disowned their former course of life and embraced Christianity Surely madness was never more infectious never made men more wise and sober than this did if the Apostles were acted only by that When was there ever better and more weighty sense spoken by any than by the Apostles after the day of Pentecost With what reason do they argue with what strength do they discourse with what a sedate and manly courage do they withstand the opposition of the Sanhedrin against them they never fly out into any extravagant passion never betray any weakness or fear but speak the truth with boldness and rejoyce when they suffer for it It could be no sudden heat which acted them on the day of Pentecost for the same Spirit and power continued with them afterwards they lived and acted by vertue of it so that their life was as great a miracle as any that was wrought by them Their zeal was great but regular their devotion servent and constant their conversation honest and prudent their discourses inflaming and convincing and the whole course of their lives breathed nothing but glory to God and good will towards men If they are called to suffer for their Religion with what constancy do they own the truth with what submission do they yield to their persecutors with what meekness and patience do they bear their sufferings If differences arise among Christians with what care do they advise with what caution do they direct with what gentleness do they instruct with what tenderness do they bear with diffenters with what earnestness do they endeavour to
it had not been necessary in order to his Sons escape that he had hanged by the hair of his head as his Son did but his death though in other circumstances had been sufficient And therefore when the Lawyers say subrogatum sapit naturam ejus in cujus locum subrogatur Covarruvias tells us it is to be understood secundum primordialem naturam non secundum accidentalem from whence it appears that all circumstances are not necessary to be the same in surrogation but that the nature of the punishment remain the same Thus Christ dying for us to deliver us from death and the curse of the Law he underwent an accursed death for that end although not the very same which we were to have undergone yet sufficient to shew that he underwent the punishment of our iniquities in order to the delivering us from it And if our Adversaries will yield us this we shall not much contend with them about the name of a proper surrogation But in the matter of Redemption or where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used Crellius will by no means yield that there was a commutation of persons between Christ and us but all the commutation he will allow here is only a commutation between a thing or a price and a person Which he therefore asserts that so there may be no necessity of Christs undergoing the punishment of sin in order to redemption because the price that is to be paid is not supposed to undergo the condition of the person delivered by it Which will evidently appear to have no force at all in case we can prove that a proper redemption may be obtained by the punishment of one in the room of another for that punishment then comes to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or price of redemption and he that pays this must be supposed to undergo punishment for it So that the commutation being between the punishment of one and the other redeemed by it here is a proper commutation of persons implied in the payment of the price But hereby we may see that the great subtilty of our Adversaries is designed on purpose to avoid the force of the places of Scripture which are so plain against them For when these places where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are joyned together are so clear for a substitution that they cannot deny it then they say by it is meant only a commutation of a price for a person but when the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is urged to prove a redemption purchased by Christ by the payment of a price for it then they deny that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie a proper price but is only taken metaphorically and yet if it be so taken then there can be no force in what Crellius saith for a bare metaphorical price may be a real punishment Two things I shall then prove against Crellius 1. That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to Christ is to be taken in a proper sense 2. That although it be taken in a proper sense yet it doth not imply a bare commutation of a price and a person but a substitution of one person in the room of another Both these will be cleared from the right stating the notion of redemption between our Adversaries and us For they will not by any means have any other proper notion of redemption but from captivity and that by the payment of a price to him that did hold in captivity and therefore because Christ did not pay the price to the Devil there could be no proper sense either of the redemption or the price which was paid for it This is the main strength of all the arguments used by Socinus and Crellius to enervate the force of those places of Scripture which speak of our redemption by Christ and of the price which he paid in order to it But how weak these exceptions are will appear upon a true examination of the proper notion of Redemption which in its primary importance signifies no more than the obtaining of one thing by another as a valuable consideration for it Thence redimere anciently among the Latins signified barely to purchase by a valuable price for the thing which they had a right to by it and sometimes to purchase that which a man hath sold before thence the pacâ—um redimendi in contracts still in whatever sense it was used by the Lawyers or others the main regard was to the consideration upon which the thing was obtained thence redimere delatorem pecunia h. e. eum à delatione deducere so redimere litem and redemptor litis was one that upon certain consideration took the whole charge of a suit upon himself and those who undertook the farming of customs at certain rates were called redemptores vectigalium quiredempturis auxissent vectigalia saith Livy And all those who undertook any publick work at a certain price redemptores antiquitus dicebantur saith Festus and Ulpian From hence it was applied to the delivery of any person from any inconvenience that he lay under by something which was supposed a valuable consideration for it And that it doth not only relate to captivity but to any other great calamity the freedom from which is obtained by what another suffers is apparent from these two remarkable expressions of Cicero to this purpose Quam quidem ego saith he speaking of the sharpness of the time a rep meis privatis domesticis incommodis libentissimè redemissem And more expresly elsewhere Ego vitam omnium civium statum orbis terrae urbem hanc denique c. quinque hominum amentium ac perditorum poena redemi Where it is plain that redemption is used for the delivery of some by the punishment of others not from meer captivity but from a great calamity which they might have fallen into without such a punishment of those persons So vain is that assertion of Socinus redimere nihil aliud propriè significat quam eum captivum e manibus illius qui eum detinet pretio illi dato liberare And yet supposing we should grant that redemption as used in sacred Authors doth properly relate to captivity there is no necessity at all of that which our Adversaries contend so earnestly for viz. That the price must be paid to him that detains captive For we may very easily conceive a double sort of captivity from whence a redemption may be obtained the one by force when a Captive is detained purposely for advantage to be made by his redemption and the other in a judicial manner when the Law condemns a person to captivity and the thing designed by the Law is not a meer price but satisfaction to be made to the Law upon which a redemption may be obtained now in the former case it is necessary that the price be paid to the
govern those who were yet under the night of Ignorance Why may not the Firmament being in the midst of the Waters imply the erection of the Jeâ—…ish State in the midst of a great deal of trouble since it is confeâ—â—ed that Waters are often taken in Scripture in a Metaphorical sense for troubles and afflictions and the Earth appearing out of the Waters be no more but the settlement of that state aftâ—â—â—tâ— troubles and particularly with great elegancy aâ—ter 〈◊〉 pâ—…age through the Red Sea And the production of Herbs and living Creatures be the great encrease of the People of all sorts as well those of a meaner rank and therefore called herbs as those of a higher that were to live upon the other and sometimes trample upon them and therefore by way of excellency called the Living Creatures And when these were multiplied and brought into order which being done by steps and degrees is said to be finished in several days then the State and the Church flourished and enjoyed a great deal of pleasure which was the production of Man and Woman and their being placed in Paradise for a perfect Man notes a high degree of perfection and a Woman is taken for the Church in the Revelations But when they followed the Customs of other Nations which were as a forbidden tree to them then they lost all their happiness and pleasure and were expelled out of their own Country and lived in great slavery and misery which was the Curse pronounced against them for violating the rules of Policy established among them Thus you see how small a measure of wit by the advantage of those ways of interpreting Scripture which the subtilest of our adversaries make use of will serve to pervert the clearest expressions of Scripture to quite another sense than was ever intended by the Writer of them And I assure you if that rule of interpreting Scripture be once allowed that where