The Covenant of Life Opened, Part 2 · Chapter 1
CHAP. I.
Q. WHat room or place hath Christ the Mediator in the Covenants?
A. The room of Christ in both Covenants.He hath place in the Covenant of Works as a satisfier for us. 2. As a doer and an obedient fulfiller thereof in all points. And he is Mediator and Surety of the Covenant of Grace.
2. The first Adam marres all, the second ADAM who makes all things new, mends all.The first Adam marres all, the second ADAM mends all. The first Adam was a publick sort of stirresman, to whom was committed the standing and falling of all mankind, and in reference to man, the standing of Heaven, Earth, and Creatures in their perfection, and he spoiled all, put all things a-reeling. The second ADAM received in his arms the whole Creation that was a-falling for in him all things foreign stand fast, Col. 1.17. And he bears up all by his mighty word, Heb. 1 3. He satisfied for our sins, and for our breach of the Covenant of Works.
2. He is a full doer and fulfiller of the Covenant of Works most perfectly, by doing. 1 Joh. 3.7. He who does righteousnesse is righteous: As he who suffers for the broken Law, fulfills the Law. Rom. 6.7. He that is dead, foreign is freed, justified from sin, in the obligation of it to punishment. So Paul, vers. 8. If wee be dead with Christ, we beleeve that we shall live with him. This dying is to beleeve that he died for us, at least it excludes not that. And if we keep the Law, we are not oblidged to suffer: for the Law does not oblidge man in absolute sense, both to perfect doing and to perfect suffering copulatively, but to one of them. But if we be (legally) dead with Christ, How the Law doth oblidge to both doing and suffering.(as his death so excellent doth exhaust sins punishment and is a perfect satisfaction therefore) we are freed or justified from sin, not to suffer or satisfie by suffering for it, as Rom. 8.3. For what the Law could not do, so that it was weak (by accident, not of it self) through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likenesse of sinfull flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. foreign the righteousnesse of the Law, the passive righteousnesse in suffering for the breach of the Law, might be fulfilled in us, 2 Cor. 5.2. And Isai. 53.5. But he was wounded for our transgressions, &c. — 6. The Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. But though some suffer, as the reprobate do, and suffer in this life the beginning of satisfactory judgement, yet are they not loosed from active obedience to the Law as the Law, though they cannot, having once sinned, be under the Law as a Covenant of Justification and life: nor is any flesh under that Covenant now.
Q. What place hath Christs righteousnesse here?
Ans. Pareus with some others distinguish between the Righteousnesse of Christs person, which contains his essentiall Righteousnesse,The righteousnesse of Christs person and of his merit. as God, the habituall and actuall conformity of the Man Christ, and the perfect holinesse of the Man Christ. Such a High Priest became us, as is holy, harmlesse, &c. Heb. 7.26. And, The righteousnesse of his merit, in the satisfaction of his suffering, the satisfaction is the formall cause of our Justification which is counted ours: this latter righteousnesse is acquired, the former is essentiall.
