Sermons Preached on Romans 8

every year at the solemn and anniversary Expiation, besides what were offered at the Passover, at several Feasts, at the lesser and greater Jubile upon particular and special occasions, as dedications &c? pray what might be God's End (or Ends) in all this? Was it that he might show his dominion over the Creatures? was it that he might by this demonstrate the Evil of Sin and what the Sinner deserved upon it? was it to gratify the Jews (who having been amongst the Egyptians where Sacrifices did abound might therefore be taken with them and fond of them), and thereby to prevent their Idolatry? Several such Ends and Reasons are assigned, but surely that which I am upon must not be left out (if not prefer'd before any other,) viz. therefore God did ordain and institute Sacrifices that by them he might typify and prefigure that great Sacrifice which was to come; thereby the better to prepare and inform the world about it; (but how, or in what measure, and in what extent God did clear up this Notion, Use and End of Sacrifices, I shall not be too forward to determine).

2. As the Law-Sacrifices were Types so they were but Types: there was little in them take away the typical nature of them, what poor things were they further than as they did point to Christ! The Apostle calls them but shadows of good things to come Heb. 10.1. figures for the time then present Heb. 9.9. patterns of things in the Heavens Heb. 9.23. examples and shadows of heavenly things Heb. 8.5.

3. Nay Thirdly, all that virtue and efficacy which was in them was all derived from and did all depend upon this great Sacrifice, the Lord Jesus. Alas! what could they do by any inherent virtue in themselves for the expiating of Sin and pacifying of God! Heb. 10.4. It is not possible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away Sins: how often doth the Apostle go over this (viz.) the weakness of the Levitical Sacrifices with respect to expiation and atonement! doubtless whatever virtue or efficacy was in them in order to the production of these effects it wholly depended upon Christ the Sacrifice that was to come.

Yet here I would not be misunderstood, in such a sense I do not make the Law-Sacrifices to be mere types or altogether weak; for as to that which the Apostle calls the purifying of the flesh Heb. 9.13. they were more than types and had more than a typical expiation; and with respect to that by virtue of God's institution they were able to effect it: But besides this there was the making of persons perfect as pertaining to the Conscience, the purging of the Conscience &c. Heb. 9.9, 14. now as to this their strength was wholly derived and their use wholly typical. By the purifying of the Fl ••• , is meant exemption from those Civil and Ecclesiastical penalties which upon such transgressions of the Law the Jews were liable to: God gave them with respect to their polity such and such Laws, which if any did break they were so and so to be punished; yet he was so gracious to them as to allow in several Cases the offering of Sacrifices, in order to the expiating of their guilt and the preventing of the punishment threatened to them (as they stood in such a politick capacity ); therefore as to this Sacrifices had a real efficiency and also a full efficacy. By the making perfect as pertaining to the Conscience, is meant the doing away of Sins guilt in the sight of God, the setting of things right betwixt God and the Sinner, the pacifying of his wrath, securing from eternal punishments: now as to this the Mosaical Sacrifices could do nothing, here they were mere types and altogether weak; this was to be done by the alone Sacrifice of Christ. So that whereas Some do argue against the Sacrifices under the Law as not prefiguring Christ, because they had no power or virtue in them to take away Sin, I answer

• (1.) As to the taking away of external guilt and obligation to external punishment, so far they had a power:
• (2.) Suppose they had had none at all yet for all that they might have had this use; as (I hope) the brazen Serpent was a real type and prefiguration of Christ, in reference to his Spiritual healing of the poor Sin-stung Soul, and yet that of itself had no virtue at all to bring about that effect which should bear any analogy unto the thing typified.

4. That those old Sacrifices had a special reference to Christ, the great Sacrifice, is evident from this because with him they began and with him they ended: For as soon as ever Christ had been exhibited in that primitive Promise Gen. 3.15. that the seed of the woman should bruise the Serpents head &c. immediately upon this (as Divines do not only conjecture but prove) Sacrifices did commence; and as soon as he himself came and had offered himself upon the Cross (as the true Sacrifice ), within a very little while the Jewish Sacrifices ceased. Within a few years after their Temple was destroyed, and with that all their Sacrifices expired; yea, (in process of time) though Julian gave them encouragement to re-edify the Temple (for this very end that Sacrifices might again be used), and the Jews thereupon endeavored to their utmost so to do, yet God from Heaven blasted them in all their attempts in a miraculous and extraordinary manner: O the true Sacrifice was come, therefore there shall be no more use of what was but typical thereof, (as the dark shades of the night vanish when the Sun itself arises). The Heathen Oracles entrench'd too much upon Christ's Prophetical Office, and therefore at his coming they must cease; and Sacrifices did as much entrench upon his Priestly Office and the oblation of himself, and therefore after his Death they shall and did cease too. 'Twas prophesied of the Messiah that he should cause the Sacrifice and the Oblation to cease, Dan. 9.27. and Heb. 10.8, 9. Above, when he said, Sacrifice and Offering, and burnt Offerings, and offering for Sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the Law: Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will (O God). He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second; (that's the observation which the Apostle makes upon it). And this very thing (the ceasing of Sacrifices ) was revealed to some amongst the Jews themselves, for in the Age before Christ's coming they had got this Prophesy amongst them; Omnes oblationes cessabunt in futuro saeculo, in the Age that is next to come all Sacrifices shall cease. And if there be not something extraordinary in the case, why do the modern Jews (they knowing how express and positive God's institution and command is about Sacrifices ) live in the omission of them? (for as to that which some speak of as to their annual Sacrificing even now at the time of the great Expiation, I cannot give any great credit to it).

Let not any think that all this Discourse (concerning the reference of the ancient Sacrifices to Christ the true Sacrifice ) is unnecessary; for I have gained two things by it;

• (1.) That the Lord Jesus is the great Sacrifice; all former Sacrifices pointing to him as the end, matter, substance, accomplishment of them.
• (2.) That he is also a true and real Sacrifice; for was there reality in the Type, and shall there not be the same (with advantage) in the Anti-type? or shall they be shadows of a shadow? shall there be such a shell and no kernel, such a bone and no marrow in it?

But to go on! In the old Sacrifices there were these Six things:

• 1. The Person who did institute, ordain, and appoint the use of them; who was God himself, (whose institution of them though it be not expressed in the Scriptures yet it may very strongly be infer'd from them).
• 2. The Person unto whom they were offered; and he also was God himself.
• 3. The Persons offering (viz.) the Priests, to whom by divine appointment this work was committed, and it was a great part of their work and one great end of their Office, For every high Priest taken from among men, is ordained for men in things partaining to God, that he may offer both Gifts and Sacrifices for sins, Heb. 5.1.
• 4. The Matter of the Sacrifice, or the thing offered: which was very various according to what God was pleased to specify and appoint, Oxen, Bulls, Heifers, Sheep, Rams, Goats, &c.
• 5. The Oblation itself: when the Beast was slain it was to be offered up, and then part of the blood thereof was to be carried into the Holy of Holy's, there to be presented before the Lord; and the main stress of the expiation lay not upon the representation (which followed after), but upon the mactation and solemn oblation of the Sacrifice.
• 6. The Altar upon which all was to be offered.

Now answerably and in correspondency to all these,

• 1. God instituted, appointed, ordained Christ to be the Sacrifice; it was his will and ordination that his Son should offer up himself a propitiatory or expiatory Sacrifice. Rom. 3.25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. 2 Cor. 5.19. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself &c. 1 Pet. 1.20. Who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world &c. It was as much the appointment of God that Christ (the true Sacrifice) should die, be slain, offered up, as that under the Law any of those Sacrifices should be so used: and as from all eternity he decreed and appointed Christ to be the Sacrifice, so in time he fitted and prepared him for his being so; therefore saith Christ But a body hast thou prepared me, (without which he could not have been a Sacrifice).
• 2. Christ offered up himself to God. He had to do with God as he stood in the quality and respect of a Sacrifice, for this was a part of his Priestly Office which primarily refers to God; as King and Prophet he hath to do with us, but as Priest he had to do with God (that he might propitiate and atone him). So 'twas with the Aaronical Priests, they were ordained for men in things [pertaining to God] Heb. 5.1. and surely so it must be too with the great Priest whom they did typify. Heb. 2.17.— that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things [pertaining to God]: The Apostle speaks it expressly,— and hath given himself for us, an offering, and [a Sacrifice to God] for a sweet smelling savor.
• 3. Here was the Person offering, and that was Christ himself: he as Mediator, as God-Man was the Priest to offer up himself. They under the Law had variety of Sacrifices and variety of Priests, we under the Gospel have but one Sacrifice and one Priest; who first offered up himself and now continues (in another way) to offer up our duties and services to God.
• 4. As Christ was the Priest offering so he was the Sacrifice offered; for he was both (which was unusual and extraordinary ). The Levitical Priests and the Sacrifices which they offered were distinct; they were not bound to offer themselves, but our Lord Jesus was Priest and Sacrifice too; in his Person he was the Offerer, in his human Nature he was the thing offered. 'Twas necessary that he should offer something, For every high Priest is ordained to offer gifts and Sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have also somewhat to offer, Heb. 8.3. what then did he offer? such things as had been offered before? the blood of bulls and goats? no, he offered his own blood, Heb. 9.12. his own body, Heb. 10. 4, 5, 6, 7, 10.— through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all: that very body which was so miraculously framed, with which he lived here on earth, which he carried up with him afterwards to heaven, that very body (I say) he freely offered up upon the Cross as a Sacrifice to God: His Soul comes in too, (but that's himself ) Isa. 53.10. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin: His whole self in his whole Human Nature was the matter of this Sacrifice; Eph. 5.2.— and hath given himself for us, an offering &c. Heb. 1.3.— when he had by himself purged our sins —Heb. 9.14.— who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God. —So Heb. 7.27. The Text saith for sin God condemned sin in the flesh; by which flesh the Apostle understands the whole Manhood of Christ, and that was the Sacrifice for sin by which Sin was condemned.
• 5. There was Christ's formal and proper oblation performed upon the Cross, by and upon which the sins of Believers were to be expiated. That there was in Christ an oblation none deny, but that this was done at his Death or here on earth, and was expiatory (in that sense which we put upon it), both of these are vehemently denied by the SOCINIANS; (but I shall have occasion to vindicate both by and by).
• 6. In Christ's Sacrifice there was an Altar too, namely his Godhead. The Altar sanctified the gift Matth. 23.19. so 'twas here; the Deity of Christ did not only sustain and strengthen his Human Nature in his being a Sacrifice therein, but it also gave merit and efficacy to his Sacrifice: for how did that come to be so meritorious and effectual for the good of Sinners? but from this that he who offered up himself was God as well as Man; therefore the Apostle speaking of the efficacy of this Sacrifice above the Levitical Sacrifices, lays it upon Christ's Godhead, Heb. 9.14. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit (his Deity), offered himself &c.