words are ever used in a Metaphorical sense there can be no necessity of understanding them in a proper there is scarce any thing which you look on as the most necessary to be believed in Scripture but it may be made appear not to be so upon those terms for by reason of the paucity and therefore the ambiguity of the Original words of the Hebrew language the strange Idioms of it the different senses of the same word in several Conjugations the want of several modes of expression which are used in other Languages and above all the lofty and Metaphorical way of speaking used in all Eastern Countries and the imitation of the Hebrew Idioms in the Greek translation of the Old Testament and Original of the New you can hardly affix a sense upon any words used therein but a man who will be at the pains to search all possible significations and uses of those words will put you hard to it to make good that which you took to be the proper meaning of them Wherefore although I will not deny to our adversaries the praise of subtilty and diligence I cannot give them that which is much more praise worthy viz. of discretion and sound judgement For while they use their utmost industry to search all the most remote and Metaphorical senses of words with a design to take off the genuine and proper meaning of them they do not attend to the ill consequence that may be made of this to the overthrowing those things the belief of which themselves make necessary to salvation For by this way the whole Gospel may be made an Allegory and the Resurrection of Christ be thought as metaphorical as the Redemption by his Death and the sorce of all the Precepts of the Gospel avoided by some unusual signification of the words wherein they are delivered So that nothing can be more unreasonable than such a method of proceeding unless it be first sufficiently proved that the matter is not capable of the proper sense and therefore of necessity the improper only is to be allowed And this is that which Socinus seems after all his pains to pervert the meaning of the places in controversie to rely on most viz. That the Doctrine of satisfaction doth imply an impossibility in the thing it self and therefore must needs be false nay he saith the infallibility of the Revealer had not been enough in this Case supposing that Christ had said it and risen from the dead to declare his own Veracity unless he had delivered it by its proper causes and effects and so shewed the possibility of the thing it self And the reason he saith why they believe their Doctrine true is not barely because God hath said it but they believe certainly that God hath said it because they know it to be true by knowing the contrary Doctrine to be impossible The controversie then concerning the meaning of the places in dispute is to be resolved from the nature and reasonableness of the matter contained in them for if Socinus his reason were answerable to his confidence if the account we give of the sufferings of Christ were repugnant not only to the Justice Goodness and Grace of God but to the nature of the thing if it appear impossible that mankind should be redeemed in a proper sense or that God should be propitiated by the Death of his Son as a Sacrifice for sin if it enervate all the Precepts of Obedience and tends rather to justifie sins than those who do repent of them I shall then agree that no industry can be too great in searching Authors comparing places examining Versions to find out such a sense as may be agreeable to the nature of things the Attributes of God and the design of Christian Religion But if on the contrary the Scripture doth plainly assert those things from whence our Doctrine follows and without which no reasonable account can be given either of the expressions used therein or of the sufferings of Christ if Christs death did immediately respect God as a sacrifice and were paid as a price for our Redemption if such a design of his death be so far from being repugnant to the nature of God that it highly manifests his Wisdom Justice and Mercy if it assert nothing but what is so far from being impossible that it is very reconcileable to the common principles of Reason as well as the Free-Grace of God in the pardon of sin if being truly understood it is so far from enervating that it advances highly all the purposes of Christian Religion then it can be no less than a betraying one of the grand Truths of the Christian Doctrine not to believe ours to be the true sense of the places in controversie And this is that which I now take upon me to maintain For our clearer proceeding herein nothing will be more necessary than to understand the true state of the Controversie which hath been rendred more obscure by the mistakes of some who have
surely think we have reason enough this day to lay to heart the evil of our doings which have brought all these things upon us and abhor our selves repenting in dust and ashes That would seem indeed to bear some analogy with the present ruines of the City and the calamities we lie under at this time but God will more easily dispense with the pompous shews and solemn garbs of our humiliation if our hearts bleed within for our former impleties and our repentance discovers its sincerity by bringing us to that temper that though we have done iniquity we will do so no more That is the true and proper end which Almighty God aims at in all his Judgements he takes no delight in hurling the World into confusions and turning Cities into ruinous heaps and making whole Countries a desolation but when he sees it necessary to vindicate the honour of his Justice to the World he doth it with that severity that may make us apprehend his displeasure and yet with that mercy which may incourage us to repent and return unto the Lord. Thus we find in the instances recorded in the Text when some Cities were consumed by him so that as far as concerned them they were made like to Sodom and Gomorrah yet he doth it with that kindness to the Inhabitants that they are pluckt as firebrands out of the burning and therefore he looks upon it as a frustrating the design both of his Iustice and of his Mercy when he is fain to conclude with that sad reflection on their incorrigibleness Yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. Thus ye see what the design and scope of the words is which I have read unto you wherein we may consider 1. The severity of the Judgement which God was pleased to execute upon them I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah 2. The mixture of his mercy in the midst of his severity and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning 3. The incorrigibleness of the people notwithstanding both Yet have ye not c. In the first we have Gods Rod lifted up to strike in the second we have Gods Hand stretched out to save yet neither of these would make them sensible of their disobedience though their Cities were overthrown for their sakes though they themselves escaped not for their own sakes but for his mercies sake only whom they had so lighly provoked yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. I am sure I may say of the two former parts of the Text as our Saviour doth in another case This day hath this Scripture been fulfilled among you we have seen a sad instance of Gods severity a City almost wholly consumed as Sodom and Gomorah and a great expression of his kindness the Inhabitants saved as firebrands pluckt out of the burning O let it never be said that the last part of the words is fulfilled too Yet have ye not returned unto me c. which that it may not be I shall first consider the severity of God in his judgement this day and then discover the mixture of his kindness with it and the result of both will be the unreasonableness of obstinate disobedience after them 1. The severity of the judgement here expressed which though we take it not in reference to the persons of men but tâ— the Cities wherein they dwelt as it seems to be understood not only by the Original wherein the words relating to persons are left out but by the following clause expressing their preservation yet we shall find the Judgement to be severe enough in regard 1. Of the nature and kind of it 2. The series and order of it 3. The causes moving to it 4. The Author of it I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew c. 1. The nature and kind of it We can imagine nothing more severe when we consider what it is set forth by the most unparalleld Judgement we read of viz. the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by a fire from Heaven Although in all circumstances the instance might not come up to the parallel yet in several respects there might be so sad a desolation that any other example but that might fall beneath the greatness and severity of it And we may better understand of how sad and dreadful a nature such a Judgement must be if we consider it with relation to the suddenness and unexpectedness of it to the force and violence of it and to all that sad train of circumstances which attend and follow it 1. The suddenness and unexpectedness of it as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah i. e. when they least of all looked for such a desolation For thus it was in the days of Lot as our Saviour tells us they did eat they drank thy bought thy sold they planted they builded but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all They were all immersed either in their pleasures or in their business they little thought of destruction being so near them as it proved to be Thus it was with the Iews in their first and latter destruction both of their City and Country they were as high and as confident of the contrary as might be to the very last nothing could perswade them that their Temple or their City should be burnt with Fire till they saw them staming before their eyes Thus Iosephus observes of his Countrymen that in the midst of all their miseries they had no kind of sense at all of their sins but were as proud presumptuous and arrogant as if all things went well with them and were like to do so They thought God could not possibly punish such a people as they were in such a manner they could easily have believed it of any other people but themselves but that God should punish his own people in Covenant with him that Judgement should begin at the house of God that they who had loved to be called by his Name should be made examples to all other Nations this seemed so harsh and incredible that by no means could they entertain it But God and Wise men too thought otherwise of them than they did of themselves they could not but see an outward shew of Religion joyned with a deep and subtil hypocrisie there being among them an heap of pride and luxury of fraud and injustice of sedition and faction gilded over with a fair shew of greater zeal for God and his Glory which that impartial Historian as one who knew them well hath described at large and although they could not believe that such heavy Judgements should befall them yet others did not only believe but tremble at the apprehensions of them Who among all the Citizens of London could have been perswaded but the day before the Fire brake out nay when they saw the Flames for near a day
