The Covenant of Life Opened, Part 2 · Chapter 5
CHAP. V. Of the Covenant of Redemption between God and the Mediator Christ. 2. Christ is not a bare witnesse to confirm the Covenant, but the Author of the Covenant. 3. The Socinian way of works cannot quiet the conscience. 4. Christ is upon both sides of the Covenant. 5. Justice mediat… not. 6. Reasons of the entrance of sin.
ISai. 49.8. I will preserve thee (saith the Lord to Christ) and give thee for a Covenant of the people.
Q. 1. How is CHRIST given as a Covenant of the people▪ Is 49 6Hence, the 1. Question: How is Christ said to be given as a Covenant of the people?
Ans. As Isai. 49 6. he saith, I have given thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth: that is, as Act. 13.46, 47. I have thee, O Christ, to be the Preached Light, and Guide of the Gentiles, and the Preached Saviour, declared and proclaimed by the Preaching of Paul, Barnabas, and the Apostles, and Pastors. So I will give thee for the Covenant, that is▪ the Preached surety and Mediator of the Covenant, Heb. 7.22. Heb. 8.6. When the first Covenant was broken▪ he makes with us an everlasting Covenant, even the sure mercies of David, Isai. 55.3. 2. I will give thee as the only one who is the subject of the Gospel and Covenant of Grace: For to Preach Christ and to Preach the Gospel and New Covenant are all one. 3. I have given thee to be the confirmer of the promises, they are all yea, and Amen, in thee, 2 Cor. 1.20. Gal. 3.16. And 4. by thy death thou confirmes the Covenant, and seals it with thy blood, Heb. 9.15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24. Heb. 13.20.
Q. But Socinus denies that Christ is the purchaser or the obtainer by his blood (as it were) of the New Covenant,Socinus de Servato. l. 2. c. 16. for he did not by his death procure or merit pardon to us, he is only the surety or Mediator of the Covenant. And Crellius and he say, the cause why the confirming of the Covenant is ascribed to the death of Christ, is because as by a slain beast and divided into two parts▪ Covenants of old were established, so by the death of Christ the Covenant of Grace was solemnly confirmed and sealed?
Ans. Christ is so the Surety as Mediator, as he is also the Author of this Covenant, as God, Exod. 3.6. It was he who said,Christ is not the cō firmer only but the Author of the Covenant of grace. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 1▪ Cor. 10.9. Let us not tempt Christ, as some of them tempted him, and were destroyed of the Serpents. And this is he who led them, and brought them out of Aegypt, Numb. 21.6, 7. whom they tempted in the wildernesse, 5, 6, 7. And he ascribes to himself the Covenant, Heb. 8.9. Not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers, &c. And it is clear, that the pardon of sin promised in the Covenant, Jer. 31. Heb. 8. is never ascribed to the blood of Martyrs, but every where to Christs blood, Eph. 1.7. Col. 1.14. Rom. 3.25. Rev. 1.5. 1 Joh. 1.8. Heb. 9.14.14, 15, 22. Heb. 10.16, 17, 18.
2. That he is the Surety also of the Covenant, is expresly said, Heb. 7.22. and the Mediator thereof, Heb. 8. Nor can it be said that the death of the Testator does properly give faith and authority to the Testament,The death of the Testator how it confirms the Covenant. for the authority and justice of the just or unjust will of the Testator, addeth unto, or diminisheth from the authority of the Testament; for the Testators will is the principal efficient cause of the Testament, the death of the man is only a necessary condition, by which the right of the Testator to these goods is transferred from him (who now being dead, needs them not) in to friends, to whom they are left in Legacie;It is true that the death of the Testator, to wit such a death of one who is more then a Testator or only man, even God man, procu…es as a meritorious cause, life, remission, &c▪ but this it does not as the death of a Testator and dying friend, but as such a so excellent, so satisfactory a death, which no Martyrs death can do. There is a far other thing in Christs blood then power of sealing and witnessing the truth which is in the Martyrs blood. and so death is but an antecedent condition of the right to the goods. 3. Christs dying to bear witnesse to his own Gospel is only the secondary end of his death, in so far as secondarily remission of sins is made known to us after the principall end of his death, to wit, reconciliation, remission, pardon, redemption, and life is purchased to us by way of merit: And sure the truth of pardon and redemption is hugely more confirmed and sealed by the whole company of the Martyrs, and made known to the sons of men, then by the death of one single man, Maries Son: Nor does the Scripture ever commend Christs love to us in sealing the Gospel with his blood as the only way to life, or making this the most strong Argument to move us to beleeve in God, and obey Christ, because Christ died for sinners, and rose again to make the Gospel true like, and worthy to be beleeved, as the Martyres do: but love shined in this, that in dying we have redemption and forgivenesse and life in his blood; And since Godly and sound beleeving Martyrs died for this end, especially to glorifie God, and seal the truth, Joh. 21.19. Rev. 2.13. Mat. 10.32. Luk. 12.8. Mar. 8.38. Luk. 9.26. 2 Tim. 2.12. Rev. 12.…1. we must have most properly forgivenesse of sins in the blood of S…even, and Antipas, and the rest of the Martyres. And miracles do aboundantly seal the truth of the Gospel; And so doth the holinesse of profession, Joh. 20.32. Mar. 16.20. Joh. 5.35, 36. Matth. 5.16. but never are we redeemed, justified, saved by Christs and the Apostles miracles and holy life, for any thing we read in Scripture; but we have life by Christs blood as by a ransome, a price to buy us.