The chiefest difficultys not lying in these things, I do not (you see) make any long stay upon them; but there being a twofold Enquiry which will carry us into the very bowels of the main Truth, and take in what is most struck at by our Adversaries, that I would rather to spend my time upon. The Lord Jesus being a Sacrifice it will be asked

• 1. What a kind of a Sacrifice he was?
• 2. When and where he was that Sacrifice?

To the First I answer, he was a propitiatory or expiatory Sacrifice, answering unto (yet infinitely exceeding) the Jewish expiatory Sacrifices, by which he was shadowed out and typify'd. The proof and illustration of this very thing is the design and business of the Apostle in that Epistle (I mean that written to the Hebrews ), which gives us more light into it than all the Books that ever were written before or besides. Pray read (again and again) the 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 Chapters thereof, and you will find the Apostle there doing these three things;

• —(1.) He proves that Christ was not only a Sacrifice but that he was (truly and really) an expiatory Sacrifice: for he instances in all the proper, constitutive ingredients into and effects of the Law-expiatory Sacrifices, all of which he applies and brings down to Christ.
• (2.) He shows the analogy and resemblance 'twixt those expiatory Sacrifices and this of Christ, and what respect they all carried to this.
• (3.) He shows wherein and how far the latter exceeded the former.

The discussing of these three Heads takes up the greatest part of that most excellent Commentary upon the Law-Sacrifices; the particular Texts in it I will not at present cite (as they are proper to what I have now laid down), but that will be done in what will follow.

For our better procedure in speaking to this important Truth, before I can well fall upon the close handling of it, it will not be amiss for us a little to cast our eye upon and to take a short view of the Jewish Sacrifices. With the general Nature whereof I intend not at all to meddle, only give me leave (that being proper to the business in hand and indeed necessary for the better understanding of it,) to show how these were diversify'd and distinguished. Concerning which, several Divisions and Distinctions are given of them, but the best and shortest is this viz. Some were gratulatory and some Propitiatory, or some Eucharistical and some Expiatory.

Eucharistical were those that were designed for the expressing of gratitude, for the giving of thanks and praise to the Lord upon the receiving of mercy: of which you read Lev. 7.15.—22.29. Psal. 50.14. Hos. 14.2. (but these I am not concerned about).

Expiatory were those that were designed for the atoning and pacifying of God, the averting of his anger, the doing away the guilt of Sin, and the preventing or removing of the punishment of it: these were the Sacrifices which took up the greatest room in the body of Mosaical Sacrifices, and which did in special point to the grand Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, and to that too as expiatory.

Now these expiatory Sacrifices were many and various, all of them carrying something in them whereby they differed and were distinguished each from the other; which differences (with the grounds and reasons of them) if we could exactly hit upon, 'twould be of marvelous great use to us in many things; but (alas) excepting where the Gospel itself opens this for us, we are much in the dark about it! the Jewish Writers that should help therein contribute but very little help (as they tell us who are most conversant in them). If we take a brief and general Scheme of them, this is clear: the old expiatory Sacrifices differed in the matter of them; for in some 'twas living Creatures, in others 'twas what grew from the earth; and often these two were join'd, the Zebach and the Mincah going together in the same Sacrifice, (as in the daily Sacrifice Exod. 29.39, 40. and in diverse others). They differed in the Rites used about them (all of which were prescribed by God himself); some were to be poured out, some burnt; some to be slain and offered by the ordinary Priests, some by the High Priest himself; the blood of some to be carried into the Holy of Holy's, of others not so; some to be wholly consumed; and God to have all (as in the Holocausts ), some but in part consumed, in which of what was left, one part was to go to the Priests (as in the Sin and Trespas-offering ), and the other to the Persons who brought the Sacrifice (as in the Peace-offering, provided that that which was offered was for private persons, for if it was offered for the whole Congregation then no private person might share in the residue, Levite. 23.19, 20.) They differed in the Time which was appointed for them; for some were to be offered every day, morning and evening, (called the daily Sacrifice ); Exod. 29.38, 39, 40. Numb. 28.3, 4, 5. 2 Chron. 8.13. 1 Chron. 16.40. Ezek. 46.13, 14. Dan. 8.11.—9.21.—11.31.—12.11. Nehem. 10.33. Ezra 9.4, 5.—Some to be offered but every Sabbath day, Numb. 28.9, 10. Some at the New Moons Numb. 28.11. Some at the revolution of the Sabbatical year Levite. 25.2. &c. Some at the great Jubile Levite. 25.8. &c. Some at the Solemn Feasts, as that of the Passover Exod. 12. Numb. 28.26. of Pentecost Lev. 23.17. &c. of Tabernacles Numb. 29.12. Some but once a year at the great aniversary Expiation Levite. 16. per tot. They differed in the Rise of them; some being purely from the will of the Offerer (the Free-will Offerings ), Levite. 7.16. Levite. 22.21. others occasioned by some special emergency of Providence, (when some eminent mercy was received, or some great judgment to be removed &c. 2 Sam. 6.13, 17. 1 Chron. 15.26. 2 Chron. 29.21. &c. 2 Sam. 24. ult.) Others were constant being set and stated by God himself, (as those that have been already mentioned). They differed according to the Persons for whom they were appointed; some for the Prince, some for the Priests, some for private men, some for the whole Community, (for each of which directions are given Lev. 4.) And then as to the kinds or Species of them there were the Burnt-offerings (about which Rules are set down Lev. 1.), Meat-offerings (of which Levite. 2.), Peace-offerings (Levite. 3.), the Sin-offering (Levite. 4.), the Trespass-offering (Levite. 5. and 6.) Some reduce all to three, the Burnt-offering, the Peace-offering, the Sin-offering; Some to two, the Holoucast and the Thank-offering; (but of such different apprehensions there's no end).

Now though these Sacrifices were thus diversify'd amongst themselves, yet the most (if not all) of them agreed in this that they were in their Use, End, and Effects of an expiatory nature: I say all, for unquestionably it belonged not only to the Sacrifices used at the anniversary Expiation nor only to the Sin-offering and Trespass-offering to expiate sin, but all the rest (more or or less) were designed for this end and accordingly did produce this effect. Agreeably to which, Christ (the true and great Sacrifice ) in the offering up of himself to God did truly, properly expiate sin; for if they did so, he then much more: because they in their expiation were types of him in his expiation, now whatever is in the type must needs be in the thing typified; as also because their expiation was done in the strength and virtue of Christ's Sacrifice, now surely that which gives expiatory virtue to other things must needs have such virtue in itself.

For the better opening and proving of Christ's being an expiatory Sacrifice, by making a collation or parallel between him and the expiatory Sacrifices under the Law; there are these Four things which I shall endeavor to make good:

• 1. That in those expiatory Sacrifices, whatever was laid upon them is was for the sin of the People, as the impulsive and meritorious Cause thereof; and that so it was with Christ in his Sufferings.
• 2. That those Sacrifices were substituted in the place and stead of the Offenders themselves, bearing their punishment; and that so it was with Christ in reference to Sinners.
• 3. That those Sacrifices were to be offered up, killed, slain, consumed, and in that way they became expiatory; and that so it was with Christ.
• 4. That by those Sacrifices God was actually atoned and propitiated, the expiation and remission of Sin procured; and that so it was by Christ: These things being cleared and proved it will be evident that Christ was a true expiatory Sacrifice; (I will go over them as briefly as the nature of the thing will admit of).

1. First (I say) in those expiatory Sacrifices whatever was laid upon them it was for the Sin of the people, as the impulsive and meritorious Cause thereof: For wherefore were the poor innocent Beasts and living Creatures killed and slain as they were? what had they done that so many of them must be put to death from day today? did God delight in making his Temple a slaughter-house? was it his pleasure to have it thus that he might show his dominion and sovereignty over the Creature? surely that was not the great thing which he designed therein! he had other ways (which might seem more suitable to his goodness and pity to his Creatures) wherein he might have made known his dominion over them: And besides, if this was the thing only aimed at why must the people lay their hands upon the Cattle when they were sacrificed? why must they confess their sins over them (as you will see under the next Head they were to do)? these rites evidently declare, that God did not here proceed in the way of absolute dominion, but that there was sin in the case as the procuring Cause of all this: and if so, they having no sin of their own for which they could thus suffer, their suffering must be resolved into the sin of the people as that which brought it upon them. So it was with Christ our Sacrifice; his Sufferings were exceeding sharp, his precious life was taken from him, he died upon the Cross, endured hard usage indeed; whence did all this befall him? was there not some special Cause why it should be thus with God's own Son? yes: what was that? why, Sin, Sin was that cause: but whose sin? not his own, for he was perfectly free from all sin; he knew no sin 2 Cor. 5.21. he was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from Sinners, Heb. 7.26. a Lamb without blemish and without spot 1 Pet. 1.19. it must be our sin then that was the meritorious Cause of all Christ's sufferings. Dan. 9.26. After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: Isa. 53.4, 5, 6. Surely, he hath born our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Rom. 3.25. Who was delivered for our offenses ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) and raised again for our justification: 'tis the same Preposition in both branches but its sense is different, (which difference rises from the different nature of the matter spoken of); for when 'tis joined with sins or offenses it imports that they were the meritorious Cause of Christ's Sufferings, but when 'tis join'd with Christ's resurrection and the Sinners justification there its signification and import is final, (yet too in such a sense the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 may be taken meritoriously in the latter as well as in the former branch ). SOCINUS tells us that this (with some other parallel expressions ) only notes our sins to be the occasion, but not the impulsive Cause of Christ's Sufferings; as also that the particle 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is both here and else where always taken in a final, never in any meritorious sense: But most untruly, for 'tis said Eph. 5.6.— because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for these things as those which merit and bring down the Wrath of God upon Sinners. But I will not stay upon the refuting of the usual Cavils and false assertions about this, because I conceive this Head may not be so proper to that which I am upon; for I am not now speaking to the Sufferings or Death of Christ under the consideration of a punishment (to which a meritorious Cause doth point), but of a Sacrifice: The expiatory Sacrifices 'tis very true were punished for the Sins of men, but yet that wherein they were expiatory, and as they were expiatory more immediately pointed to something else, (namely to that which will follow in the succeeding Particulars ); and so 'tis here too with respect to Christ. Whose Death (as is usually observed) falls under a threefold consideration, 'twas a Punishment, a Sacrifice, a Ransom; with respect to the First, the effect thereof was Satisfaction; to the Second, the effect thereof was Atonement, to the Third, the effect thereof was Redemption: now I at present considering it in the Second notion as 'tis a Sacrifice, have not so much to do with that which refers to it in the notion of a punishment; therefore this first particular I pass over.