of Religion neither inquisitive about them nor serious in minding them what can we otherwise think but that such a one doth really think the things of the World better worth looking after than those which concern his eternal salvation But consider before it be too late and repent of so great folly Value an immortal Soul as you ought to do think what Reconciliation with God and the Pardon of sin is worth slight not the dear Purchase which was bought at no meaner a rate than the Blood of the Son of God and then you cannot but mind the great salvation which God hath tendered you 2. Consider on what terms you neglect it or what the things are for whose sake you are so great enemies to your own salvation Have you ever found that contentment in sin or the vanities of the World that for the sake of them you are willing to be forever miserable What will you think of all your debaucheries and your neglects of God and your selves when you come to die what would you give then if it were in your power to redeem your lost time that you had spent your time less to the satisfaction of your sensual desires and more in seeking to please God How uncomfortable will the remembrance be of all your excesses oaths injustice and profaneness when death approaches and judgement follows it What peace of mind will there then be to those who have served God with faithfulness and have endeavoured to work out their salvation though it hath been with fear and trembling But what would it then profit a man to have gained the whole World and to lose his own soul Nay what unspeakable losers must they then be that lose their Souls for that which hath no value at all if compared with the World 3. Consider what follows upon this neglect not only the loss of great salvation but the incurring as great damnation for it The Scripture describes the miseries of the life to come not meerly by negatives but by the most sensible and painful things If destruction be dreadful what is everlasting destruction if the anguish of the soul and the pains of the body be so troublesom what will the destruction be both of Body and Soul in Hell If a Serpent gnawing in our bowels be a representation of an insupportable misery here what will that be of the Worm that never dies if a raging and devouring fire which can last but till it hath consumed a fading substance be in its appearance so amazing and in its pain so violent what then will the enduring be of that wrath of God which shall burn like fire and yet be everlasting Consider then of these things while God gives you time to consider of them and think it an inestimable mercy that you have yet time to repent of your sins to beg mercy at the hands of God to redeem your time to depart from iniquity to be frequent in Prayer careful of your Actions and in all things obedient to the will of God and so God will pardon your former neglects and grant you this great salvation SERMON VI. Preached on GOOD-FRYDAY before the Lord Mayor c. HEBREWS XII III. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds IT hath never yet been so well with the World and we have no great reason to hope it ever will be so that the best of things or of men should meet with entertainment in it suitable to their own worth and excellency If it were once to be hoped that all Mankind would be wise and sober that their judgements would be according to the truth of things and their actions suitable to their judgements we might then reasonably expect that nothing would be valued so much as true goodness nothing so much in contempt and disgrace as impiety and profaneness But if we find it much otherwise in the Age we live in we have so much the less cause to wonder at it because it hath been thus in those times we might have thought would have been far better than our own I mean those times and ages wherein there were not only great things first spoken and delivered to Mankind but examples as great as the things themselves but these did so little prevail on the stupid and unthankful world that they among whom the Son of God did first manifest himself seem'd only solicitous to make good one Prophesic concerning him viz. That he should be despised and rejected of men And they who suffer'd their malice to live as long as he did were not contented to let it dye with him but their fury increases as the Gospel does and wherever it had spread it self they pursue it with all the rude clamors and violent persecutions which themselves or their factors could raise against it This we have a large testimony of in those Iewish Christians to whom this Epistle was written who had no sooner embraced the Christian Religion but they were set upon by a whole army of persecutions Heb. 10. 32. But call to remembrance the former days in which after ye were illuminated ye endured a great fight of afflictions As though the great enemy of souls and therefore of Christians had watched the first opportunity to make the strongest impression upon them while they were yet young and unexperienced and therefore less able to resist so sharp an encounter He had found how unsuccessful the offer of the good things of this World had been with their Lord and Master and therefore was resolved to try what a severer course would do with all his followers But the same spirit by which he despised all the Glories of the World which the Tempter would have made him believe he was the disposer of enabled them with a mighty courage and strange transports of joy not only to bear their own share of reproaches and afflictions but a part of theirs who suffer'd with them v. 33 34. But lest through continual duty occasion'd by the hatred of their persecutors and the multitude of their afflictions their courage should abate and their spirits saint the Apostle finds it necessary not only to put them in mind of their former magnanimity but to make use of all arguments that might be powerful with them to keep up the same vigour and constancy of mind in bearing their sufferings which they had at first For he well knew how much it would tend to the dishonour of the Gospel as well as to their own discomfort if after such an early proof of a great and undaunted spirit it should be said of them as was once of a great Roman Captain Ultima Primis cedebant that they should decline in their reputation as they did in their years and at last sink under that weight of duty which they had born with so much honour before Therefore as a
that and cryed haec vera est patientia there is the true pattern of Patience For notwithstanding that Agony he was in immediately before his being betray'd when he sees the Officers coming towards him he asks them whom they seek for and tells them I am he which words so astonished them that they went back and fell upon the ground thereby letting them understand how easie a matter it was for him to have escaped their hands and that it was his own free consent that he went to suffer for he knew certainly before hand the utmost that he was to undergo and therefore it was no unreasonable impetus but a settled resolution of his mind to endure all the contradictions of sinners When he was spit upon mocked reproached and scourged none of all these could draw one impatient expression from him The malice and rage of his enemies did not at all provoke him unless it were to pity and pray for them And that he did with great earnestness in the midst of all his pains and though he would not plead for himself to them yet he pleads for them to God Father forgive them for they know not what they do How much more divine was this than the admired Theramenes among the Greeks who being condemned to dye by the thirty Tyrants when he was drinking off his cup of Poyson said he drank that to Critias one of his most bitter enemies and hoped he would pledge it shortly Socrates seemed not to express seriousness enough at least when he bid one of his friends when he was dying offer up a Cock to Aesculapius for his deliverance Aristides and Phocion among the Greeks came the nearest to our Saviours temper when one pray'd that his Country might have no cause to remember him when he was gone and the other charged his Son to forget the injuries they had done him but yet by how much the greater the person and office was of our Blessed Saviour than of either of them by how much the cruelty and ignominy as well as pain was greater which they exposed him to by how much greater concernment there is to have such an offence pardon'd by one that can punish it with eternal misery than not revenged by those who though they may have will have not always power to execute so much greater was the kindness of our Saviour to his