Q. Hence, 1. case: May not the conscience be quiet by the way of Socinus ▪ The Socinian way quiets not the wa…ened conscience by mā … works, but by the blood of Christ apprehended by faith, this is done▪which lays aside a ransome given to Justice?
Ans. The experience of the Godly man wakened in conscience saith to this, when he is chastened with pain in his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain, and the mans soul drawes …ear to the g…ave, and his life unto the destroyers, and the man stands on need of an Interpreter, one among a thousand to shew unto man his righteousnesse, Job 33.19, 20, 21, 22, 23. Then God is gracious to him, and saith, deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found him a ransome: He is not quiet while God say, my Prophet, deliver him from hell and the pit, which he so much fears, for my offended Justice hath found a ransome in Christ, and I am … with him. Yea, and the conscience must be purged from … works, by his blood who offered himself without spot to God through the eternall Spirit, Heb. 9.14. Yea, and there is no remission of sins without sheding of blood, v. 22. Not of Buls or Goats, for the blood of beasts leaves still conscience of sin, Heb. 10.1, 2. Then it must be the blood of Christ, v. 5.10. who was crucified and made a curse for us, Gal. 3.10. such a curse as we must have eternally, according to Divine Justice, suffered. Yea, if works done by the exemplary grace of a Martyr, such a holy man as Christ, who was never wounded for our transgressions, nor bruised for our iniquities, then Christ died in vain, and there was no ransome of blood given for our sins, only God of free-will made an innocent man a curse, and would have him crucified neither for his own sin, nor for ours; well then, may good works without the blood of sinner or surety, take away sin: And the conscience sprinkled with good works may well calm a guilty conscience, yea, and according to the measure of good works is the measure of assurance of peace with God. Now we see the most tender David, Job, Hezekiah, Heman, who walked most with God, have not alway most assurance of peace and righteousnesse with God, but most dreadfull doubtings of conscience, according as by faith they apprehend the ransome of full satisfaction, or were dazled and darkened in their apprehension; yea sure, without the ransome of blood, of free-will, all receive a dry and unbloody pardon by doing the Commandements of Jesus Christ. The Socinian faith which looks to an exemplary Martyr whom God of no justice, but in vain, and for no cause, delivered to death, but of meer free pleasure, whereas there might be, and is forgivenesse without shedding of blood: contrair to Heb. 9.22. Rom. 3.24.25, &c. even good works done in imitation of Christ.
Q. 2. Another case is here: Is Christ on our side of the Covenant, and on the Lords side?Christ is upon both the Lords side of the Covenant, & upon our side, & the satisfactiō i… most … This would seem no satisfying of justice. Ans. It is true the case would seem no quieting of conscience. If 1. Christ-God were not the same offended God, who out of soveraignty of free grace doth condescend to make a Covenant of grace, and so is upon Gods side. 2. If Christ were not a Person different from offended God, as the Godhead is common to all the three, so in a voluntary and admirable dispensation and Oeconomie the Kings Son, a Person different from the Father, taketh upon him our nature; And 3. having mans nature which offended, and so being fit therein to satisfie wrath, and fit therein to merit, to sanctifie the people with his own blood, might well be upon our side: and there's no scenick, no seeming, but a most reall satisfaction here, in that there is a most full and reall compensation made to offended justice, and our faith laying hold on this, the conscience is quieted. As I sinned in the first Adam legally, so I satisfied in the second Adam. Obj. But justice saith, The same person that sinned, the same must suffer and satisfie, and no other.