2. Secondly, in the Levitical Expiatory Sacrifices there was the substitution of them in the place and stead of the Offenders themselves; the Peoples sin and the punishment due to them thereupon was laid upon the thing sacrificed; insomuch that whereas they should have died by surrogation and commutation the poor Beasts died for them. This was the great thing intended and designed in those Sacrifices; and that it was really so done in them the Scripture is very clear: Take that one place: Levite. 17.11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the Altar, to make an atonement for your Souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the Soul. In all the four Books of Moses (which treat so much upon Sacrifices ) there is not a more pithy and plain account given of their Use and End than here in this place: the Lord in the 10 ^th Vers. severely prohibits the eating of blood, in this Vers. he backs his prohibition with a double Argument;

• (1.) because the life of the flesh was in the blood:
• (2.) because he had set that apart for an high and sacred Use, viz. to be used in Sacrifices in order to atonement; and I have given it you upon the Altar, to make atonement &c. (for this great effect mainly lay upon the blood, it is the blood that maketh atonement for the Soul ): Now mark it 'tis to make atonement [for your Souls], and it makes atonement [for the Soul] (that is) in the stead of your Soul (he speaking to the people of Israel ), so that in the blood Sacrific'd there was Soul for Soul, Life for Life, the Soul and Life of the Sacrifice for the more precious Soul and Life of the Sinner; was not here substitution of the one in the room of the other? Hence it is that the Sacrifices were said to bear the iniquities of the people (because of the transferring of the guilt and punishment of sin over to them); so you read Levite. 16.22. Levite. 10.17.

Hence also was the laying on of hands upon the Sacrifice (sometimes by the Priests, sometimes by the People ); you have it prescribed in the Burnt-offering Levite. 1.4. in the Peace-offering Levite. 3.2, 8, 13. in the Sin-offering Levite. 4.15, 24, 29, 33. at the great Expiation, AARON was to lay both his hands upon the head of the live-Goat, and to confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel &c. Levite. 16.21. Now what might be the meaning of this rite? was it to signify that the thing offered was now Deo sacrum (as being set apart for God and consecrated for his use, upon which account imposition of hands was used in other Cases)? or was it expressive of obtestation, to hold forth the people's praying to God Quicquid à nobis peccatum est sit in hujus victimae caput, wherein-soever we have offended let all be laid upon the head of this Victime? or did they by this testify the sense of their deserts to die themselves? these things I grant may very well be taken in; but the main thing held forth in it, was the translation of the Sinners guilt to the Sacrifice and the substitution of it in his stead. Whenever the people thus laid their hands upon the Sacrifice, they did in effect say upon this Beast we lay all our sins; and this was the primary intendment of that rite. And had there not been a strange conveyance or imputation of something of this nature to the things sacrificed, I would fain know a reason why the messenger that only went with the Scape-Goat into the Wilderness, as also why he who only burnt the residue of the bullock whose blood had been carried into the Holy of Holy's, I say why both of these should be accounted unclean; so unclean, as that before they had been purify'd and washed they were not to be admitted into the Congregation, (for so God enjoin'd Levite. 16.26, 27, 28.). And now after all this, when the great Lord and Sovereign was pleased to have it thus, hath given out so full a declaration of himself about it, when Scripture is so clear, yea & when Nature too (as you will hear) hath given such a confirmation of it, I say, after and notwithstanding all this for any yet to deny it, to bring their little Objections against it, (as that because there was no communion of Nature and Species betwixt Men & Beasts, therefore there could be no substitution &c.) this must needs discover excess of pride and folly: The thing possibly (in some respects) may seem somewhat strange, but it becomes us to acquiesce in what God himself was pleased to determine upon, and then to order and reveal in his Law.

From these Sacrifices I proceed to the much higher Sacrifice, Christ himself; where we shall find an exact correspondency between the type and the antitype, the one fully answering to the other. Did they carry substitution in them? that eminently was in Christ: he indeed substituted himself in the Sinners room, took our guilt upon him and put himself in our place, died not only for our good but in our stead, did undergo what we should have undergone, vouchsafed to die that we might not die, bare himself in his Soul and body (as our 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) the punishment due to us; here was substitution far above what was in the Law-sacrifices. But this SOCINUS and his Followers cannot endure to hear of; O they rally all their force, unite all their strength, set themselves with all their might to oppose and beat down this great Truth! there are but few of the Evangelical Mysteries which these pernicious Gospel-destroyers do not assault (some way or other), but as to that which is now before us ( Christ's suffering, dying, satisfying in our stead, the sum of Gospel-revelation, the great Article of the Christian Faith, the main prop and foundation of the believers Hope ), this they make their fiercest assaults upon; whatever stands (if they may have their will) this shall not: But alas poor men! when they have done their worst, it will stand firm upon its sure basis as an eternal, immovable Truth; 'tis so established in the Word and so rooted in the hearts of Christians, that (in spite of the most subtle and fierce oppositions of all gain-sayers) it shall abide forever. Well! however let us see what ground we have for our belief of it; and surely upon enquiry it will appear we have enough and enough. If the Gospel be not clear in this, 'tis clear in nothing; and blessed be the Lord, who in a point of such vast importance to Souls hath given the world a revelation of it so plain and full! Substitution in the case of the old Sacrifices is not so evidently held forth in the Law, but substitution with respect to Christ and his Sacrifice is more evidently held forth in the Gospel: Rom. 5.6. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died [for the ungodly]: Vers. 8. But God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet Sinners Christ died [for us]: 1 Pet. 3.18. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, [the just for the unjust]: 1 Pet. 4.1. Forasmuh then as Christ hath suffered [for us] in the Flesh &c. 1 Pet. 2.21.— because Christ also suffered [for us] &c. Joh. 10.15. I lay down my life [for the sheep]. Joh. 11.50. Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die [for the people] and that the whole nation perish not. Heb. 2.9. That he by the grace of God should taste death [for every man] 2 Cor. 5.14, 15.— if one died [for all] then were all dead: And that he died [for all], that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died [for them], and rose again. In all these places the Preposition 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is used, which (though not always yet) most frequently notes substitution, the doing or suffering of something by one in the stead and place of others, (see Rom. 9.3. 2 Cor. 5.20.): and so 'tis all along here to be taken, where it being used of Persons, the nature of the matter spoken of, the use of the word in parallel Texts, as also in Greek Authors, gives this sense the preference before any other. But suppose this may be eluded, the other Preposition 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 proves the thing undeniably; Matth. 20.28. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many, [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ]: 1 Tim. 2.6. Who gave himself a ransom [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] for all: Christ did not barely deliver poor captive-Souls, but he delivered them in the way of a ransom, which ransom he paid down for them in their stead; so as that what they themselves should have paid that he was pleased to pay for them. This is and must be the sense and import of the word, for everyone knows that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Composition (out of that I know it hath other senses, see Heb. 12.2. 1 Cor. 11.15.) signifies but two things, either opposition and contrariety, or substitution and commutation; so that the matter will come to this, we must either carry it thus that Christ gave himself a ransom against Sinners (than which nothing more absurd), or else thus that he gave himself a ransom in the stead and place of Sinners (than which nothing more true).

I might further prove it by 2 Cor. 5.21. He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Gol. 3.13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: If he had not so been in his own person, woe to poor Sinners! they must then have lie'ne under it themselves to all eternity. What a full and convincing Chapter is that of Isa. 53. for the proof of that which I am upon! 'twould take up a great deal of time to go over it, and to draw out the strength and emphasis of the several expressions in it; I must not engage so far. But surely the tongue of man could not utter, nor the head of man invent, any Words or Phrases more plain and apposite for the setting forth of Christ's substitution, than what you have there: the truth is, its edge is every way as sharp against the SOCINIAN who denies this, as 'tis against the JEW who denies Christ's Messiah-ship. (Vers. 4.) Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows &c. (Vers. 5.) The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed: (Vers. 6.) The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all, (or) the Lord hath made the iniquities of us all to meet on him: (Vers. 7.) He was oppressed & he was afflicted &c. or (as the words are rendered by some) it was exacted and he answered: (Vers. 8.) For the transgression of my people was he stricken: (Vers. 11.)— for he shall bear their iniquities: (Vers. 12.)— and he bare the sin of many. Is not all this spoken of our Lord Christ? and is there not in it sufficient proof of his susception of the Sinners guilt, and bearing the punishment due for it? It runs much in the style of the old Sacrifices; they had the sins of the people laid upon them Levite. 16.21. and the Priests too are said to bear their iniquity Levite. 10.17. that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things Exod. 28.38. answerably to which, the Prophet tells us that Christ (our Sacrifice and Priest too) had the iniquities of all believers laid upon him, and that he bare them in his own person. So the Apostle Heb. 9.28. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many &c. and that's a great Scripture 1 Pet. 2.24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree—, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 he [took them up with him when he ascended the Cross; the Apostle uses the word Heb. 7.27. Who needeth not daily as those high Priests to offer up [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to carry up ] Sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once when he offered up himself [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , when he carried up himself ]: So in the place cited but now, Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : 'tis an allusion to the Priests who carried up the Sacrifice (and with it the sins of the people) to the Altar; Christ did the same with respect to his Cross, whither he first carried up sin and then he carried or bore it away.

I have but just mentioned these Scriptures to prove the thing in hand, to which should I have spoken as largely as the matter in them would have born, or should I now fall upon the refutation of the Adversaries Replys (such as they are) by which they endeavor to weaken them, I should certainly run myself upon unpardonable prolixity.

To back this notion of these expiatory Sacrifices (which were of God's own appointment & institution ), I thought (though it would have been but as the holding of a candle to the Sun) to have shown, that it was the very notion of the Heathens themselves in their idolatrous Sacrifices; which (whether persons or things ) they always looked upon as substituted in the room & stead of the offenders themselves: but I have altered my purpose, because I conceive it will be most proper at the close of the Four Heads which I am upon, to bring in all together of what I have to say upon those Pagan-Sacrifices, by way of parallel with the true Sacrifices.