enemies in his Prayer upon the Cross than of either of the other in their concernment for that ungrateful City that had so ill requited their services to it Thus when the Son of God was oppressed and afflicted he opened not his mouth but only in Prayer for them who were his bitter enemies and though nothing had been more easie than for him to have cleared himself from all their accusations who had so often baffled them before yet he would not now give them that suspicion of his innocency as to make any Apology for himself but committed himself to God that judges righteously and was brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers was dumb so he opened not his mouth And the reason thereof was he knew what further design for the good of mankind was carrying on by the bitterness of his passion and that all the cruel usage he underwent was that he might be a sacrifice of atonement so the sins of the World Which leads to the last thing propounded to our consideration 4. Which is the causes why God was pleased to suffer his Son to endure such contradiction of sinners against himself I know it is an easie answer to say that God had determin'd it should be so and that we ought to enquire no further but sure such an answer can satisfie none who consider how much our salvation depends upon the knowledge of it and how clear and express the Scripture is in assigning the causes of the sufferings of Christ. Which though as far as the instruments were concerned in it we have given an account of already yet considering the particular management of this grand affair by the care of divine Providence a higher account must be given of it why so divine and excellent a person should be exposed to all the contempt and reproach imaginable and after being made a sacrifice to the tongues and rods of the people then to dye a painful and ignominious death So that allowing but that common care of divine Providence which all sober Heathens acknowledged so transcendent sufferings as these were of so holy and innocent a person ought to be accounted for in a more than ordinary manner when they thought themselves concerned to vindicate the Justice of Gods providence in the common calamities of those who are reputed to be better than the generality of Mankind But the reasons assigned in that common case will not hold here since this was a person immediately sent from God upon a particular message to the World and therefore might plead an exemption by vertue of his Ambassage from the common Arrests and troubles of humane nature But it was so far otherwise as though God had designed him on purpose to let us see how much misery humane nature can undergo Some think themselves to go as far as their reason will permit them when they tell us that he suffer'd all these things to confirm the truth of what he had said and particularly the Promise of Remission of sins and that he might be an example to others who should go to Heaven by suffering afterwards and that he might being touched with the feeling of our infirmities here have the greater pity upon us now he is in Heaven All these I grant to have been true and weighty reasons of the sufferings of Christ in subordination to greater ends but if there had been nothing beyond all this I can neither understand why he should suffer so deeply as he did nor why the Scripture should insist upon a far greater reason more than upon any of these I grant the death of Christ did confirm the truth of his Doctrine as far as it is unreasonble to believe that any one who knew his Doctrine to be false would make himself miserable to make others believe it but if this had been all intended why would not an easier and less ignominious death have served since he who would be willing to die to confirm a falshood would not be thought to confirm a truth by his death because it was painful and shameful Why if all his sufferings were designed as a testimony to others of the truth of what he spake were the greatest of his sufferings such as none could know the anguish of them but himself I mean his Agony in the Garden and that which made him cry out upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Why were not his Miracles enough to confirm the truth of his Doctrine since the Law of Moses was received without his
preserve the peace of the Christian Church when they are to plant Churches how ready to go about it how diligent in attending it how watchful to prevent all miscarriages among them When they write Epistles to those already planted with what Authority do they teach with what Majesty do they command with what severity do they rebuke with what pity do they chastise with what vehemency do they exhort and with what weighty arguments do they perswade all Christians to adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things So that such persons who after all these things can believe that the Apostles were acted only by some extravagant heats may as easily perswade themselves that men may be drunk with sobriety and mad with reason and debauched with goodness But such are fit only to be treated in a dark room if any can be found darker than their understandings are 2. But yet there may be imagined a higher sort of madness than these men are guilty of viz. That when men are convinced that these things could not be done by meer Mechanical causes then they attribute them to the assistance of Spirits but not to the holy and divine but such as are evil and impure A madness so great and extravagant that we could hardly imagine that it were incident to humane nature unless the Scripture had told us that some had thus blasphemed the son of man and either had or were in danger of blaspheming the Holy Ghost too And this is properly blaspheming the Holy Ghost which was not given as our text tells us till after Christs ascension when men attribute all those miraculous gifts which were poured out upon the Apostles in confirmation of the Christian doctrine to the power of an unclean Spirit For so the Evangelist St. Luke when he mentions the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost which shall not be forgiven immediately subjoyns their bringing the Apostles to the Synagogues and Magistrates and Powers and adds that the Holy Ghost even that which they so blasphemed in them should teach them in that same hour what they ought to say I deny not but the attributing the miraculous works of Christ who had the Holy Spirit without measure to an evil Spirit was the same kind of sin but it received a greater aggravation after the resurrection of Christ from the dead and the miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles For now the great confirmation was given to the truth of all that Christ had said before he had some times concealed his miracles and forbid the publishing of them and to such he appeared but as the son of man of whom it is said that had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory and St. Peter more expresly and now Brethren I wote that through ignorance you did it as did also your Rulers But now since his resurrection and ascension when God by the effusion of the Holy Ghost hath given the largest and fullest Testimony to the doctrine of the Gospel if men after all this shall go on to blaspheme the Holy Ghost by attributing all these miracles to a Diabolical power then there is no forgiveness to be expected either in this world or the world to come Because this argues the greatest obstinacy of mind the highest contempt of God and the greatest affront that can be put upon the Testimony of the holy Spirit for it is charging the Spirit of truth to be an evil and a lying Spirit By which we see what great weight and moment the Scripture lays upon this pouring out of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles and what care men ought to have how they undervalue and despise it and much more how they do reproach and blaspheme it They might as well imagine that light and darkness may meet and embrace each other as that the infernal Spirits should imploy their power in promoting a doctrine so contrary to their interest For Heaven and Hell cannot be more distant than the whole design of Christianity is from all the contrivances of wicked Spirits How soon was the Devil's Kingdom broken his Temples demolished his oracles silenced himself baffled in his great design of deceiving mankind when Christianity prevailed in the world Having thus far asserted the truth of the thing viz. that there was such an effusion of the Holy Spirit now come to consider 2. The nature of it as it is represented to us by Rivers of living waters flowing out of them that believe by which we may understand 1. The plenty of it called Rivers of waters 2. The benefit and usefulness of it to the Church 1. The plentifulness of this effusion of the Spirit there had been some drops as it were of this Spirit which had fallen upon some of the Jewish nation before but those were no more to be compared with these rivers of waters than the waters of Siloam which run softly with the mighty River Euphrates What was the Spirit which Bezaleel had to build the Tabernacle with if compared with that Spirit which the Apostles were inspired with for building up the Church of God what was that Spirit of Wisdom which some were filled with to make garments for Aaron if compared with that Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation which led the Apostles into the knowledge of all Truth What was that Spirit of Courage which was given to the Iudges of old if compared with that Spirit which did convince the world of sin of righteousness and of judgement What was that Spirit of Moses which was communicated to the 70. elders if compared with that Spirit of his son which God hath shed abroad in the hearts of his people What was that Spirit of prophesie which inspired some Prophets in several ages with that pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh which the Apostle tells us was accomplished on the day of Pentecost But these Rivers of Waters though they began their course at Ierusalem upon that day yet they soon overflowed the Christian Church in other parts of the world The sound of that rushing mighty wind was soon heard in the most distant places and the fiery tongues inslamed the hearts of many who never saw them These gifts being propagated into other Churches and many other tongues were kindled from them as we see how much this gift of tongues obtained in the Church of Corinth And so in the History of the Acts of the Apostles we find after this day how the Holy Ghost fell upon them which believed and what mighty signs and wonders were done by them 2. The benefit and usefulness of this effusion of the Spirit like the Rivers of Waters that both refresh and enrich and thereby make glad the City of God The coming down of the Spirit was like the pouring water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground Now God opened the Rivers in
