THE MYSTERY OF THE Incarnation of the SON OF GOD. (3)

their sinnes. Among the rest came our Saviour also: but the Baptist considering that he had need to be baptized by Christ, and Christ no need at all to be baptized by him, refused to give way unto that action; as altogether unbefitting the state of that immaculate Lambe of God, who was to take away the sinne of the World. Yet did our Mediatour submit himself to that ordinance of God also: not onely to testifie his communion with the Christians of the new Testaments; but especially (which is the reason yeelded by himselfe) because it became him thus to fulfill all righteousnesse. And so having fulfilled all righteousnesse, whereunto the meanest man was tyed, in the days of his pilgrimage (which was more then he needed to have undergone, if he had respected only himself:) the works which he performed were truly workes of supererogation, which might be put upon the account of them whose debt hee undertook to discharge; and being performed by the Person of the Son of God, must in that respect not onely be equivalent, but infinitely over-value the obedience of Adam and all his posterity, although they had remained in their integrity, and continued untill this houre, instantly serving God day and night. And thus for our main and principall debt of Obedience, hath our Mediatour given satisfaction unto the Justice of his Father; with good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

But beside this, we were lyable unto another debt; which wee have incurred by our default, and drawne upon our selves by way of forfeiture and nomine poenae. For as Obedience is a due debt, and Gods servants in regard thereof are truly debters: so likewise is sinne a debt, and sinners debters, in regard of the penalty due for the default. And as the payment of the debt which commeth nomine poenae, dischargeth not the tenant afterwards from paying his yearly rent; which of it self would have been due, although no default had been committed: so the due payment of the yearly rent, after the default hath been made, is no sufficient satisfaction for the penalty already incurred. Therefore our surety, who standeth chargeable with all our debts, as he maketh payment for the one by his Active, so must he make amends for the other by his Passive obedience: he must first suffer, and then enter into his glory. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect (that is, a perfect accomplisher of the worke which he had undertaken) through sufferings.

The Godhead is of that infinite perfection, that it cannot possibly be subject to any passion. He therefore that had no other nature but the Godhead, could not pay such a debt as this; the discharge whereof consisted in suffering and dying. It was also fit, that Gods justice should have been satisfied in that nature which had transgressed; and that the same nature should

suffer the punishment, that had committed the offence. Forasmuch then as the children were partakers of flesh and bloud, he also himself likewise took part of the same: that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage. Such and so great was the love of God the Father toward us, he spared not his own Sonne, but delivered him up for us all: and so transcendent was the love of the Son of God toward the sons of men, that he desired not to be spared; but rather then they should lie under the power of death, was of himself most willing to suffer death for them: which seeing in that infinite nature, which by eternall generation hee received from his Father, he could not doe, he resolved in the appointed time to take unto himselfe a Mother, and out of her substance to have a body framed unto himself, wherein he might

become obedient unto death, even the death of the crosse, for our redemption. And therefore when hee commeth into the world, he saith unto his Father, A body hast thou fitted me; Lo, I come to doe thy will O God. By the which will (saith the Apostle) wee are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Thus we see it was necessary for the satisfaction of this debt, that our Mediatour should be Man: but he that had no more in him then a Man, could never be able to goe through with so great a work. For if there should be found a Man as righteous as Adam was at his first creation, who would be content to suffer for the offence of others: his suffering possibly might serve for the redemption of one soul; it could be no sufficient ransome for those innumerable multitudes that were to be redeemed to God out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. Neither could any Man or Angel be able to hold out, if a punishment equivalent to the endlesse sufferings of all the sinners in the world should at once bee laid upon him. Yea, the very powers of Christ himself, upon whom the spirit of might did rest, were so shaken in this sharp encounter; that he, who was the most accomplisht pattern of all fortitude, stood

sore amazed, and with strong crying and tears prayed that, if it were possible, the houre might passe from him.

This man therefore being to offer one sacrifice for sins for ever; to the burning of that sacrifice he must not onely bring the coals of his love as strong as death, and as ardent as the fire which hath a most vehement flame, but he must add thereunto those everlasting burnings also, even the flames of his most glorious Deity: and therefore through the eternall Spirit must he offer himself without spot unto God; that hereby he might obtain for us an eternall redemption. The bloud whereby the Church is purchased, must bee Gods own bloud: and to that end must the Lord of glory be crucified;

the Prince and author of life be killed; he whose eternall generation no man can declare,

be cut off out of the land of the living; and the man that is Gods own fellow be thus smitten; according to that vvhich God himselfe foretold by his Prophet. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. The people of Israel, we read, did so value the life of David their King, that they counted him to be worth tenne thousand of themselves: how shall we then value of Davids Lord; who is the blessed and onely Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords? It was indeed our nature that suffered; but he that suffered in that nature, is over all, God blessed for ever: and for such a Person to have suffered but one houre, was more then if all other persons had suffered ten thousand millions of years.

But put case also, that the life of any other singular man might be equivalent to all the lives of whole mankind: yet the laying down of that life would not be sufficient to doe the deed, unlesse he that had power to lay it down had power likewise to take it up again. For, to be detained always in that prison

from whence there is no comming out before the payment of the uttermost farthing; is to lie always under execution, and to quit the plea of that full payment of the debt wherein our surety stood engaged for us. And therefore the Apostle upon that ground doth rightly conclude; that if Christ be not raised, our faith is vaine, we are yet in our sinnes: and consequently, that as he must be delivered to death for our offences, so he must be raised again for our justification.