Now the active obediēce of Christ falls under a twofold consideration. 1. As the Man Christs perfect conformity to the Law of God, so as man he was oblidged to do and suffer all that he did and suffered,Christs active obedience, how it is meritorious for us. even to lay down his life for man. But had he been only man his righteousnesse had neither▪ been by condignity meritorious, no… yet satisfactory for us. But 2. The whole course of Christs obedience from his birth to the grave, by doing and suffering, is to be considered as the doing and suffering of so excellent a person, his being born, his praying, preaching, dying, coming from a Person God-Man. Now the Law required not praying, preaching of God-man, the blood of God, or the dying of him who was God-Man. And so all these being both so excellent, and then so undue, have respect of satisfaction to God. 2. The active obedience of Christ & all that Christ did and suffered were performed by him in his state of humiliation: In which he was poor, foreign, 2 Cor. 8.9. for us, so also by the same ground a weeping man, hungry, thirsty, weary for us, made lower then the Angels by the suffering of death, Epist. David Parel▪ de justi. ch. activa & passiv…, 186Heb. 2.9. Humbled by partaking of flesh and blood, because of the children, Heb. 2.14. Emptied himself for us, Ph. 2. This was, as Pareus well saith, perpetua quaedam passio & paena peccatorum nostrorum, fuit tota vita Christi: All these have a respect of punishment and suffering. For since Christ was both a viator and a comprehensor, and such a holy sinlesse person, he ought to have had the actuall possession of the Crown of Glory from the womb, and so should have been free of weeping, hunger, thirst, wearinesse, groaning, sighing, sadnesse, persecution, reproaches, &c. all which adhered to all his active holinesse, and therefore in that his actions were satisfactory passions. For satisfaction is defined a voluntary restoring of the equivalent, and as good in the place of what is taken away▪ and the good restored must be,Satisfactio est redditi… voluntaria equivalentis, alioquin indebiti, … alii ex propriis bonis & non debitis. 1. Undue. 2. The proper good of the restorer, which agrees to the active and passive obedience of Christ.
Obj. Then Christs very weeping, and praying, being the weeping and praying of God-Man, might have been a perfect satisfaction for our sins; for Christ was God-Man in all his holy actions in the state of humiliation, as in his being crucified, and in his suffering?
Ans. This doth not follow: Because the punishment of the breach of the Law, and not that only, but such a speciall punishment, by dying the first and second death, according to the threatening of the Law, Gen. 2.17. In the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die: was required in the Law, and except the threatening of the Law be fulfilled, the Law is not fulfilled: And Paul, Gal. 3.13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed be every o…e that hangeth on a tree. Now Christs suffering the death of the crosse the cursed death is that which makes him under the Law. Ergo, No satisfaction could be at all except Christ had died▪ because all the satisfaction of a surety might in Law have been refused, and the Lord might have eternally punished Adam & all his, in a Law-way in their persons, therefore there was need of a punishment agreed upon between God and the Mediator by a special Covenant, & this punishment must be satisfactory to the Law which required death Gen. 2.17. and so must Christ-God-man d…e. The Scripture never speaks of Christs dying, but it speaks of this intrinsecall end, that they should die to sin and live to God, for whom Christ died; now this end is not possible in Pagans who never hear, nor can hear the Gospel, therefore Christ died not for Pagans.there is a Law-righteousnesse in suffering death. So Gal. 4.4. God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the Law. For what end? 5. To redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the Adoption of sons. How are we redeemed from under the Law? By blood, purchasing to us Justification. Rom. 3.24. Being justified freely by his Grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sins past: And redemption from the curse of the Law, and remission is ever ascribed to the blood of Christ dying, Rom. 3.24, 25. Ye are bought with a price, foreign called a ransome of Christs blood, foreign, Matth. 20.28. 1 Tim. 2.6. Eph. 1.1.7. In whom we have redemption in his blood, the forgivenesse of sins. Col. 1.14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgivenesse of sins. Rom. 5.9. Being justified by his blood. 1 Pet. 1.18. Being redeemed by the blood of the Lamb unspotted and undefided. 1 …oh. 1.8. The blood of Jesus Christ purgeth us from all sin. Rev. 5.9. And they sang a new song (to wit, the four Beasts and the four and twenty Elders) — for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. 