Ans. Justice saith so, but that part of justice by the graciousnesse and mercifulnesse of the Just…God is, and may be dispensed withall: So as Justice as Justice seeks payment,Justice as justice seeks satisfactiō, but Soveraignty of free-grace, not justice, determines how, and who shall pay. the Creditor as the Creditor seeks recompence and restitution: But by whom, Justice determines not, whether payment and satisfaction be made by the same very person who offended, or by a fit surety in the person and place of the offender, as it determines not whether as much or far more be restored then was taken away, so there be a compact and voluntary agreement between the satisfier and the satisfied. Hence, Justice being 1. offended, is not (to speak so) the interposing and the mediating attribute of God; but Soveraignty of Free-grace and mercy interposeth.Justice is not the mediating and interposing attribute, but free-grace. 2. Justice may seek payment from the only offending partie, and from no other, from Adam and his posterity only; but Justice doth not indispensably, and by necessity of nature exact payment from the only offender and from no other. 3. The conscience of the beleever may with sweetnesse of admiration and peace rest upon satisfied justice, and adore interposing grace, and be quickened from looking unto, and loving interposing grace, to obey and take on the labour of Gospel-love to run the wayes of his Commandements. 4. It is not an act of Law, nor of Justice, to give, or find out a satisfier, but an act of love, grace, and infinite wisedom.
Q. 3. A third case is, how can the beleever look upon life eternall as a gift, if it be sold at so condign a price as Christs blood?
Our glory was work and wadge to Christ, but of free grace to us, we bought it not.Ans. It is not fit to speak of this mysterie, but with holy reverence, life eternall is bought to us, and we are said to be bought with a price, 1 Cor. 6.19. 1 Pet. 1.18. 1 Tim. 2.6. Matth. 20.28. Now it is unworthy of Christ, that the fruit of his death should be only grace, not glory, and such a grace as is lubrick, uncertain, renders us indifferent, but much weaker to beleeve or not believe, that is, as Socinians say, to earne and win the wager of Glory by a new Gospel-working, which is our righteousnesse, and merit to glory: For sure Pagans are more sinfully weak in the Second ADAM who died for them, as Socinus will, then mankind were in the first Adam. The Scripture saith that Christ gave himself for his Church, that he might present her a glorious Church, Eph. 5. 25.27. 1 Thes. 5.9. For God hath not appointed us for wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. 10. Who died for us. 2 Tim. 2.10. Therefore I endure all things for the elects sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternall glory. Jude 21. Looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternall life. Rev. 5.9. Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, &c. Act. 20.28. Feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. Eph. 1.7. In whom we have redemption through his blood. 11. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance. We are not afraid to call eternall life a fruit of Christs death, that is, of the merit of his death: See Joh. 10.10, 11.28. Joh. 3.14, 15, 16.
Q. 4. A fourth case: Many stumble, some in that God permitted sin to enter, which he might have hindered, knowing he should be thereby under a necessity either to torment men in hell, or torment on earth his most innocent Son Christ?
Ans. Socinians, Arminians, yea Pagans, and all enemies to Christian Religion, are burdened with the same seeming reason: For if God, or their gods may hinder wickednesse, and yet do not hinder it, they bring themselves, or the true God, that they must be necessitated to torment the sinners.
2. There be reasons unanswerable, why if we yeeld (and it is a shame to deny) that God is able to hinder sin to enter in the world, or that he is not infinitly wise,Deep reasons in the depth of unsearchable wisedom, why the Lord who can hinder sin to enter in the world, thought fit it should be and so that he hath not most weighty reasons why he suffers sin to be: As 1. if sin come freely in the world without the will of God, either the Lords dominion over sin must be none at all; or the creatures dominion of free-will must be dependent upon the dominion of grace and Soveraignty. 2. The out-goings of free-grace must eternally be hid, if sin had never been. As there had been no field for the expressions and blossoms of eternall flourishing revenging justice: As also, the creatures armes are short, and could not reach the eminent degree of manifesting the glory of free-grace and pardoning mercy, but the Lord aimed at this. And 1. the relation of a Saviour and a sinner, of the Physician and the sick must be known; Now a Physician hath not relation actuall to all sick, all the world over, but only to his own patients, his own sick ones, who by Covenant, feeling their duplicate page duplicate page danger,None sick speaks no Saviour, no such Physitiā as Christ have laid the weight of life and death, of righteousnesse, of salvation over upon that one only Saviour, and live, dyet, apply salves, medicine, only by the direction of this Physician, and do receive medicine and recepts from no other.