all things they do not love to dispute where they cannot answer and that is their case in all their retorts of Conscience upon them They know there is no drolling with so sowre a piece as that within them is for that makes the smartest and most cutting repartees which are uneasie to bear but impossible to answer Therefore they study their own quiet by seeking to keep that silent and since they never hope to make Conscience dumb they would have it sleep as much as may be and although the starts it sometimes makes shew that the most sleepy sinners have some troublesom dreams yet if it doth not throughly awake in this world it will do it with a vengeance in another Then there will be no Musick and Dancing which can cure the biting of this Tarantula within no Opium of stupidity or Atheism will be able to give one minutes rest How will men then curse themselves for their own folly in being so easily tempted and all those who laid traps and snares to betray them by what different apprehensions of sin will they have then from what they have now while they are beset with temptations to it O will a forsaken sinner then say had I ever believed as I ought to have done that this would have been the fruit of a sinful life I should have taken more care to prevent this misery than I have done But O the solly of intemperance the mischief of ambition the rage of lust the unfatiableness of covetousness the madness of debauchery and the dulness of Atheism what have ye now brought me to with all your pleasures and promises and flatteries while I lost my soul in your service O that I had time to grow wise again and once more to try whether I could withstand the cheats and witchcraft of a deceitful world Now all my sins are as fresh before me as if committed yesterday and their burden is heavier than the weight of mountains however light I made of them then I need no judge to condemn me but my own conscience O that I could as easily see an end of my misery as I do that I have deserved that there should be none Thus shall the book of conscience be opened at that day in the heart of every impenitent sinner wherein like Ezekiels roul he finds written within and without lamentation and mourning and Woe Yet this will not be the only terrour in the proceedings of that day that all the sins that ever wicked men committed will be set in order before them with their several circumstances and aggravations although the remembrance of them cannot be without extreme horrour and amazement but that they must undergo a strict and severe examination of all their actions by a most powerful holy and just Judge And if it be so troublesom a thing to them in this world to go down into themselves or to call to remembrance their own wicked actions which they have loved and delighted in what will it be when they must all be brought forth before the judgement seat of Christ who hates and abhorrs them If men can so hardly endure to have the deformity of their vices represented to them though very imperfectly here how will they bear the dissecting and laying them open in the view of the whole world When the smallest fibres and the most subtile threads in our hearts shall be curiously examined and the influence they have had upon our actions fully discovered When sins that have been dispised for their littleness or unregarded for their frequency or laughed at as no sins at all shall appear to have had a greater venom in them than men would imagine What shall they think then of their great and presumptuous sins whereby they have not only offered violence to God and his Laws but to the dictates of their own consciences in committing them Never think that length of time will abate the severity of the enquiry or lessen the displeasure of God against thee for them Remember the case of Amalek how God dealt with that people in this world for a sin committed 400. years before and think then whether God be not in earnest when he tells us how much he hates sin and how severe he will be in the punishment of it I remember saith God what Amalek did to Israel how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not but slâ—y both man and woman infant and suckling c. What a whole naâ—ion to be destroyed for one sin and for a sin they thought to be none at all who committed it and for a sin at so great a distance of time from the commission of it But I forbear I know not whether there be such another instance of Gods severity in Scripture but it is such as may justly make us cry out with the Pâ—almist If thou Lord shouldst thus mark iniquities O Lord who shall stand But although God in this world so seldom shews his severity and tempers it with so much kindness we have no reason to expect he should do so in another For here he hath declared that mercy rejoyceth against judgement This being the time of Gods patience and forbearance and goodness towards sinners being not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance but if men will despise the riches of his goodness if they wil still abuse his patience if they will trample under foot the means of their own salvation then they shall to their unspeakable sorrow find that there is a day of wrath to come wherein their own dreadfull experience will tell them that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God For that will be a day of Justice without mercy a day of vengeance without pity a day of execution without any further patience Then no vain excuses will be taken whereby men seek to palliate their sins and give ease to their minds now It will be to no purpose to charge thy wilful sins upon the infirmity of thy nature the power of temptation the subtility of the Devil the allurement of company the common practice of the world the corruption of the age the badness of education the folâ—y of youth all these and such like excuses will be too weak to be made then when it shall appear to thy eternal confusion that thy own vicious inclination swayed thee beyond them all Then there will be as little place for intreaties as for vain excuses God shews his great pity and indulgence to mankind now that he is so ready to hear the prayers and grant the desires of all penitent sinners but for those who stop their ears to all his instructions and will not not hearken to the reproofs of his word or the rebukes of their own consciences but
of the White Hart in Westminster Hall and the Phoenix in S t. Paul's Church-Yard 1673. DISCOURSE Concerning the TRUE REASON Of the SUFFERINGS of CHRIST CHAP. 1. Of the Socinian way of interpreting Scripture Of the uncertainty it leaves us in as to the main articles of Faith manifested by an Exposition of Gen. 1. suitable to that way The state of the Controversie in general concerning the sufferings of Christ for us He did not suffer the same we should have done The grand mistake in making punishments of the nature of Debts the difference between them at large discovered from the different reason and ends of them The right of punishment in God proved against Crellius not to arise from meer dominion The end of punishment not bare Compensation as it is in debts what punishment due to an injured person by the right of Nature proper punishment a result of Laws Crellius his great mistake about the end of Punishments Not designed for satisfaction of Anger as it is a desire of Revenge Seneca and Lactantius vindicated against Crellius The Magistrates interest in Punishment distinct from that of private persons Of the nature of Anger in God and the satisfaction to be made to it Crellius his great arguments against satisfaction depend on a false Notion of Gods anger Of the ends of divine Punishments and the different nature of them in this and the future state SIR ALthough the Letter I received from your hands contained in it so many mistakes of my meaning and design that it seemed to be the greatest civility to the Writer of it to give no answer at all to it because that could not be done without the discovery of far more weaknesses in him than he pretends to find in my discourse Yet the weight and importance of the matter may require a further account from me concerning the true reason of the sufferings of Christ. Wherein my design was so far from representing old Errors to the best advantage or to rack my wits to defend them as that person seems to suggest that I aimed at nothing more than to give a true account of what upon a serious enquiry I judged to be the most natural and genuine meaning of the Christian Doctrine contained in the Writings of the New Testament For finding therein such multitudes of expressions which to an unprejudiced mind attribute all the mighty effects of the Love of God to us to the obedience and sufferings of Christ I began to consider what reason there was why the plain and easie sense of those places must be forsaken and a remote and Metaphorical meaning put upon them Which I thought my self the more obliged to do because I could not conceive if