2. It was the person of Christ, his incarnation and mediation, that were promised under the name of the " seed of the woman," and the work he should do in breaking the head of the serpent, with the way whereby he should do it in suffering, by his j^ower. The accomplishment hereof was in God's sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, in the fulness of time, made under the law, or by his manifestation in the flesh, to destroy the works of the devil. So is
THE FIRST PROMISE CONSIDERED. 12]
this promise interpreted, Gal. iii. 13, iv. 4; Heb. ii. 14-16; 1 John iii. 8. This cannot be denied but upon one of these two grounds : —
(1.) That nothing is intended in that divine revelation but only a natural enmity that is between mankind and serpents. But this is so foolish an imagination, that the Jews themselves, who constantly refer this place to the Messiah, are not guilty of All the whole truth concerning God's displeasure on the sin of our first parents, with what concemeth the nature and consequence of that sin, is everted hereby. And whereas the foundation of all God's future deahng with them and their posterity is plainly expressed herein, it is turned into that which is ludicrous, and of very little concernment in human hfe. For such is the enmity between mankind and serpents — which not one in a million knows any thing of, or is troubled with. This is but to lay the axe of atheism unto all religion built on divine revelation. Besides, on this supposition, there is in the words not the least intimation of any relief that God tendered unto our parents for their delivery from the state and condition whereinto they had cast themselves by their sin and apostasy. Wherefore they must be esteemed to be left absolutely under the curse, as the angels were that fell — which is to root all religion out of the world. For amongst them who are absolutely under the curse, without any remedy, there can be no more than is in hell. Or—
(2.) It must be, because some other way of deliverance and salvation, and not that by Christ, is here proposed and promised. But, whereas they were to be \vrought by the " seed of the woman" — if this were not that Christ in whom we do believe, there was another promised, and he is to be rejected. And this is fairly at once to blot out the whole Scripture as a fable; for there is not a line of doctrinal truth in it but what depends on the traduction of Christ from this first promise.
3. This promise was confirmed, and the way of the deliverance of the church by virtue of it declared, in the institution of expiatory sacrifices. God in them and by them declared from the besfinnino-, that " without shedding of blood there was no remission;" that atone- ment for sin was to be made by substitution and satisfaction. With respect unto them, the Lord Christ was called " The Lamb of God," even as he took away the sins of the world by the sacrifice of himself, John i. 29. For we " were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot," 1 Pet. i. 19. Wherein the Holy Spirit refers unto the institution and nature of sacrifices from the beginning. And he is thence represented in heaven as a " Lamb that had been slain," Rev. v. 6 — the glory of heaven arising from the fruits and effects of his sacrifice. And
1 22 THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
because of the representation thereof in all the former sacrifices, is he said to be a " Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," Kev. xiii. 8. And it is strange to me that any who deny not the expia- tory sacrifice of Christ, should doubt whether the original of these sacrifices were of divine institution or the invention of men. And it is so, amongst others, for the reasons ensuing : —
(1.) On the supposition that they were of men's finding out and voluntary observation, without any previous divine revelation, it must be granted that the foundation of all acceptable religion in the world was laid in, and resolved into, the wisdom and wills of men, and not into the wisdom, authority, and will of God. For that the great solemnity of religion, which was as the centre and testimony of all its other duties, did consist in these sacrifices even before the giv- ing of the law, will not be denied. And in the giving of the law, God did not, on this supposition, confirm and establish his own insti- tutions with additions unto them of the same kind, but set his seal and approbation unto the inventions of men. But this is contrary unto natural light, and the whole current of Scripture revelations.
(2.) All expiatory sacrifices were, from the beginning, types and representations of the sacrifice of Christ; whereon all their use, effi- cacy, and benefit among men — all their acceptance with God — did depend. Kemove this consideration from them, and they were as irrational a service, as unbecommg the divine nature, as any thing that reasonable creatures could fix upon. They are to this day as reasonable a service as ever they were, but that only their respect unto the sacrifice of Christ is taken from them. And what person of any ordinary understanding could now suppose them a meet service whereby to glorify the divine nature? Besides, all expiatory sacrifices were of the same nature, and of the same use, both before and after the giving of the law. But that all those afterward were t3rpical of the sacrifice of Christ, the apostle demonstrates at large in his Epistle unto the Hebrews. The inquiry, therefore, is, whether this blessed prefiguration of the Lord Christ and his sacrifice, as he was the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, was an effect of the wisdom, goodness, and will of God, or of the wills and inventions of men. And let it be considered, also, that these men, who are supposed to be the authors of this wonderful representation of the Lord Christ and his sacrifice, did indeed know little of them — or, as the assertors of this opinion imagine, nothing at all. To suppose that those who knew no more of Christ than they could learn from the first promise — which, as some think, was nothing at all — should of their own heads find out and appoint this divine service, which consisted only in the prefiguration of him and his sacrifice; and that God should not only approve of it, but allow it as the principal means for the establish-