'It is no time for us to divide amongst ourselves, or unnecessarily to run into parties, when the common Enemy is in the Field, yea, making fierce assaults upon us; to defend ourselves against whom, all our united strength will be little enough. Otherwise two things should here be further inquired into: As

• 1. It having been said, that Christ did so far substitute himself in our stead as to undergo the punishment due to us, it may be query'd Whether he underwent the idem, the very self-same punishment that we should have undergone, or only the tantundem, that which did amount and was equivalent thereunto? To which I answer (though I am very loath to meddle in points wherein persons eminent for Learning and Piety seem to differ), that in different respects both may be affirmed: The punishment which Christ indur'd if it be considered in its Substance, Kind or Nature, so 'twas the same with what the Sinner himself should have undergone; but if it be considered with respect to certain Circunstances, Adjuncts or Accidents, which attend that punishment (as inflicted upon the Sinner ), so 'twas but equivalent and not the same. The punishment due to the Sinner was Death, the curse of the Law (upon the breach of the first Covenant ); now this Christ underwent for he was made a curse for us Gal. 3.13; the Adjuncts or Circunstances attending this death were the eternity of it, desperation going along with it, &c. these Christ was freed from, (the dignity of his Person supplying the former, the sanctity of his Person securing him against the latter ): therefore with reference to these (and to some other things which might be mentioned) it was but the tantundem, not the idem. But suppose there had been nothing of sameness, nothing beyond equivalency in what Christ suffered, yet that (say some) would be enough for the making good of the main Truth against the Adversary; for 'twas not necessary to his substitution that he should undergo in every respect the same punishment which the Offender himself was liable unto, but if he shall undergo so much as may satisfy the Law's threatening, and vindicate the Lawgiver in his truth, justice, and righteous government, that was enough: now that was unquestionably done by Christ.
• 2. Secondly, it having also been said that our Savior took upon him the guilt of our sins, it may further be query'd Whether he took the guilt it-self of them, or whether he did anything more than bear the punishment due for them? Answ. he first took the guilt upon him, and then he bare the punishment. Far be it from me to assert anything which may reflect the least dishonor upon Christ (I dread with my soul such a thing); but I see nothing, in the asserting of his voluntary susception of our guilt which hath any tendency to that, therefore I hope I may affirm it safely and confidently: 'tis so far from that, that 'twas the highest manifestation of his Love and that which was necessary for our Justification. There is in sin the macula and the reatus, the stain (or filth ) and the guilt of it; or there is in it the fact, the fault, and the guilt: the two former are solely ours, but the third and last Christ was pleased to take upon himself. What is guilt but obligation to punishment? if the holy Jesus will freely put himself under that obligation what can be said against it? certainly that he might do & yet (in himself) be as holy and innocent as ever he was, and neither be the committer of Sin nor in the least be defiled by it, (for the macula and the reatus are two different things). And indeed I do not well see how he could be said to bear the punishment of sin (that being strictly taken), if first he should not take its guilt: We all grant Christ's sufferings to be penal, but how could they have been so without guilt? therefore having no guilt of his own he must be looked upon as assuming ours, upon which he might be said properly to undergo punishment. Had no guilt lain upon him he might have suffered but the could not have been punished, ( punishment always necessarily presupposing guilt ). I would not stretch too far allusive and metaphorical descriptions of Christ; but yet in all-such that which is the first and most natural import of them must be improved and made use of: Now such a description of Christ is his being a Surety; of which what is the first and natural import? surely this, a Surety is one who takes the debt of another upon himself, and so (in case of the debtors insufficiency) becomes liable to the payment of it: as to the consequences and inconveniencies that follow if he submits to them that's but more remote, but the first and proper thing in his suretyship is his making of the debt to be his own: the application of this to the thing in hand is plain enough. 2 Cor. 5.21. He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no Sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him: what is this being made sin? is it Christ's being a Sacrifice for sin? yes, but that's not all; it notes also (I am sure I am not singular in this interpretation ) his being under the guilt of sin: where Christ is said to bear sin that may possibly signify no more than the bearing of the punishment thereof, (as the phrase is used Levi • . 5.1.—20.17. 2 King. 7.9.); but when 'tis said he was made sin that implies his voluntary susception of the Sinners guilt: And that this is the sense of the words in this place is evident from what follows, — that we might be made the righteousness of God in him: 'tis not said he bare the punishment of sin, that we thereupon might not be punished, but he was made sin (under the guilt of it, for 'tis opposed to righteousness ), that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, (i.e.) that he taking our guilt, (& so taking it away ), as that was made over to him so his righteousness might be made over to us upon which we might be made guiltless and righteous before God: For my part (unless this sense be admitted) I do not understand what tolerable interpretation can be put upon the words. He's said to carry up our sins in his own body &c. 1 Pet. 2.24. did he carry up the punishment of them? that's somewhat harsh; 'twas their guilt that he carried up with him when he ascended the Cross. This was the very way wherein he must justify and save; for as he could not have saved us if first he had not taken our Nature, so he could not have justified us or taken away our guilt if first he had not taken it upon himself. For the macula peccati that he was not capable of, therefore that shall be removed another way; but for guilt (it being not contracted but assumed ) that he was capable of, and that was the thing for which satisfaction was to be made; therefore that he must take upon him and so take it away. O the transcendent love of Christ in this submission! his righteousness made over to us and our sin made over to him? we made righteous and he made guilty (by imputation and in a Law-sense )? what grace can be higher than this!

I have done with the Second thing, Christ's substituting himself in our stead in correspondency with what was done in the old Jewish Sacrifices; the Third follows, viz. those Sacrifices were to be consumed and slain, their blood to be shed and offered, and so they became expiatory. Such as consisted or were made up of inanimate things, were to be consumed; others that consisted of living Creatures were to be killed: As for instance, the Meat-offering that was to be burnt Levite. 2.1, 2; it follows indeed V. 12. the oblation of the First-fruits was not to be burnt (they being to be kept for the Priests use Numb. 18.13.) but the Meat-offering offered by and for the Priests was to be burnt (Vers. 14.16.): The Sacrifices of this kind and nature were to be consumed as well as others, for where their materials were liquid, those were to be poured out; where solid, those were to be bruised and burnt; still in every Sacrifice some way or other there was destructio rei oblatae. But eminently this was true in those wherein living Creatures were to be Sacrificed, they were to be destroyed or consumed indeed: And 'tis observable, the higher the Sacrifice was the greater was the destruction or consumption of it; for in such as were more ordinary (as those that were offered for private persons ), there commonly but part of the Sacrifice was consumed and part reserved for the Priests; but in the higher and more extraordinary (such as were designed for the Priests, and the whole Community, especially those whose blood was carried into the Holy of Holies at the solemn, anniversary Expiation ) in them all was to be consumed; (read Levite. 6.30.—16.27.) The Scape-goat seems to be an exception against this destroying, even of the great expiatory Sacrifices, it being not to be slain but sent into the Wilderness by some fit messenger; but the truth is, though that (for some typical reasons ) was not presently and down-right destroyed, yet virtually and in effect it was; for upon the sending of it into the Wilderness it would in a little time be either starved to death or devoured by wild Beasts. But to come more closely to the business! The living Creatures in Sacrifices were to be killed, & then after that their blood (in a special manner) was to be offered upon the Altar, it being that upon which the expiation did mainly depend: So the Lord himself tells us Levite. 17.11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the Altar, to make an atonement for your Souls; for it is the blood that ma • eth an atonement for the Soul: where the first words, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, come in not only as a reason to back the prohibition that went before Vers. 10, (in which notion I considered them before); but also as a Reason of that which follows, viz. why God appointed the use of blood in Sacrifices for atonement; 'twas upon this ground because therein was the life of the Creature, now he designing Life for Life therefore he pitched upon blood wherein the life did lie. The Apostle tells us Heb. 9.22. And almost all things are by the Law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission; and if you look into the Levitical Sacrifices you will find what he saith to be true: In the Burnt-offering for private Persons there was killing and blood Levite. 1.5. the same in the Peace-offerings Levite. 3.2, 8, 13. the same in the Sin-offerings Levite. 4.7, 16, 17, 18. (and so in the rest). And the observation of these commands (which run so much upon blood ) was so necessary, that should any of the Priests have dared to have entered into God's presence in any other way than by Sacrifices, and the blood thereof, he would not have taken it well at their hands; yea, should they have brought into the Temple never so many Bullocks, Rams, Goats &c. and not have slain them, or having slain them had not presented their blood before him according to his Institution, they would have done no good either to themselves or others; for God (to show his Justice, Hatred of Sin &c) stood upon blood, and blood he would have. From all this we may infer, that those old Sacrifices did not expiate as bare Antecedents or Conditions (without which God would not pardon), or as the offering of them carried in it some Obedience to God's Commands (both of which were common to many other things as well as to them); surely there was more in it than so! for can we reasonably think, that God would have been so positive and so express in his Injunctions about somany Sacrifices, so severe in the punishing the neglect of them, have ordered the taking away the lives of so many Creatures, and have so much insisted upon their death and blood in order to expiation; had he looked upon them only as pre-requisite and remoter Conditions of pardon, or common acts of Obedience, and that as such only they should be expiatory? Certainly had there been nothing in them more than this, the merciful Creator would have spared the blood of the poor Creatures, and would have pitched upon some other course which might have seemed (at least) more consistent with his Wisdom and Goodness! We may conclude them therefore to be Means instituted by God in order to atonement and expiation, to the effecting of which, by virtue of his own institution and the mevit of the great Sacrifice to come, they had a direct and effectual tendency.

This foundation I have laid for the better understanding of the destroying, killing, shedding of blood that was in the typical Sacrifices, I come now to build upon it with respect to the real Sacrifice, Christ Jesus. In conformity to them therefore, Christ was slain, died upon the Cross, his body broken, his blood spilled &c. all which speaks him to be a true expiatony Sacrifice: Had he not died and suffered he could not have been such, but upon that he is not only such a Sacrifice really but eminently, (the dignity of his Person putting a superlative worth and • fficacy upon his Death and Sacrifice ). O what was the death of Greatures to the death of God's Son? what was the blood of Beasts to the blood of him who was God Acts. 20.28.? for such a • person to die, to shed his blood for the expiation of Sin? here was a Sacrifice indeed! And surely one great end of God in ordering the death of the old Sacrifices, was to convince the World of the necessity of the death of this far greater Sacrifice; by them he designed (in ways best known to himself) to lead men to a dying and bleeding Christ. How much doth the Scripture spake of his blood! and (though his whole humiliation must be taken in, as making up his Sacrifice, yet in special) what a stress and emphasis doth it put upon his Death and Blood (wherein his greatest humiliation lay), with respect to their influence upon the good of Sinners! Eph. 1.7. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins: Rom. 3.25. whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood &c. Rom. 5.9. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 1. Joh. 1.7.— and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Rev. 1.5. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood. 1 Pet. 1.19.— but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot. Mat. 26.28. This is my blood of the New-Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Heb. 9.12, &c. Neither by the blood of Goats and Calves, but by his own Blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us: For if the blood of Bulls and of Goats &c. Col. 1.14.— having made peace through the blood of his Cross. Surely there must be some special reason why this blood of Christ is so often mentioned, and why the great benefits, which Sinners receive by him, are in such a way of eminency ascribed to it, (of which some account will be given in the following particular). O the severity of God's Justice, which nothing could satisfy but the blood of his own Son! O the love of Christ, who thought not the best blood in his veins too good for Sinners! O the truth of his Satisfaction, for what could such blood be spilled for but for that? what end could be proportionable to such a medium but Satisfaction? O the admirable harmony between type and antitype, the shadow and the substance, Sacrifice and Sacrifice! under the Law 'twas blood, under the Gospel' twas blood too, (only that was common blood but this excellent and precious ).