it had been the design of the Scripture to have delivered the received Doctrine of the Christian Church concerning the reason of the sufferings of Christ that it could have been more clearly and fully expressed than it is already So that supposing that to have been the true meaning of the several places of Scripture which we contend for yet the same arts and subtilties might have been used to pervert it which are imployed to perswade men that is not the true meaning of them And what is equally serviceable to truth and falshood can of it self have no power on the minds of men to convince them it must be one and not the other Nay if every unusual and improper acception of words in the Scripture shall be thought sufficient to take away the natural and genuine sense where the matter is capable of it I know scarce any article of Faith can be long secure and by these arts men may declare that they believe the Scriptures and yet believe nothing of the Christian Faith For if the improper though unusual acception of those expressions of Christs dying for us of redemption propitiation reconciliation by his blood of his bearing our iniquities and being made sin and a curse for us shall be enough to invalidate all the arguments taken from them to prove that which the proper sense of them doth imply why may not the improper use of the terms of Creation and Resurrection as well take away the natural sense of them in the great Articles of the Creation of the World and Resurrection after death For if it be enough to prove that Christs dying for us doth not imply dying in our stead because sometimes dying for others imports no more than dying for some advantage to come to them if redemption being sometimes used for meer deliverance shall make our redemption by Christ wholly Metaphorical if the terms of propitiation reconcilation c. shall lose their force because they are sometimes used where all things cannot be supposed parallel with the sense we contend for why shall I be bound to believe that the World was ever created in a proper sense since those persons against whom I argue so earnestly contend that in those places in which it seems as proper as any it is to be understood only in a metaphorical If when the World and all things are said to be made by Christ we are not to understand the production but the reformation of the World and all things in it although the natural sense of the Words be quite otherwise what argument can make it necessary for me not to understand the Creation of the World in a metaphorical sense when Moses delivers to us the history of it Why may not I understand in the beginning Gen. 1. for the beginning of the Mosaical Dispensation as well as Socinus doth in the beginning John 1. for the beginning of the Evangelical and that from the very same argument used by him viz. that in the beginning is to be understood of the main subject concerning which the author intends to write and that I am as sure it was in Moses concerning the Law given by him as it was in St. Iohn concerning the Gospel delivered by Christ. Why may not the Creation of the Heavens and the Earth be no more than the erection of the Jewish Polity since it is acknowledged that by New Heavens and new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness no more is understood than a new state of things under the Gospel Why may not the confused Chaos import no more than the state of Ignorance and darkness under which the World was before the Law of Moses since it is confessed that it signifies in the New Testament such a state of the World before the Gospel appeared and consequently why may not the light which made the first day be the first tendencies to the Doctrine of Moses which being at first divided and scattered was united afterwards in one great Body of Laws which was called the Sun because it was the great Director of the Iewish Nation and therefore said to rule the day as the less considerable Laws of other Nations are called the Moon because they were to
whole body By which it appears that in humane Laws the reason of punishment is not that such an action is done but because the impunity in doing it may have a bad influence on the publick interest but in debts the right of Restitution depends upon the injury received by a particular person who looks at no more than the reparation of his loss by it We are now to consider how far these things will hold in Divine Laws and what the right of punishment doth result from there For Crellius the subtillest of our Adversaries knowing how great consequence the resolution of this is in the whole Controversie of Satisfaction vehemently contends That the right of punishment doth result from Gods absolute Dominion and therefore he is to be considered as the offended party and not as Governor in the right of inflicting punishment for which his first Argument is That our obedience is due to Gods Law on the account of his Dominion but when that is not performed the penalty succeeds in its room and therefore that doth belong to God on the same account His other arguments are from the compensation of injuries due to the offended party and from Gods anger against sin in which he is to be considered as the offended party These two latter will be answered under the next head the first I am to examine here He therefore tells us that the right of punishment belongs to Gods Dominion because the reason of his Government of mankind is because he is the Lord of them But for our better understanding this we are to consider although the original right of Government doth result from Gods Dominion for therefore our obedience is due because of his Soveraignty over us yet when God takes upon him the notion of a Governor he enters into a new relation with his creatures distinct from the first as meer Lord. For he is equally Lord of all to whom he gives a being but he doth not require obedience upon equal terms nor governs them by the same Laws Dominion is properly shewed in the exercise of power but when God gives Laws according to which he will reward and punish he so far restrains the exercise of his Dominion to a subserviency to the ends of Government If we should suppose that God governs the world meerly by his Dominion we must take away all rewards and punishments for then the actions of men would be the meer effects of irresistable power and so not capable of rewards and punishments for there could be neither of these where mens actions are not capable of the differences of good and evil and that they cannot be if they be the acts of Gods Dominion and not of their own But if God doth not exercise his full Dominion over rational creatures it is apparent that he doth govern them under another notion than as meer Lord and the reason of punishment is not to be taken from an absolute right which God doth not make use of but from the ends and designs of Government which are his own Honour the Authority of his Laws and the good of those whom he doth govern And Crellius is greatly mistaken when he makes punishment to succeed in the place of the right of obedience for it is only the desert of punishment which follows upon the violation of that right and as we assert that the right of obedience is derived from Gods Soveraignty so we deny not but the desert of punishment is from the violation of it but withal we say that the obligation to punishment depends upon the Laws and Gods right to inflict punishment Laws being supposed is immediately from that Government which he hath over mankind For otherwise if the whole right of punishment did still depend upon Gods Dominion and the first right of Soveraignty then al sins must have equal punishments because they are all equal violations of the fundamental right of obedience then it were at liberty for God to punish a greater sin with a less punishment and a lesser sin with a greater And lastly this would make the punishment of sin a meer Arbitrary thing in God for there would be no reason of punishment but what depended upon Gods meer will whereas the reason of punishment in Scripture is drawn from a repugnancy of sin to the divine purity and holyness and not meerly from Gods power or will to punish but if that were all the reason of it there would be no repugnancy in the nature of the thing for the most vitious person to be rewarded and the most pious to be made everlastingly miserable But who ever yet durst say or think so From whence it appears that the relation between sin and punishment is no result of Gods arbitrary will but it is founded in the nature of the things so that as it is just for God to punish offenders so it would be unjust to punish the most innocent person without any respect to sin But if the right of punishment depends meerly on Gods Dominion I cannot understand why God may not punish when and whom and in what manner he pleaseth without any impeachment of his Justice and therefore it is to be wonder'd at that the same persons who assert the right of punishment to be meerly in Gods dominion should yet cry out of the injustice of one person being punished for anothers faults for why may not God exercise his dominion in this case yes say they he may his dominion but he cannot punish because punishment supposes guilt and cannot be just without it how far that reaches will be examined afterwards at present we take notice of the contradiction to themselves which our Adversaries are guilty of that they may serve their own hypothesis for when we dispute with them against absolute remission without satisfaction then they contend that the right of punishment is a meer act of dominion and God may part with his right if he please but when they dispute with us against the translation of punishment from one to another then they no longer say that the right of punishment is an act of dominion but that it is a necessary consequent of inherent guilt and cannot be removed from one to another And then they utterly deny that punishment is of the nature of debts for one mans money they say may become anothers but one mans punishment cannot become anothers Thus they give and take deny and grant as it serves for their present purposes 2. The different end of debts and punishments make it appear that there is a difference in the nature of them for the intention of the obligation to payment in case of debt is the compensation of the damage which the Creditor sustains but the intention of punishment is not bare compensation but it is designed for greater and further ends For which we are to consider the different nature of punishments as they are inflicted by
