and law of the participation of the benefits of the sufferings of Christ, was also free and of grace. The communication of the Holy Spirit
132 NECESSITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST [EXERC. XXX.
unto us, enabling us to believe and to fulfil the condition of the covenant, is absolutely free. And other instances of the freedom of God’s grace, with respect unto the remission of sin, might be given. Unto us it is every way free. In our own persons we make no satis- faction, nor pay one farthing of our debt; we did nothing towards the procurement of another to do it; we bring neither money nor price to obtain a pardon; but.are absolved by the mere free grace of God by Jesus Christ. And there is nothing here inconsistent with Christ suffering the same that we should have done, or his paying the same debt which we owed, in the sense before explained.
EXERCITATION XXX.
THE NECESSITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST ON THE SUPPOSITION OF SIN AND GRACE.
1. The vindictive justice of God confirmed by other arguments. 2. The com- mon suffrage of mankind herein; 3. Expressed in sacrifices. 4. The anger of God, wherein it consists. 5. Arguments proving it necessary that sin should be punished. 6. Sum of the reasons for the necessity of the priest- hood of Christ. 7. No necessity nor use of his death on any other suppo- sition. 8. Conclusion.
1. That which is proposed unto confirmation in these Exercitations is, that the justice or righteousness from whence it is that God punisheth sin, and which he exerciseth in so doing, is an essential property of his nature. There yet remain some other arguments whereby the truth hereof is confirmed, which I shall only briefly represent, that we be not too long detained on this particular head of our design. Besides, I have ‘both urged and vindicated these arguments already i in another way.
2. In the next place, therefore, unto what hath. been insisted on, we may plead the common suffrage of mankind in this matter: for what all men have a presumption of is not free, but necessary, nor can be otherwise; for it is from a principle which knows only what is, and not what may be or may not be. Of such things there can be no common or innate persuasion among men. Such are all the free acts of the will of God. They are of things that might be or might not be; otherwise were they not free acts. If, therefore, God’s punishing of sin were merely an effect of a free act of his will, with- out respect unto any essential property of his nature, there could never have been any general presumption or apprehension of it in the minds of men. But this there is, namely, that God is righteous with that kind of righteousness which requires that sin be punished; and he therefore doth punish it accordingly. Hence our apostle, speak-
SECT. 1-4.] ON THE SUPPOSITION OF SIN AND GRACE. 133
ing of the generality of the heathen, affirms that they knew that it was “the judgment of God that they who committed sin were worthy of death,” Rom. i. 32. They are enormous sins indeed, mostly, which he instanceth in; but his inference is from the nature, and not the degree of any sin. “They who commit sin are worthy of death;” that is, obnoxious unto it on the account of their guilt, and which shall therefore be inflicted on them. And death is the punishment due to sin. And this is “the gudgment of God,’—that which his justice requireth, which, because he is just, he judgeth meet to be done; or,
_ this is that right which God exerciseth in the government of all. And this was known to the Gentiles by the light and instinct of nature, for other instruction herein they had not. And this natural conception of their minds they variously expressed, as hath been else- where declared. Thus, when the barbarians saw Paul bound with a chain, whence they supposed him to be a malefactor, they presently concluded, upon the viper’s leaping on his hand, that vengeance from God was fallen on him, which he should not escape notwithstand- ing the deliverance which he had had at sea; for this d/xy, or “ven- geance,” they thought to be peculiarly designed to find out sinners that had seemed to have made an escape from punishment justly deserved, Acts xxviii. 4. That such punishment is due to sin they were sufficiently convinced of by the testimony of their own con- sciences, Rom. ii. 14, 15; and whereas conscience is nothing but the judgment which a man maketh concerning himself and his actions, with respect unto the superior judgment of God, a sense of the eternal righteousness of God was therein included.
3. And this sense of avenging justice they expressed in all their sacrifices, wherein they attempted to make some atonement for the guilt of sin. And this in an especial manner evidenced itself, partly in that horrid custom of sacrificing of other men, and partly in the occasional devoting of themselves unto destruction unto the same end; as also in their more solemn and public lustrations and expia- tions of cities and countries, in the time of public calamities and judgments. For, what was the voice of nature in those actings, wherein it offered violence to its own inbred principles and inclina- tions? It was this alone: ‘The Governor over all is just and right- eous; we are guilty. He will not suffer us to live, vengeance will overtake us, if some way or other some course be not found out to appease him, to satisfy his justice, and to divert his judgments,’ Mic. vi. 6, 7. This they thought to be the most probable way to bring about this end, namely, to take another of the same nature with themselves, and it may be dear unto them, and to bring him