4. Fourthly, if we compare Christ with the Jewish Sacrifices in their Ends and Effects, that will further demonstrate him to be a true expiatory Sacrifice. What were they? atonement and expiation; by them God was to be atoned and Sin to be expiated: now both of these were designed and admirably effected in and by Christ, therefore he was what I am proving.

That those Sacrifices were of an atoning nature, and appointed for that end, what can be more plain? Here the so often cited Text (which indeed is the key to the whole body of the Levitical-Sacrifices ) doth recur, Levite. 17.11.— I have given it to you upon the Altar (for what end?) to make an atonement for your Souls: where the word used (as in very many other places) is Caphar, which signifies to pacify, appease, or assuage the anger of one that is incensed; so its taken Gen. 32.20. I will (saith Jacob concerning his brother Esau ) appease him with the present that goeth before me; (so 2 Sam. 21.3.): it signifies also to cover, to redeem &c. but this of atoning or pacifying is most usual. Now in order to this atoning God appointed Sacrifices, the shedding of whose blood was to make an atonement (saith the Lord here), and he goes over it again for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the Soul. All along in the several kinds of Sacrifices it runs, it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him, the Priest shall make an atonement for them &c. this always comes in as the great end or effect of the Law-Sacrifices: Whence they are said to be of a sweet savor unto the Lord, (not only because of their pleasingness to God, but also because they made him propitious to and well-pleased with such as had offended him); so Levite. 1.9, 13, 17. 'It is the same word, but sometimes 'tis rendered by reconciling; as Levite. 6.30. No Sin-offering — to reconcile withal in the holy place— Levite. 8.15.— to make reconciliation upon it. We find when at any time in some particular judgments the anger of God did break forth, either against the people or against particular persons, presently they betook themselves to Sacrifices thereby to atone and propitiate him: Numb. 16.46. And Moses said unto Aaron, take a Censer and put fire therein from off the Altar, and put on incense: and go quickly unto the Congregation and make an atonement for them; for there is wrath gone out from the Lord, the plague is begun: 2 Sam. 24, 25. And David built there an Altar unto the Lord, and offered Burnt-offerings and Peace-offerings, so the Lord was entreated for the Land and the plague was staid from Israel.

As to the other End or Effect viz. Expiation, that also belonged to Sacrifices; they had a power or virtue in them to cleanse and purify from Sins guilt, to procure pardon and remission (whence they were called Expiatory, ), and had it not been for this effect they could not have passed under that denomination. A full proof of it you have in that one Sacrifice, the Heifer, which was to be offered for the cleansing of the people, when murder had been committed but the acter of it was concealed; Deut. 21.7, 8. And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it: Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy people Israel, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel's charge: and the blood shall be forgiven them. So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from amongst you &c. was not here expiation? and wherein did that lie, but in the putting away of the guilt of innocent blood and in the obtaining of pardon? for 'tis said and the blood shall be forgiven them. This is that which is set forth by cleansing from sin, Levite. 16.30. For on that day shall the Priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sin before the Lord: Numb. 3.5.— for blood defileth the band, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. The Apostle sets it forth by purifying of the flesh Heb. 9.13. (by which he means the taking away of that ceremonial, ritual or civil guilt which any did lie under): And he puts it out of all doubt, that expiation in the old Sacrifices did not point to the abolition of Sins power, but to the ablation of Sins guilt; for having said that almost all things are by the Law purged with blood, he tells you what he meant by that purging, adding, without shedding of blood is [ no remission, or expiation of sins guilt ]: and this is the notion which always he drives at in that Epistle, in those several words which he there uses, (viz.) sanctifying, purifying, purging &c. Indeed this was the chief and most proper effect of Sacrifices, other things might be done by them but this was the main; therefore it so often comes in upon this account, And the Priest shall make an atonement for them [and it shall be forgiven them] Levite. 4.20. so Vers. 26.—31,—35. And this might be one Reason why God prohibited the offering of Sacrifices to any but to himself, because the end of them being the forgiveness of sin, and none being able to reach that end but himself, therefore none should be sacrificed unto but himself.

For the better understanding of this double Effect of the Law-Sacrifices, I desire four things may be considered:

• 1. That the atonement and expiation effected by those Sacrifices, must be conceived of as done by them in that notion which was proper to them as Sacrifices: None can deny but that they did atone and expiate, but how did they so do? there's the question: I answer, this was done by them as they were substituted in the place of Offenders, and were slain in their stead and for their sake; (other accounts I know by some are given of this but that now set down is the true, as appears by what hath been already spoken under the two foregoing Heads).
• 2. That this atoning and expiating virtue was not limited only to the Sacrifices used at the anniversary great Expiation, but it belonged to the other Sacrifices. For instance, to Burnt-offerings (I take in those that were made use of before the giving of the Law about Sacrifices ); see Job. 1.5.—42.8: after the giving of the Law, to Free-will-offerings Levite. 1.3, 4, &c. to the Meat-offering and Drink-offering Levite. 2. per tot. Levite. 23.13. Numb. 15.7, 10, 13, 14. to the Peace-offering Levite. 3.15, 16. to the Sin-offering and Trespass-offering Levite. 4.6. to the Ram, which was therefore called the Ram of atonement Numb. 5.8. (there's no end of such instances).
• 3. That yet the atonement and expiation proper to those Sacrifices, is to be limited according to the bounds which God himself was pleased to set; for 'twas but in such cases, and for such sins, wherein he did admit of them in order to these effects, (of which more by and by).
• 4. That these effects were not produced by any inherent or innate virtue in the Sacrifices themselves, but only as they were instituted by God and as they derived efficacy from the Sacrifice to come, Christ himself. Take away these two things, and what could these Sacrifices have done? what could there be in them to pacisie an angry God, or to to purify a guilty Sinner? what was the blood of a Beast (as considered in itself) to expiate the sin of a Man? The Apostle plainly tells us Heb. 10.4. It is not possible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sin: therefore he says there was no perfection by the Levitical Priesthood Heb. 7.11. and the Law made nothing perfect Heb. 7.19.— in which were offered gifts and Sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the Conscience, Heb. 9.9. So that whatever virtue those Sacrifices had (further than the taking away of civil guilt, ritual uncleanness, securing from Church and State-penalties, ) it wholly depended upon the institution of God and the merit of Christ. The brazen Serpent healed such as were stung, yet not from any intrinsic power in itself, but only as God was pleased to give that power and efficacy to it; and so 'twas here in the case of the old Sacrifices. These four things I have laid down both to clear up the Sacrifices themselves, and also because they are of great use to set us right in our conceptions about Christ the great Sacrifice (which must be opened by them).

Answerably now to these two great Ends and Effects of the Mosaical Sacrifices, the same were designed to be done, and were actually done by the Lord Jesus, when he offered up himself to God upon the Cross; whereby he also

• (1.) atoned God,
• (2.) expiated the sin of the Elect.

As God was angry and offended with the Sinner, so Christ by his death procured atonement, pacification, reconciliation; as the Sinner lay under guilt, so Christ brought about the purgation or expiation of his guilt: both of these were done by him, and that too not only really but in a much higher way than what was done by the old Sacrifices, therefore he was a true proper expiatory Sacrifice, yea, the most eminent expiatory Sacrifice.

1. For atonement or reconciliation. By Adams Fall a sad breach had been made 'twixt God and Man, Sin had greatly incensed the holy God against his sinful Creatures, nay there was a mutual and reciprocal enmity contracted between them: Things being in this dismal state the blessed. Jesus interposed himself, in order to the appeasing of an offended God and the reconciling of him and the Sinner (the two parties that were at variance). For the effecting of which, he did not only as a bare Internuntius treat with both, or only offer up prayers to the one (in which respect Moses atoned God Exod. 34.10, 11, 12, 13, 14.) and entreaties to the other (2 Cor. 5.20.), and so proceed by some verbal interposures; but (when nothing else would do it) he was willing even to lay down his own Life, to die as a Sacrifice upon the Cross, by this means to bring God and Man together again in amity and love. By which death of Christ the offended God was perfectly atoned and reconciled to the Sinner; so as that now, upon the satisfaction made to him therein, he could without any injury to his Justice and Holiness receive the Sinner into his favor, and not inflict upon him that wrath and punishment which he had made himself obnoxious unto: (this is the true notion of atonement and reconciliation by Christ, and all that we mean by it). But that this was thus done by him, what one thing is there in all the matters of Faith wherein the Gospel is more clear and full? 1 Joh. 2.2. And he is the propitiation for our sins: 1 Joh. 4.10. Herein is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us, and sent his Son, to be the propitiation for our sins: Rom. 3.25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through Faith in his blood &c. Rom. 5.10, 11. 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: And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. 2 Cor. 5.18, 19. All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ—God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself —Col. 1.20, 21. And (having made peace through the blood of his Cross) by him to reconcile all things unto himself &c. And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath be reconciled, in the body of his flesh through death —So Eph. 2.13, 14, &c.—Isa. 53.6. the chastisement of our peace was upon him (i. e. by his penal sufferings our peace was made with God). 'It is true (which our Adversanies would fain improve to their purpose), that all along in these Scriptures the reconciliation is said to be on Mans part, as if Sinners were reconciled to God, not God to them; but there's a special reason for that, (viz.) because they were the first in the breach, they fell out with God before he fell out with them; as also because the averseness to reconciliation is on their part; wherefore if they be willing to be reconciled to God and are actually reconciled to him, there's no question of it but that he is willing to be reconciled to them, and is so actually. Some would have the reconciliation (as on God's part ) to be spoken of Heb. 2.17.— that he might be a merciful and faithful high Priest, in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people; (where 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , is according to the Hebrew Enallage as much as 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Grotius well observes). Howerver (supposing that this Text doth not so expressly hold forth the thing,) yet there is enough in those convincing Reasons, Arguments, and Consequences which the Word elsewhere affords, to prove the reconciliation to be mutual (as is fully proved by divers). Which reconciliation (you see) was accomplished by Jesus Christ, yea by his death and blood; so that he exactly answers to the first effect of the Jewish Sacrifices.

2. The for the Second, the expiation of sin, that also was done (with great advantage) by Christ; his death carried indeed a Sinexpiating virtue in it and was most truly of an expiatory nature. Let us a little look into the Scripture & see what it saith about this; and that we shall find not only to assert the thing, but so to assert it as withal to set down and determine the nature and true notion of it. I mean this, the Scripture doth not only in general speak of Christ's taking away or expiating of Sin, but it shows in what manner he did it and wherein the nature of that expiation did consist: as namely that he did expiate it in that way which was agreeable to what was done in and by the old Sacrifices, and that according to the notion proper to their expiation so his must be understood. For in speaking thereof it uses those expressions which point to those Sacrifices and to their expiation; thereby noting

• (1.) that Christ did expiate in that very way wherein they did: and
• (2.) that therefore his expiation (in the nature of it) must run parallel with theirs.