2. Infinite wisedom made choise, beside other infinite possible wayes,It is a deep of wisedom that the same men that now are fire-wood eternally in the lake of brimstone, might have been (if so it had pleased GOD) proclaimers of the glory of his grace in heaven, & the now heirs of glory in their place. of this only way of redeeming: and here glorious Soveraignty shines, he wailles out, Judas, Magus, Pharaoh, to be fire-wood and coal to the River of fire and brimstone, and made so many sinfull peeces of sick, brittle clay, overgilded with the habit of grace, of free righteousnesse, of glory, to be the eternall harpers and proclaimers of the glory of his grace; whereas he might have made these stones, and worms, for he created Angels and worms, and all out of the Mother Nothing, by his good pleasure. And it must be a wonder of unsearchable Soveraignty, that should not for eternity have been concealed, such a number of Angels and men whom he set up in the heaven of heavens as heirs of glory, to be everlasting Heraulds and Trumpeters to sound out experienced grace and mercy, might have been, if so it had pleased him, lumps of everlasting vengeance in the eternall lack, and all that are condemned, and suffer the vengeance of eternall fire▪ both devils and men are chips and peeces of beings hewen out of the same rock (if so we may speak) of that huge and vast Nothing, and might have been up before the Throne filling the Chairs and rooms of the now heirs of glory, thou beleever, might have been in the seat of Iudas, scorched in his furnace in hell, and Iudas might have had thy Throne and thy Crown up with him eternally who sits on the Throne, and with the Lamb.
3. He might have keeped all the sons of men, and all the Angels, in a sinlesse condition,God might have hol…en up the law…dispensation for ever, but then there should have been no place for the Ark of glory. J. Ch. to be courteours to proclaim the glory of Law-goodnesse, and of the never broken Covenant of Works, but then there should never have been such a thing known to the generations to come, as that Ark of glory, that huge and boundlesse all fulnesse of the indwelling Godhead in the Man Christ. Sure, had there been none sick, such a suffering Physician to heal us had never been, none lost would have said there is no Saviour, none dead in sin, would say, there is no need of such a Lord and Prince of life, by whose swelling wounds we are healed, Isa. 53.
4. Nor was it fit that this should never be known to Angels and men, that the Lord honours so many redeemed sinners with a grant and licence to love so high, so precious a Redeemer, and as it were to marre and black his fairnesse and desirable excellency with our feeble and sinfully weak love, he being so far above our love or faith or praises.
5. The Gospel-wonders should not be an eternally sealed book to men and Angels, as, Revel. 12.1. that wonder in heaven,The Gospel-wōders of grace should not eternallie have been bi…. A woman cloathed with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve Stars, should be known. And what was shewed to John was to be shown to the Churches, Rev. 21.10. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great City, the holy Hierusalem descending out of heaven from God. 11. Having the glory of God. I mean here the wonders of grace, mercy, declared justice: as that the most High should empty Himself and the Godhead be united to clay: that there should be such a high Bridegroom, so low and sinfull a Spouse: that death should conquer death: that Nothings of clay should sing their debts, eternally cast down their crowns, being made of sinners glorified Kings, and not be ashamed to cast down their crowns before him that sits on the throne. Nor should the gifts and graces of God be hidden, Rom. 8.32. He that spared not his own Son, — how should he not with him, foreign, give us all things, begrace to us all? How should he not make heaven and earth free grace to us, and all a masse of grace to us? Eph. 1.6. foreign, He hath begraced us all over in Christ. 1 Tim. 1.13. But I obtained mercy, as dipped in a sea of mercy. Luk. 1.28. Hail Virgine, foreign, filled with free grace. Let us forgive one another, Col. 3.13. as Christ begraced pardon to us, foreign. That we might know, 1 Cor. 2.12. foreign, the things that are freely given us. And what a debt must that be, the forgiving of ten thousand talents, more then to forgive millions and tuns of gold?Whether of the two be most excellent, Law-innocency, or Gospel-repentance.
Hence the Question, whether Law-innocency and never sinning▪ or Gospel-repentance and rising again in Christ, be most excellent? It is answered. 1. Simply to us: It is better and morally more excellent never to fall, never to be sick, then to rise in Christ and be healed by such a Physician. But sinning and falling being considered in relation to a more universall good, there is more excellency in Gospel-rising then in Law-standing: As, 1. There is more feeling deeper sense in the woman which did wash Christs feet with her tears, and wipe them with the hair of her head, then in some who never so fell. And Christ may hold forth something of this, Luk. 15.7. Likewise I say unto you (saith Christ) there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more then over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance. True it is our Saviours scope is not to compare repentance and Law-innocency together, or to show that the Pharisees needed no repentance, as if they were not in a lost condition: but to show what joy was in heaven with the Lord the father of the forlorn son, and in the Angels, at the home coming of repenting sinners. And is not a Jewell of ten thousand millions of more worth then a Diamond that is not worth the eighth part of that summe? Adams innocency and never sinning should have been by the common influences of Law-love, and the same may be said of Angel-innocency. But Gospel-repentance is the gift procured at a dearer rate, Christ was exalted a Prince to give repentance, Acts 5.31. Neither should there be sense and such loving sense of free grace in the forlorn son, had he never fled away from his father, and never been so received with a welcome of grace which he beleeved, before he felt it.