1 Pet. 1.18. By his stripes (which he suffered in his death, Isa. 5.3.) we are healed. Rev. 1.5. To him that hath loved us, and washen us from our sins in his blood. For though all Christs actions of God-man from the worth of the infinite person be meritorious, yet are they refuseable, yea a satisfaction by Covenant, which was the death of God-Man must be also. 2. The word also never speaks of Christs dying for all, but it mentions Justification in his blood, Ro. 3.24, 25. Rom. 5.9. Yea the Scripture adds another end of Christs death, to wit, forgivenesse, Col. 1.14. Eph. 1.7. intercession at the right hand of GOD, 1 Joh. 2.1. that we may receive the Adoption of sons, Gal. 4.5. To make us Kings and Priests to God, Rev. 1.16. dying to sin, living to him, 1 Pet. 2.24. That he might bring us to God, 1 Pet. 3.18. The glorifying of God in our bodies, 1 Cor. 6.19, 20. Redeeming us from our vain conversation, 1 Pet. 1.18. From this present evill world, Gal. 1.4. Sanctifying the people, Heb. 13.12. Heb. 10.8, 9, 10. All which the Lord must intend in Christs death to Pagans, old and young, to all and every one of mankind to whom the Gospel could not come. And what authority have men to devise a redemption generall, universall, from hell, and not from sin? 2. For life eternall and not for the giving of the Spirit, and for redemption from a vain conversation, and for sanctifying of the people also? 3. A redemption in Christs blood, but no forgivenesse of sins in his blood, not any non-imputation of sin, nor reconciliation of the world, 2 Cor. 5.15; 18? 4. A dying of the just for the unjust, but not to bring them to God; a redeeming of them, but not a redeeming of them out of every Kindred and Tongue, and People and Nation (for these People, Nations, and Tongues, were redeemed by this way, as well as they) and a washing of them in his blood, but no making of them Kings and Priests to God, a dying for all, but no living to him:These who teach that Christ died for all and every one, and made a Covenant of Grace with all & every one, and sends no more of the Gospel to al & every one, make the way of salvatiō more impossible under the second, thē under the first Adam, contrair to 1 Pet. 1.18. Rev. 5.9. Rev. 1.5.5, 6. 2 Cor. 5.15? 5. Christs blood did something (and it is not any thing) to make all saveable, to pacifie Justice, satisfie the Law, to merite Heaven; but did nothing to soften the heart, mortifie and sanctifie the will, mind, affections, to remove unbeleef, to renew the mind. But it is sure the Lord had not intended to commit heaven and hell any more to a sanctified will, but mutable and lubrick in Adam, but to commit all to Christ, to a better Covenant, better promises, to a way of free-grace not of nature: Yet these men commit the salvation and damnation of all and every one, to an unsanctified, corrupt, rebellious will, Gen. 6.5. Gen. 8.21. 1 Cor. 2.14. Joh. 6.44. Job 14 4. Psal. 51.5. Jer. 17.9, 10, &c. (except they say, Pagans and all mankind are regenerated, sanctified, justified) yea to a worse Covenant then that Covenant of Works, to an universall Covenant of Grace. That 1. never came to their ears. 2. By which they are in a worse condition then Adam was, who had the Image of God in his soul, and a full power to stand, and a clearly revealed Covenant: But all mankind for whom Christ is supposed to die, are born heirs of wrath, but they are born in more miserie in the bondage of sin, of a blind heart, of a corrupt will, their chains heavier, their furnace hoter in hell, helps fewer. And yet the absolutenesse of Soveraignty under the freedom of the Grace of Christ, by this way of Vniversalists, shines no more now, nay not so much now as in Adams state, for more is laid upon free-will, and lesse help to heal the will, then was in the Covenant of Works. And if all die in Adam, and the Second Adam die for all, he must die to loose the works of Satan in all; Now if a weaker course be taken to destroy Sathans kingdom now then in Adams state, and all be laid upon a weaker will, Sathan is stronger now then before: And if Christ do not purchase by his death grace to bow indeclinably the will of all these for whom he dyed, to cause them live to him, die to sin, to make them Kings and Priests to God, &c. but leave their will in a more weak and wicked condition then it was under in the first Covenant, Sathan is in this stronger then the second ADAM. No more of this here.
It is a question, the Threatning standing, Gen. 2.17. how the active righteousnesse of Christ can be a cause meriting to us life, and satisfying the Law, when there is no suffering for the breach of the Law which expresly required death in the sinner: Not to say, that it seems too near to make Christs dying needlesse, if his active holinesse do the businesse; Nay we cannot so teach.