Take a few Instances: Heb. 9.13, 14. For if the blood of Bulls and Goats, and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your Conscience from dead works to serve the living God? —Vers. 22, 23. And almost all things are by the Law purged with blood: and without shedding blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these, but the Heavenly things themselves with better Sacrifices than these. Heb. 1.3.— When he had by himself purged our sins (or as 'tis in the Greek, he having by himself made purgation or expiation of our sins ): 1 Joh. 1.7.—— and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin; (by which cleansing the Apostle meant the expiation or remission of sin, for Vers. 9. he puts them together— he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness ). Heb. 10.22.— having our bearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Revel. 1.5. Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.

Now pray observe from these Scriptures

• 1. That the expiating of sin (under the terms of purifying, purging, cleansing, washing, sprinkling ) is expressly attributed to Christ.
• 2. That he, as being a Sacrifice, by dying and shedding his blood, so did expiate sin.
• 3. That the proper and primary effect of his death and blood was the expiation of sins guilt, and as a consequent thereof its remission. Matth. 26.28. This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many [for the remission of sins]. Eph. 1.7. In whom we have redemption through his blood, [the forgiveness of sins] —(So Rom. 3.25).
• 4. That as the Jewish Sacrifices were truly expiatory, they (in their way ) taking off sins guilt and the punishment due thereupon, wherein the formal nature of their expiation did consist; so answerably Christ Jesus was a true expiatory Sacrifice, he (in his way too) taking off sins guilt &c. wherein the formal nature of his expiation did and must consist also.

This I ground upon a twofold consideration:

• (1.) Because by those very Words which were proper to those Sacrifices and by which their expiation of sin was seth forth, I say by those very Words the Sacrifice of Christ and the efficasy thereof is described; therefore it must be as truly expiatory of sin as they were; (this is sufficiently proved in the places that have been cited ). And I might further add, that the words there used are the very same with those which the Greek profane Authors do always use, when they are speaking of their expiatory Sacrifices and of the effect of them, (of which many instances are given by the Learned ).
• —(2.)Because the Apostle (who most uses these words, and in the place too where he most uses them, I mean in his Epistle to the Hebrews, ) doth professedly draw a parallel 'twixt Christ and the Law-Sacrifices, showing there was a great analogy and resemblance betwixt them.

True, he asserts a greater excellency and efficacy in the one than in the other, and as to the manner of working he shows there was a vast difference between them; but yet as to the great effect of a Sacrifice ( expiation of sin ) in that (so far as the nature of the things would admit of) they did agree. Well then! if they did purify and expiate, so must Christ; and as they did purify and expiate (in taking away guilt by death and blood ), so must Christ; otherwise where would the analogy be between them? was it not thus there would be expiation in the type and none in the antitype, and one way of expiation in the type and another in the antitype, (both of which are directly contrary to the Apostles scope and design in the forenamed Epistl • ).

Some possibly will ask why I multiply so many words and stay so long upon this point? I will tell them, I do it to vindicate both the reality and also the true notion of our Savior's expiatory Sacrifice. For the SOCINIANS (who have not left us one fountain of Evangelical Comfort un-poison'd ) herein deal with their usual subtlety; very fair words are spoken by them as though they were for and did own Christ's expiation of sin, but when they come to open it and to show what they mean by it, they make it a quite other thing than what indeed it is; they keep the Word but quit the Scripture-sense thereof: Christ (say they) did expiate sin, but how? why, by begetting Faith in the Sinner, by working repentance in him, by turning and drawing him off from sin, by delivering from the effects of it, by declaring the Will of God about remission and the way thereunto, as his death was an antecedent to his exaltation in Heaven where (say they) he only expiates sin &c. in such things as these, but not in Christ's undergoing the punishment due to the Sinner and dying in his stead; they make his expiation of Sin to lie. Now though much might be (and is) said against each of these particularly, yet that which I have in the general insisted upon is a sufficient confutation of them all; viz. Christ must expiate sin in that way and sense wherein the Sacrifices under the Law did, now did they expiate any other way than as they were substituted in the Offenders room and as they died in his stead? therefore that must be the way wherein Christ our Sacrifice doth expiate also. Thus I have gone over the four Heads propounded for the proving of Christ to be a true, proper expiatory Sacrifice.

Only for the further clearing and▪ confirming of what hath been said, it will not be amiss (before I go off from this) to show how the Heathens themselves, in their notions about their Sacrifices, did exactly agree with what I have now delivered concerning the Jewish Sacrifices, and also concerning Christ (the far greater Sacrifice). The business of sacrificing was not a thing used and practice'd only amongst the Jews, but amongst Gentiles and Heathens also; yea, even amongst those this practice in ancient times was so Catholic and universal, as that there was scarce any considerable Nation or People in the world of whose using of Sacrifices we have not some account. Whence this came about I am not now to inquire; only (in a word) it proceeded partly from the instigation and delusion of the Devil, (who loves to ape it after God, and to stir up his blind and deluded followers to do that to false God's. which should only be done to the true God )▪ partly from the practice and example of the Patriarchs; the knowledge of whose sacrificing (according to divine institution ) being dissus'd and spread over the world by tradition, (which commenc'd first from Adam to Seth, then continued from Seth to Noah, then from Noah to his Sons, and they peopling the world transmitted the use of Sacrifices to their posterity), it had this effect to draw men universally to conform unto and imitate the example of these Patriarchs in this matter. And though they soon degenerated from the primitive and right use. of Sacrifices, in their departing from the true object of them and in their sacrificing to them that were no God's; yet (in their idolatrous way) they continued and kept up the observation of them from one generation to another. In process of time when the Jews (after their coming out of Egypt ) were formed into a distinct polity, & Sacrifices were re-instituted by God, and all things in special Laws made by him precisely ordered about them, 'tis probable that from thence the Gentiles did receive further light (which accordingly they in a great measure comply'd with): for do but bate the difference in the object (& in some other things) & there was a great agreement betwixt the Sacrifices of the one and of the other, as also in the conceptions of both about them. This being the thing which falls in with what I design, I must be more particular about it; for instance therefore thus: In the Jewish expiatory Sacrifices there was a surrogation or substitution of the things sacrificed in the room and stead of the Offenders themselves (as hath been shown); the same was also done in the Gentile Sacrifices, and this was that very notion which they in them went upon. Nothing more usual amongst them than for one to die for another (especially for the Community ); and if they apprehended their God's by the inflicting of such and such evils upon them to be angry, presently they substituted some (whom they called Viri piaculares, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) to die in the stead of all the people, so to make expiation. And as the Jews testify'd their designing and believing of this by their laying on of hands upon the Sacrifices, so did the Gentiles also. In the Jewish Sacrifices there was the killing of them, the shedding of their blood &c. the Gentiles in their's too were for death and blood: The Jews hoped by their Sacrifices to propitiate and atone God when offended, the Gentiles by theirs designed and hoped the same (for they had their Sacrificia 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 too). The Jews had their Burnt-offerings, whole Burnt-offerings, their Sin-offerings, their solemn and annual expiations, and all for purging, purifying, expiating of sin; the Gentiles in all these concur'd with them. Nay, because they would be sure to do this effectually, by the sacrificing of their best to their God's, and conceiving that the life of man was most proper to expiate for the life of man; therefore (though this was their great sin) in order to the pacifying of their God's and the expiating of guilt, they stuck not at the Sacrificing of men themselves, yea, of their dearest children: (Instances of which, with Commands against it, frequently occur in Scripture, 2 King. 3.27. 2 King. 17.31. 2 King. 23.10. 2 Chron. 28.3. Jer. 7.31. Jer. 19.5. Jer. 32.35. Psal. 106.37, 38. Levite. 18.21. Levite. 20.2. In other things the Heathens borrowed from the Jews, in this the Jews from the Heathens ). Upon the whole then it appears, that Scripture and Nature do both concur in that notion of expiatory Sacrifices which I have insisted upon: and surely in the applying of it to Christ (the grand expiatory Sacrifice) the Gospel is exceeding clear. So that when we assert his substitution in the stead of Sinners, his dying for them, his atoning God and expiating Sin by his death and blood; we say nothing but what Jews and Heathens in their expiatory Sacrifices apprehended, believed, and acted upon. They then who differ in these things (as to the general nature, use and end of such Sacrifices,) they differ not only from us but from all mankind: of whom it might be expected they would better agree with Heathens since they do so ill agree with Christians.

I have dispatched the First Enquiry What a kind of Sacrifice Christ was? the Second follows when and where he was such a Sacrifice? To which I answer, when he was here on earth and especially when he died upon the Cross, then and there he was this expiatory Sacrifice. All are not, of my mind herein; the Enemy (who way-lays me in every step I take in these great Truths ) is upon me again, and forces me to defend myself (or rather the Truth I have laid down). He saith, Christ's being thus a Sacrifice points to his being in Heaven, and to what he there doth; that his death here was but a preparation to his Sacrifice as there to be made, or but an antecedent Condition to his having of power there to expiate sin, (with much more to that purpose). Here then lies the difference between us and S, we say Christ's being the expiatory Sacrifice belongs to that part of his Priestly-Office which he executed here upon earth, they make it to refer to that part of his Priestly-Office which he now executes in Heaven; we time it in Christ's dying upon the Cross, they in his sitting upon the Throne.

Now that I may at once prove what is true and also confute what is false, I argue thus:

1. It appears that here Christ's Sacrifice was exhibited (or that here he made his expiatory Offering ), because the Scripture speaks of it as a thing that is past, and antecedent to his exaltation and glory; and therefore it must be done here on earth and not in Heaven. Eph. 5.2.— and [hath given] himself for us, an Offering, a Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor: Heb. 1.3.— when he [had] by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; (mark it, the Sacrifice-purgation or expiation of sin was over and done, and then Christ's exaltation in Heaven followed after): Heb. 9.12. Neither by the blood of Goats and Calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, [having obtained] (not to obtain) eternal redemption for us: Heb. 10.12. But this man [after he had offered] one Sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God: he did not first sit down on the right hand of God and then offer up his Sacrifice for sins, but he first offered and then he sat down on the right hand of God.

2. When the Scripture speaks of Christ's expiation of sin by the Sacrifice of himself, it speaks of it as a thing done but once; therefore it must refer to his death which was but once, not to his intercession (or any other act ) in Heaven which is a continued, repeated and reiterated act. Heb. 9.26. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now [once] in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself. —Vers. 28. Christ was [once] offered to bear the sins of many: Heb. 7.27.— this he did [once] when he offered up himself: Heb. 10.10. By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ [once] for all. Doth this once agree with anything that he now doth in Heaven?

3. If Christ had not dispatched his expiatory work at his death, why did he then say It is finished? if his expiating of sin was yet to come and to be done in Heaven, how could he with truth have spoken these words that all was finished when the great thing was yet undone?