wrath of God against all unrighteousness of men God thereby discovering the just displeasure he hath against sin or the great provocation of God to punish by the sins of men as when his wrath is said to be kindled c. By this sense we may easily reconcile all that the Scripture saith concerning the wrath of God we make it agreeable to infinite perfection we make no such alterations in God as the appeasing of his anger must imply if that imply any kind of commotion in him And thus the grand difficulty of Crellius appears to be none at all against all those passages of Scripture which speak of appeasing God of attonement and reconciliation viz. that if they prove satisfaction they must prove that God being actually angry with mankind before the sufferings of his Son he must be presently appeased upon his undergoing them For no more need to be said than that God being justly provoked to punish the sins of mankind was pleased to accept of the sufferings of his Son as a sufficient sacrifice of Attonement for the sins of the world on consideration of which he was pleased to offer those terms of pardon which upon mens performance of the conditions required on their part shall be sufficient to discharge them from that obligation to punishment which they were under by their sins And what absurdity or incongruity there is in this to any principle of reason I cannot imagine But our Adversaries first make opinions for us and then shew they are unreasonable They first suppose that anger in God is to be considered as a passion and that passion a desire of revenge for satisfaction of it and then tell us that if we do not prove that this desire of revenge can be satisfied by the sufferings of Christ then we can never prove the doctrine of satisfaction to be true whereas we do not mean by Gods anger any such passion but the just declaration of Gods will to punish upon our provocation of him by our sins we do not make the design of satisfaction to be that God may please himself in the revenging the sins of the guilty upon the most innocent person because we make the design of punishment not to be the satisfaction of anger as a desire of revenge but to be the vindication of the honour and rights of the injured person by such a way as himself shall judge most satisfactory to the ends of his Government 2. Which is the next thing we are to clear For which end we shall make use of the Concession of Crellius That God hath prefixed some ends to himself in the Government of mankind which being supposed it is necessary that impenitent sinners should be punished What these ends of God are he before tells us when he enquires into the ends of Divine punishments which he makes to be security for the future by mens avoiding sins and a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or pleasure which God takes in the destruction of his implacable enemies and the asserting and vindicating his own right by punishing and shewing men thereby with what care and fear they ought to serve him and so attains the ends of punishment proposed by Lactantius and manifestation of the Divine Honor and Majesty which hath been violated by the sins of men All these we accept of with this caution That the delight which God takes in the punishing his implacable enemies be not understood of any pleasure in their misery as such by way of meer revenge but as it tends to the vindication of his Right and Honor and Majesty which is an end suitable to the Divine Nature but the other cannot in it self have the notion of an end for an end doth suppose something desirable for it self which surely the miseries of others cannot have to us much less to the Divine Nature And that place which Crellius insists on to prove the contrary Deut. 28. 63. The Lord will rejoyce over you to destroy you imports no more than the satisfaction God takes in the execution of his Justice when it makes most for his honour as certainly it doth in the punishment of his greatest enemies And this is to be understood in a sense agreeable to those other places where God is said not to delight in the death of sinners which doth not as Crellius would have it meerly express Gods benignity and mercy but such an agreeableness of the exercise of those attributes to Gods nature that he neither doth nor can delight in the miseries of his creatures in themselves but as they are subservient to the ends of his Government and yet such is his kindness in that respect too that he useth all means agreeable thereto to make them avoid being miserable to advance his own glory And I cannot but wonder that Grotius who had asserted the contrary in his book of Satisfaction should in his books De Iure belli ac pacis assert That when God punisheth wicked men he doth it for no other end but that he might punish them For which he makes use of no other arguments than those which Crellius had objecteâ—â—gainst him viz. The delight God takes in punishing and tâ—… judgements of the life to come when no amendment can be expected the former hath been already answered the latter is objected by Crellius against him when he makes the ends of punishment meerly to respect the community which cannot be asserted of the punishments of another life which must chiefly respect the vindication of Gods glory in the punishment of unreclaimable sinners And this we do not deny to be a just punishment since our Adversaries themselves as well as we make it necessary But we are not to understand that the end of Divine punishments doth so respect the community as though God himself were to be excluded out of it for we are so to understand it as made up of God as the Governor and mankind as the persons governed whatever then tends to the vindication of the rights of Gods Honor and Soveraignty tends to the good of the whole because the manifestation of that end is so great an end of the whole But withal though we assert in the life to come the ends of punishment not to be the reclaiming of sinners who had never undergone them unless they had been unreclaimable yet a vast difference must be made between the ends of punishments in that and in this present state For the other is the Reserve when nothing else will do and therefore was not primarily intended but the proper ends of punishment as a part of Government are to be taken from the design of them in this life And here we assert that Gods end in punishing is the advancing his honor not by the meer miseries of his creatures but that men by beholding his severity against sin should break off the practice of it that they may escape the
use words sometimes out of their proper and natural sense thence he tells us The sufferings of Christ are called chastisements though they have nothing of the nature of chastisements in them And from this liberty of interpreting they make words without any other reason than that they serve for their purpose be taken in several senses in the same verse For Socinus in one verse of St. Iohns Gospel makes the World be taken in three several senses He was in the World there it is taken saith he for the men of the world in general The world was made by him there it must be understood only of the reformation of things by the Gospel and the world knew him not there it must be taken in neither of the former senses but for the wicked of the world What may not one make of the Scripture by such a way of interpreting it But by this we have the less reason to wonder that Socinus should put such an Interpretation upon Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree In which he doth acknowledge by the curse in the first clause to be meant the punishment of sin but not in the second And the reason he gives for it is amavit enim Paulus in execrationis verbo argutus esse St. Paul affected playing with the word curse understanding it first in a proper and then a Metaphorical sense But it is plain that the design of S. Paul and Socinus are very different in these words Socinus thinks he speaks only Metaphorically when he saith that Christ was made a curse for us i. e. by a bare allusion of the name without a correspondency in the thing it self and so that the death of Christ might be called a curse but was not so but St. Paul speaks of this not by way of extenuation but to set forth the greatness and weight of the punishment he underwent for us He therefore tells us what it was which Christ did redeem us from The curse of the Law and how he did it by being not only made a curse but a curse for us i. e. not by being hateful to God or undergoing the very same curse which we should have done which are the two things objected by Crellius against our sense but that the death of Christ was to be considered not as a bare separation of soul and body but as properly poenal being such a kind of death which none but Malefactors by the Law were to suffer by the undergoing of which punishment in our stead he redeemed us from that curse which we were liable to by the violation of the Law of God And there can be no reason to appropriate this only to the Iews unless the death of Christ did extend only to the deliverance of them from the punishment of their sins or because the curse of the Law did make that death poenal therefore the intention of the punishment could reach no further than the Law did but the Apostle in the very next