Yea, our Saviour himself, knowing full well what he was to undergoe for our sakes, told us before-hand, that the Comforter whom hee would send unto us, should convince the world, that is, fully satisfie the consciences of the sons of men, concerning that everlasting righteousnesse, which was to bee brought in by him, upon this very ground: Because I goe to my Father, and ye see mee no more. For if he had broken prison, and made an escape, the payment of the debt, which as our surety he took upon himself, being not yet satisfied; he should have been seen here again: Heaven would not have held him, more then Paradise did Adam, after hee had fallen into Gods debt and danger. But our Saviour raising himselfe from the dead, presenting himself in Heaven before him unto whom the debt was owing, and maintaining his standing there, hath hereby given good proof, that he is now a free man, and hath fully discharged that debt of ours for vvhich he stood committed. And this is the evidence we have to shew of that righteousnesse, whereby we stand justified in Gods sight: according to that of the Apostle. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect? It is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Now although an ordinary man may easily part with his life;

yet doth it not lie in his power to resume it again at his own will and pleasure. But he that must doe the turn for us, must be able to say as our JESUS did, I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of my self: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again: and in another place; Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up; saith he unto the Jews, speaking of the Temple of his body. An humane nature then he must have had, which might be subject to dissolution: but being once dissolved, hee could not by his own strength (which was the thing here necessarily required) raise it up again; unlesse he had declared himselfe to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead. The Manhood could suffer, but not overcome the sharpnesse of death: the Godhead could suffer nothing, but overcome any thing. He therefore that was both to suffer and to overcome death for us, must be partaker of both natures: that being put to death in the flesh, he might be able also to quicken himself by his own Spirit.

And now are wee come to that part of Christs mediation, which concerneth the conveyance of the redemption of this purchased possession unto the sons of men. A dear purchase indeed, which was to be redeemed with no lesse price then the bloud of the Son of God: but what should the purchase of a stranger have been to us? or what should we have been the better for all this; if we could not derive our descent from the purchaser, or raise some good title whereby we might estate our selves in his purchase? Now this was the manner in former time in Israel, concerning redemptions: that unto him who was the next of kinne belonged the right of being Goël, or the Redeemer. And Job had before that left this glorious profession of his faith unto the perpetuall memory of all posterity. I know that my Goël or Redeemer liveth, and at the last shall arise upon the dust (or, stand upon the earth.) And after this my skin is spent; yet in my flesh shall I see God. Whom I shall see for my self, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another for me. Whereby we may easily understand, that his and our Redeemer was to be the invisible God; and yet in his assumed flesh made visible even to the bodily eyes of those whom he redeemed. For if he had not thus assumed our flesh; how should we have been of his bloud, or claimed any kindred to him? and unlesse the Godhead had by a personall union been unseparably conjoyned unto that flesh; how could he therein have been accounted our next of kinne?

For the better clearing of which last reason; we may call to minde that sentence of the Apostle. The first man is of the earth earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. Where, notwithstanding there were many millions of men in the world betwixt these two; yet we see our Redeemer reckoned the second man: and why? but because these two were the only men who could be accounted the prime fountains from whence all the rest of

mankind did derive their existence and beeing. For as all men in the world by mean descents doe draw their first originall from the first man: so in respect of a more immediate influence of efficiency and operation doe they owe their beeing unto the second man, as he is the Lord from heaven. This is Gods own language unto Jeremy,

Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and this is Davids acknowledgement, for his part; Thy hands have made me and fashioned me;

thou hast covered me in my mother womb:

thou art he that took me out of my mothers bowels: and Jobs, for his also. Thy hands have made mee and fashioned mee together round about: thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews: and the Apostles, for us all: In him we live, and move, and have our beeing: who inferreth also thereupon, both that we are the off-spring or generation of God; and that he is not far from every one of us. This being to be admitted for a most certain truth (notwithstanding the opposition of all gain-sayers) that God doth more immediately concurre to the generation and all other motions of the creature, then any naturall agent doth or can doe. And therefore, if

by one mans offence, death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousnesse, shall reigne in life by one, Jesus Christ. Considering that this second man is not onely as universall a principle of all our beeings, as was that first, and so may sustain the common person of us all, as well as he; but is a farre more immediate agent in the production thereof: not, as the first, so many generations removed from us, but more neere unto us then our very next progenitours; and in that regard justly to be accounted our next of kinne, even before them also.

Yet is not this sufficient neither: but there is an other kind of generation required, for which we must be beholding unto the second man, the Lord from heaven; before we can have interest in this purchased Redemption. For as the guilt of the first mans transgression is derived unto us by the meanes of carnall generation: so must the benefit of the second mans obedience be conveyed unto us by spirituall regeneration. And this must be laid down as a most undoubted verity; that, except a man be born again, hee cannot see the kingdome of God; and that every such must be born, not of bloud, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Now, as our Mediatour in respect of the Adoption of Sons, which he hath procured for us, is not ashamed to call us Brethren: so in respect of this nevv birth, whereby hee begetteth us to a spirituall and everlasting life, he disdaineth not to own us as his Children. When thou shalt make his seed an offering for sin, he shall see his seed: saith the Prophet Esaias.

A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation: saith his Father David likewise of him. And he himself, of himselfe: Behold I, and the children which God hath given mee. Whence the Apostle deduceth this

conclusion: Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and bloud, he also himselfe likewise took part of the same. He himself, that is, he who was God equall to the Father: for who else was able to make this new creature, but the same God that is the Creator of all things? (no lesse power being requisite to the effecting of this, then was at the first to the producing of all things out of nothing:) and these new babes being to be born of the Spirit; who could have power to send the Spirit, thus to beget them, but the Father and the Son from whom he proceeded? the same blessed Spirit, who framed the naturall body of our Lord in the womb of the Virgin, being to new mould and fashion every member of his mysticall body unto his similitude and likenesse.