4. That of the Apostle is pertinent to our purpose, Heb. 10.5. Wherefore when he [cometh into the world] he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me &c. wherefore did Christ come into the world? why, to be a Sacrifice and to do that which the old Sacrifices could not; God was e'ene weary of them, could no longer take pleasure in them, he will have Christ (the better Sacrifice) to come into the world, which accordingly he did. I but what was the world into which he came? surely it must be this lower world: for it must be understood of that world into which he came to do the Will of God (as appears Vers. 7.9.), now that was this World below rather than that above; for where do we read that Christ ascended into the upper World to do the Will of God? especially this Will of God referring to his assuming a body and offering up that body (Vers. 5.10.)? these were things to be done only on this lower stage of earth: whence then it follows that here his Sacrifice was made.

5. There was (as hath been observed) to be an analogy and resemblance 'twixt Christ's Sacrifice and the Levitical Sacrifices, and he was to expiate in that way wherein they did expiate; but if you do not place his Sacrifice in his death where will that analogy be? or how will he expiate in that way wherein they did? What is there in Christ as in Heaven that carries any resemblance to the killing, slaying, shedding the blood, offering of the Levitical Sacrifices? There he sits in great glory, puts forth his Regal power, is Head of Church &c. but what's all this to suffering, dying, pouring out his blood, wherein he was to answer to those Sacrifices? Doth the Scripture lay so much upon his death and blood for expiation, and yet shall that be done where there is none of these?

'Twill be said, there's this in Christ in Heaven to carry resemblance to the old Sacrifices, their blood was carried by the High Priest into the Holy of Holy's, and there sprinkled by him towards the Mercy-seat; upon which expiation and atonement followed: now parallel to this Christ himself (our High Priest) is entered into Heaven, the Sanctuary not made with hands, and there he executes his Priestly Office (after a sort) for expiation and atonement also. To which I reply, Christ's entrance into Heaven cannot be denied, nor that that doth much resemble what was done by the High Priest under the Law (all that being but typical of this); Heb. 9.24. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. And therein we have the second part of his Priesthood (the oblation of himself here on earth being the first and his intercession in heaven the second ): which two must not be divided but conjoin'd, the former must not justle out the latter nor the latter the former. Which second part of his Priesthood was necessary partly in respect of Christ himself; for the completing and consummating of his Priesthood (the perfection and excellency of which depended upon it); for (saith the Apostle) Heb. 8.4. If he were on earth he should not be a Priest (i.e. not a Priest of the highest rank, he would come short of the High Priest and be but as one of the ordinary Priests, if he should only offer without and after that not enter into the Sanctuary as the High Priest did, and he only ): And partly too in respect of Believers, that he might not only make his oblation for them in order to impetration (which he had done on earth ), but that he might further present and plead the merit of that oblation in order to application, and the actual giving out the benefits purchased and merited thereby (which was to be done in Heaven ): therefore this we readily grant and firmly believe. But that our Lord's whole Priesthood doth lie in this, or that he only in this place and state doth expiate sin, or that his resemblance herein to the High Priest is sufficient, that we utterly deny: For

1. The Scripture (as hath been proved) in drawing the parrallel 'twixt Christ and the Law-Sacrifices, doth not instance only in what was done by the High Priest in the Holy of Holy's, but also in what was done by the other Priests in the Temple, and in those sacrificial acts which were proper to them as well as to him. Nay

2. It mainly instances in these; making the resemblance chiefly to lie in the mactation and oblation of those Sacrifices which was done without; and therefore it must be Christ's death on the Cross and not his intercession in Heaven which must be meant by them.

3. As that which is asserted by our Opposers would utterly destroy all analogy 'twixt Christ and those Priests, and the far greatest part of Sin-expiating Sacrifices; so it would in truth leave Christ no Sacrifice or oblation at all: inasmuch as what he doth in Heaven cannot (in any strictness or propriety of speaking) come under the notion of an oblation or Sacrifice. There indeed is the presenting, commemorating, pleading of the Sacrifice which he offered here on earth, but that's all; he improves the Sacrifice there upon the Throne, but he made it here upon the Cross; he applies the expiation there but he wrought it here.

4. 'It is true, the High Priest entered into the Sanctuary and there expiated sin, but 'twas with the blood which had been shed and offered without: some of that blood (before offered upon the Priest's Altar ) he carried into the Holy of Holy's, and there presented it before the Lord, and so made atonement. Had he gone in thither without this blood and only have shown himself before God, it would have signified nothing; what he there did was grounded upon the virtue of the preceding oblation, which was only now in a more solemn manner represented before the Lord. Just so it is with our Lord Jesus, he entered into Heaven and there intercedes as our High Priest to his Father, but the efficacy of this his intercession is founded upon his blood shed when he was here on earth: take away his oblation here and take away his intercession there, for 'tis that which gives the efficacy and prevalency to this. Therefore he's said to enter into the holy place, but how? why, by his own blood Heb. 9.11. he must first shed his blood here upon Earth, and then carry the virtue and merit of it with him into Heaven, and so he may expect to do something (which upon his mere appearance in Heaven he could not have done). So that there must be something in Christ's Priesthood and Sacrifice more than what is proper to him now he is above, in correspondency to what was done by the High Priest in his entering into the Holy of Holy's and there expiating sin. I think if all be put together which hath been spoken upon this account, the Truth (which I contend for) is written as with the beams of the Sun, therefore I will say no more.

Thus I have finished the first thing propounded for the clearing of the Observation, namely Christ's being a Sacrifice for sin. Where I have shown that he was a Sacrifice, what a kind of Sacrifice he was, and when or where he was such a Sacrifice. The Second thing propounded to be opened was the Effect or Efficacy of this Sacrifice, viz. the condemning of sin; [and for sin condemned sin in the flesh]. (In this I will be but very brief because it falls in with what hath been already insisted upon.

Here was a strange and wonderful Sacrifice, the most costly one that ever was offered up to God, therefore surely something that is extraordinary and great must be effected by it; and so there was: What was that? why, Sin was cut off, taken out of the way (as condemned persons use to be), its guilt abolished or expiated, (wherein you have heard the condemning of it doth mainly consist. How this is set forth by such terms as answer to the Law-Sacrifices, I have already shown: Heb. 1.3. When he had by himself [purged] our sins: 1 Joh. 1.7. and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son [cleanseth] us from all sin: Rev. 1.5. Unto him that loved us, and [washed] us from our sins in his own blood: but there are some other terms by which 'tis set forth which have not as yet been mentioned. As namely the taking away of sin; Joh. 1.29. Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world: 1 Joh. 3.5. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins —: (which taking away of sin was a thing far above the power of the Levitical Sacrifices, Heb. 10.4. For it is not possible that the blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away sins ). So also the finishing and making an end of sin; Dan. 9.24.— to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins—: where the finishing of transgression is not the filling up of its full measure (of which you read Gen. 15.16. 1. Thes. 2.16.), neither is it the completing or perfecting of it (as we commonly take the word, in which respect Christ is said to be the author and finisher of our faith Heb. 12.2. and to finish what he had to do and suffer Joh. 17.4.—19.30.); but 'tis (as follows) the making an end of sin, such a finishing as is destructive not perfective: by Christ's Sacrifice sin was destroyed, he thereby made an end of it or sealed it up (as the word signifies) so as that it should never be seen or come forth again to the hurt of God's people. Again, 'tis set forth by the putting away of sin; Heb. 9.26.— but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself: the word is rendered by disannulling Heb. 7.18. by making void or abrogating Mark 7.9. set it as high as you will the virtue and efficacy of Christ's Sacrifice will reach it: by the oblation of himself he hath quite disannul'd or abrogated and put away the guilt of sin. Put all together, here's purging, cleansing, washing, taking away, putting away, finishing, making an end of sin (all of which are the same with the condemning of sin in the Text ), do not all prove the real expiation of the Sin of Believers as the result and issue of the Sacrifice of Christ?

I having (in what goes before) said enough for the opening of the true notion of our Savior's expiating of sin, under the present Head I have but two things further to speak unto; the one referring to the nature of the act, the other to the extent of the act.

1. As to the nature of the act know, that Christ hath so expiated sins guilt as that it shall never be imputed to the believing Sinner, in order to the inflicting of eternal punishment upon him: (this must be rightly apprehended or else we shall run ourselves upon great mistakes). When you read of the expiating, condemning, taking away of sin, (and so on in the other expressions named but now), you are not only to understand them as pointing to the removal of sins guilt (in their proper and primary intention ), but also as holding forth no more about that removal of guilt than the non-imputation thereof to punishment. Christ indeed by the Sacrifice of himself hath done all that which I am speaking of, but how? not but that believers have yet guilt upon them, that that guilt (as considered in itself ) makes them liable to the penalty threatened, that the formal intrinsic nature of guilt (viz. obligation to punishment ) doth yet remain, and is the same in them which it is in others: all therefore which it amounts unto is only this, that this guilt shall not be charged upon such or imputed to them for eternal condemnation. Sin is Sin in the godly as well as in the ungodly, thereupon there's guilt on them as well as on the other, & upon this guilt they are equally obnoxious to the Laws sentence; but now here comes in the expiation by the Obedience, Death, Satisfaction of Christ, by which things are brought to this happy issue that though this be so, yet these persons shall be exempted from wrath and Hell and the punishment deserved shall not be inflicted. Thus far we may safely go but beyond this we cannot; we may (for the encouraging of Faith, the heightening of Comfort) set this Sin-expiatory act of Christ very high, but we must not set it so high as to assert Contradictions. (But these things will be more fully stated when I shall come to the handling of the main Doctrine of Justification ).

2. For the extent of the act that must be considered two ways; either as it respects the Subject for which this expiation was wrought, or as it respects the Object, the thing expiated.

1. As to its extent in reference to the Subject: And so Christ's expiatory Sacrifice reaches

• (1.) both to Jew and Gentile; not to the one or to the other (exclusively), but to both. 1 Joh. 2.2. And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. —
• (2.) To those who lived under the Law as well as to those who now live under the Gospel: the former had the benefit of Christ's expiation of sin as well as the latter. Rom. 3.25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness [for the remission of sins that are past], through the forbearance of God: where by Sins past you are to understand those that were committed under the first Testament before Christ's coming in flesh: so the Apostle opens it Heb. 9.15. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were [under the first Testament], they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. Nay
• (3.) there is a a sufficiency of virtue and merit in Christ's Sacrifice to expiate the sins of all men in the world. Yet
• (4.) in point of efficacy it extends no farther than to true believers; others may receive some benefits by a dying Christ, but this, of the full and actual expiation of Sin, belongs only to those who have saving faith wrought in them. As this (which I here assert) is matter of Controversy I have no mind to engage in it; as it is practically to be improved and enlarged upon so I shall speak to it in the Use; therefore at present I will say no more to it.