words speaks of the farther extension of the great blessing promised to Abraham That it should come upon the Gentils also and withall those whom the Apostle speaks to were not Iews but such as thought they ought to joyn the Law and Gospel together that St. Paul doth not mean as Crellius would have it that Christ by his death did confirm the New Covenant and so take away the obligation of the Law for to what end was the curse mentioned for that What did the accursedness of his death add to the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and when was ever the curse taken for the continuance of the Law of Moses but that Christ by the efficacy of his death as a punishment for sin hath redeemed all that believe and obey him from the curse deserved by their sins whether inforced by the Law of Moses or the Law written in their hearts which tells the consciences of sinners that such who violate the Laws of God are worthy of death and therefore under the curse of the Law We come now to the force of the particles which being joyned with our sins as referring to the death of Christ do imply that his death is to be considered as a punishment of sin Not that we insist on the force of those particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as though of themselves they did imply this for we know they are of various significations according to the nature of the matter they are joyned with but that these being joyned with sins and sufferings together do signifie that those sufferings are the punishment of those sins Thus it is said of Christ that he dyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he suffered once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he gave himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he offered a Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which Crellius replies That if the force of these particles not being joyned with sufferings may be taken for the final and not for the impulsive cause they may retain the same sense when joyned with sufferings if those sufferings may be designed in order to an end but if it should be granted that those phrases being joyned with sufferings do always imply a meritorious cause yet it doth not follow it should be here so understood because the matter will not bear it To this a short answer will at present serve for It is not possible a meritorious cause can be expressed more emphatically than by these words being joyned to sufferings so that we have as clear a testimony from these expressions as words can give and by the same arts by which these may be avoided any other might so that it had not been possible for our Doctrine to have been expressed in such a manner but such kind of answers might have been given as our Adversaries now give If it had been said in the plainest terms that Christs death was a punishment for our sins they would as easily have avoided the force of them as they do of these they would have told us the Apostles delighted in an Antanaclasis and had expressed things different from the natural use of the words by them and though punishment were sometimes used properly yet here it must be used only metaphorically because the matter would bear no other sense And therefore I commend the ingenuity of Socinus after all the pains he had taken to enervate the force of those places which are brought against his Doctrine he tells us plainly That if our Doctrine were not only once but frequently mentioned in Scripture yet he would not therefore believe the thing to be so as we suppose For saith he seeing the thing it self cannot be I take the least inconvenient
procuring it And in that sense we acknowledge That the death of Christ was a declaration of Gods will and decree to pardon but not meerly as it gave testimony to the truth of his Doctrine for in that sense the blood of the Apostles and Martyrs might be said to purge us from sin as well as the blood of Christ but because it was the consideration upon which God had decreed to pardon And so as the acceptance of the condition required or the price paid may be â—aid to declare or manifest the intention of a person to release or deliver a Captive So Gods acceptance of what Christ did suffer for our sakes may be said to declare his readiness to pardon us upon his account But then this declaration doth not belong properly to the act of Christ in suffering but to the act of God in accepting and it can be no other ways known than Gods acceptance is known which was not by the Sufferings but by the Resurrection of Christ. And therefâ—re the declaring Gods will and decree to pardon doth properly belong to that and if that had been all which the Scripture had meant by purging of sin by the blood of Christ it had been very incongruously applied to that but most properly to his Resurrection But these phrases being never attributed to that which most properly might be said to declare the will of God and being peculiarly attributed to the death of Christ which cannot be said properly to do it nothing can be more plain than that these expressions ought to be taken in that which is confessed to be their proper sense viz. That Expiation of sin which doth belong to the death of Christ as a Sacrifice for the sins of the world But yet Socinus and Crellius have another subterfuge For therein lies their great art in seeking rather by any means to escape their enemies than to overcome them For being sensible that the main scope and design of the Scripture is against them they seldom and but very weakly assault but shew all their subtilty in avoiding by all imaginable arts the force of what is brought against them And the Scripture being so plain in attributing such great effects to the death of Christ when no other answer will serve turn then they tell us That the death of Christ is taken Metonymically for all the consequents of his death viz. His Resurrection Exaltation and the Power and Authority which he hath at the right hand of his Father But how is it possible to convince those who by death can understand life by sufferings can mean glory and by the shedding of blood sitting at the right hand of God And that the Scripture is very far from giving any countenance to these bold Interpretations will appear by these considerations 1. because the effect of Expiation of our sins is attributed to the death of Christ as distinct from his Resurrection viz. Our reconciliation with God Rom. 5. 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life To which Crellius answers That the Apostle doth not speak of the death of Christ alone or as it is considered distinct from the consequences of it but only that our Reconciliation was effected by the death of Christ intervening But nothing can be more evident to any one who considers the design of the Apostles discourse than that he speaks of what was peculiar to the death of Christ for therefore it is said that Christ dyed for the ungodly For scarcely for a righteous man will one dye but God commâ—ndeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved through him upon which those words follow For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son c. The Reconciliation here mentioned is attributed to the death of Christ in the same sense that it is mentioned before but there it is not mentioned as a bare condition intervening in order to something farther but as the great instance of the love both of God and Christ of God in sending his Son of Christ in laying down his life for sinners in order to their being justified by his blood But where is it that St. Paul saith that the death of Christ had no other influence on the expiation of our sins but as a bare condition intervening in order to that power and authority whereby he should expiate sins what makes him attribute so much to the death of Christ if all the benefits we enjoy depend upon the consequences of it and no otherwise upon that than meerly as a preparation for it what peculiar emphasis were there in Christs dying for sinners and for the ungodly unless his death had a particular relation to the expiation of their sins Why are men said to be justified by his blood and not much rather by his glorious Resurrection if the blood of Christ be only considered as antecedent to the other And that would have been the great demonstration of the love of God which had the most immediate influence upon our advantage which could not have been the death in this sense but the life and glory of Christ. But nothing can be more absurd than what Crellius would have to be the meaning of this place viz. that the Apostle doth not speak of the proper force of the death of Christ distinct from his life but that two things are opposed to each other for the effecting of one of which the death of Christ did intervene but it should not intervene for the other viz. it did intervene for our reconciliation but it should not for our life For did not the death of Christ equally intervene for our life as for our reconciliation was not our eternal deliverance the great thing designed by Christ and our reconciliation in order to that end what opposition then can be imagined that it should be necessary for the death of Christ to intervene in order to the one than in order to the other But he means that the death of Christ should not intervene anymore what need that when it is acknowledged by themselves that Christ dyed only for this end before that he might have power to bestow eternal life on them that obey him But the main force of the Apostles argument lies in the comparison between the death of Christ having respect to us as enemies in order to reconciliation and the life of Christ to us considered as reconciled so that if he had so much kindness for enemies to dye for their reconciliation we may much more presume that he now living in Heaven will accomplish the end of that reconciliation in the eternal salvation of them that obey him By which it is apparent that he