2. As to its extent in reference to the Object or the thing expiated, it reaches to all and every sin. Christ is such a Sin-offering as doth take off from those who believe in him all guilt whatsoever; by his Sacrifice for sin he condemned sin (that is) all sins whatsoever, 'tis indefinitely expressed & to be understood universally. Take sin collectively in the whole heap or mass of it, or take it distributively for this or that particular sin, all is expiated and done away by Christ's blood; the expiation is so full and complete that there is not the guilt of any one sin (little or great) left unremov'd. 1 Joh. 1.7. the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from [all sin]: Acts 13.39. And by him all that believe are justified from [all things], from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses.

Whether the Levitical Sacrifices did thus universally expiate sin is a controverted point; wherein the Socinians hold the Negative, the Orthodox the Affirmative. The former say those Sacrifices did free from the guilt of lesser sins, (such as were sins of ignorance, committed through incogitancy, inadvertency, human infirmity ), but for great and grievous sins (such as were committed against knowledge or willingly and willfully ) they did not free from their guilt: the latter assert and defend the contrary. And not without very good and weighty reasons; for if we look into the annual expiatory Sacrifice we find that all sins were expiated by it: Levite. 16.21. Aaron shall lay his hands upon the head of the live Goat, and confess over him [all the iniquities] of the children of Israel, and [all their transgressions in all their sins], putting them upon the head of the Goat &c. And the Goat shall bear upon him [all their iniquities], unto a land not inhabited. (30.) On that day shall the Priest make and atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from [all your sin] before the Lord. (34.) And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel, [for all their sins], once a year. And as it was thus in the public Sacrifices for all the people, so also in the private Sacrifices for particular persons: therefore as you read of the ( Chataath ) the Sin-offering which was appointed for Sins of Ignorance Levite. 4.2.—13.—22.—27. so of the (Asham) the Trespass-offering which was appointed for sins committed knowingly and willingly, such as were of a more high and heinous nature; as falsehood in the detaining of what was deposited, lying, violence, perjury, &c. Levite. 6.2, 3, &c. were not these great and horrid sins? and yet God appointed Sacrifices for the expiation of them. Numb. 5.6. When a man or woman shall commit [any sin] that men commit, to do a trespass against the Lord, and that person be guilty; Then they shall confess their sin &c.—The Priest is said Heb. 5.1. to be ordained in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and Sacrifices [for sins]; ('tis set down without any exception or limitation ); so Heb. 7.27. 'It is true (which the Adversaries make great use of) the Apostle sets it forth by the errors of the people; Heb. 9.7. Into the Second went the High Priest alone once every year, not without blood, which be offered for himself, and for the errors of the people: But then you must know that by these errors he means not only smaller sins but all whatsoever, even such as were of a very crimson die. And the Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (here rendered by errors ), with the Hebrew word Scagag, do often point to great and grievous sins; therefore why should we limit it to sins of a lower size and stature? especially if we consider that in that Sacrifice (to which the Apostle here plainly refers) the expiation was general of all sins, (as you heard but now out of Levite. 16.) And 'tis very true too that for Sins which were committed with an high hand, contumaciously, in open defiance of God &c. there he would not admit of a Sacrifice for the expiating of sins so circumstantiated: Numb. 15.27. &c. If any Soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a She-goat,—And the Priest shall make an atonement for the Soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by ignorance before the Lord, to make an atonement for him &c. But the Soul that doth ought presumptuously, the same reproacheth the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from among his people: because he hath despised the Word of the Lord,—that Soul shall utterly be cut off, his iniquity shall be upon him. Heb. 10.26. For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sins; But a certain fearful looking for of Judgment &c. But this doth not weaken the truth of what I have said, viz. that even great offenses were expiated by Sacrifices; because they might be such and yet not come up to this sinning with an high hand and willfully against the Lord; and thereupon might be expiable. Were there no sins of a middle nature 'twixt such as were of mere infirmity and such as were committed perversely and obstinately, out of open contempt and defiance of God? surely there were, (you have had instances of such); and was there no expiation for such? the contrary hath been proved.

To clear up this whole matter I would lay down three things:

• 1. When we say that the Law-Sacrifices did take off the guilt of all sins, yea, of great sins, we always except such as God himself did except; where he was pleased to make a limitation there we must do the same, but not otherwise.
• 2. 'It is evident that as to some sins God did make an exception. For the case stood thus; it pleased the Lord to give excellent Laws to the people of Israel, those Laws he backed with a severe penalty, that penalty was death (which was due upon every violation of the Law): it being so, yet out of his great compassion he (who being the Law-giver might therefore relax and alter his Laws and the penalties annexed to them as seemed good to him,) would not proceed in the utmost rigor, but he would graciously moderate and mitigate his threatenings. And therefore though death was incurred by every sin yet it shall not accordingly be inflicted; but a substitution shall be admitted of, the Beast shall die but the Sinner himself shall live: Upon this God appointed Sacrifices, wherein the punishment due to the Offender should be laid upon the thing sacrificed and thereby his Sin expiated. Well! but though he will be so gracious as thus to admit of the expiation of sin, yet (partly out of respect to his own honor, and partly out of respect to the Jewish polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical, ) he will do this with some kind of restriction; (that is) he will admit of Sacrifices for the expiating of some sins, but not of all. The Murderer was to die and no Sacrifice to be accepted of on his behalf, Numb. 35.30, 31, 32. (with reference to which some understand that of David Psal. 51.16. Thou desirest not Sacrifice, else would I give it, &c.) so the Adulterer Levite. 20.10. the Idolater, (and so in several other cases). Here now was a limitation set by God himself, and therefore here could be no expiation (in the external and ordinary way ): indeed upon repentance there might be the doing away of the moral guilt (which made the offender liable to God and to eternal death ), but as to political guilt (which made the offender liable to temporal death ), that (if public and known ) could not by Sacrifices be taken off: when therefore you hear so much spoken of the virtue and efficacy of the old Sacrifices as expiatory, you must always understand it according to this stating of it.
• 3. Those Sacrifices may be considered absolutely or relatively: Absolutely and in themselves, and so their expiation reached only to some sins and to the removal of some guilt (viz. that which was ritual and ceremonial ): Relatively with respect to Christ who was typified by them, and so by virtue of his great Sacrifice to come (which they prefigur'd ) to persons duly qualified their expiation was general of all sins and of all guilt, (I mean of all moral guilt before God though not of all political guilt before Men ).

But though there be this difficuly as to the type, as to the antitype there's none: by Christ's offering up of himself to be sure all sins are expiated, even the greatest are washed away by his blood, none can stand before his infinite merit and satisfaction; former Sacrifices were weak but Christ the grand Sacrifice he is strong, able to save to the utmost all that come to God through him. He is not only a Sin-offering to remove the guilt of lesser sins, but a Trespass-offering to remove the guilt of the greatest sins; therefore as he is set forth by the former in the Text so by the latter in Isa. 53.10. Where final impenitency and unbelief do not hinder the death of Christ is sufficient to acquit from all guilt; by it all (who perform the Gospel-conditions ) have a full and universal discharge.

I have now gone through the several things necessary to be spoken unto for the explaining and confirming of the Point; the Use follows.

Was Christ a Sacrifice for sin? and did he thereby condemn sin? I shall from hence infer something

• (1.) by way of Information;
• (2.) of Exhortation;
• (3.) of Consolation.

First for Information: and so this great Truth may be useful in the informing of our judgments in sundry particulars: As

1. We learn from it the truth of Christ's satisfaction. Here (amongst many others) is a very considerable Argument to prove, that Christ did really satisfy God's Justice for Mans sin; which therefore all, who write upon and for the verity of his Satisfaction, do in special insist upon, with great evidence and advantage to the Cause which they defend. And indeed it carry's such light and conviction in it, as that the grand Opposer of this Satisfaction was more troubled to get off from it than from any other Argument whatsoever; for when he came to answer COVETUS arguing for it from the legal Sacrifices as prefiguring Christ, he was forced to say—&c: in quo major vis esse videtur, in which (head of Testimonies) there seems to be greater strength than in any of the former: And the annual, great Expiation being urged, as to that he saith difficilis sane nodus solvendus restat, one hard knot remains to be untied: ('twas an hard knot indeed, which he might endeavor to loose but could not). The word Satisfaction ('tis very true) we have not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , expressly, in so many letters and syllables in the whole Bible; but the thing we have: yea, as to that the Scripture is so copious and full that 'tis not in any one other thing more copious and full. But suppose we had there the Word as well as the Thing, what would that signify to those with whom I have now to do? when SOCINUS is so bold as to say, For my part although I should find that (meaning Christ's Satisfaction) asserted in Scripture, not once but often, yet I should not therefore believe the thing to be as Dissenters do hold: (wherein he comes but little short of what his friend SMALCIUS dared to speak concerning the Incarnation of the Son of God, of which you had an account before).

'It is not for me here to launch out into that vast Controversy of Christ's satisfaction, (in the opening, stating, proving, defending of which so many Volumes have been written); I must confine my self to that one thing which lies before me. And there's enough in it to stablish you in the belief of what we contend for: for was Christ ( truly and properly ) a Sacrifice for sin? were our sins the meritorious cause of his sufferings? did he put himself into the Sinners stead, taking his guilt upon him and undergoing that punishment which he should have undergone? did he die, shed his blood, that he might thereby atone God and expiate sin, (all of which have been proved out of the unerring Word)? and doth not all this amount to a demonstration of the truth of Christ's satisfying the Justice of God for Sin? do we mean anything by his Satisfaction but these things? and are not they clear enough from Scripture-light? The truth is, all the other Arguments brought for the proof of Christ's Satisfaction, I say all of them do either run into or fall under this one, of his being a Sacrifice for sin. If God would pardon sin, be appeased towards the Creature &c. absolutely and without the intervention of any Satisfaction, why did he appoint Sacrifices under the Law? why must so many Creatures die? why must so much blood be spilled? quorsum perditio haec? he whose tender mercies are over all his works, who hath pity and goodness for all that he hath made, would he unnecessarily or merely to show his absolute dominion have ordered so many Creatures to be killed, slaughtered, destroyed from day today? why did he so peremptorily stand upon this, that without shedding of blood there should be no remission? But I go higher, if God had not required satisfaction why must Christ himself be made a Sacrifice for sin? why must he take flesh, and then die in that flesh? why must his precious blood be poured out? why must he feel the wrath of his Father? be under a necessity of suffering, and of such suffering too? was there not a cause for this? yes surely! and what could that be but satisfaction? God had great and weighty Reasons which made him to insist upon this, so as that he would in this and in no other way let out his Love and Mercy to Sinners: for instance, he must vindicate his truth, make good his threatening, maintain his own honor, as also the honor of his Laws, make known his Holiness, let the world see what Sin was, what an extreme hatred he had to it, keep up and assert his rectoral righteousness, &c. for though as pars offensa and creditor he might have done what he pleased, yet as rector mundi