SECT. 16, 17.] OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 223
account, on this supposition, can be given of the intercession of Christ, which is his second great sacerdotal duty? Doth this also consist in a powerful efficiency in us of what God hath decreed concerning his pardoning, blotting out, and extinguishing of sin? Is this the nature of it, that whereas God had decreed freely to pardon sin, and to take away the punishment due unto it, this intercession is his powerful taking away of that punishment, and his actual delivery of us from sin? Is it possible that an act and duty of this nature should be expressed by a word of a more opposite signification and import- ance? For my part, I value not that use of right reason, that these men so much boast of, which is exercised in giving a wrong signifi- cation unto words expressive of so weighty truths and duties? Who but they can possibly understand any thing, by Christ’s intercession in heayen at the right hand of God, but his procuring from him grace, mercy, and pardon for us, by virtue of his antecedent obla- tion? And God is the object of his actings herein.
17. But he proceeds to give countenance unto what he hath as- serted: “(1.) Itaque quemadmodum oblationis vox, ut infra clarius patebit, ad hane Christi actionem (2.) ob similitudinem cum legali- bus sacrificiis transfertur; ita et loquutio hac (3.) quod peragatur vel fiat, apud Deum pro hominibus. (4.) Similitudo in eo est (5.) quod quemadmodum legalia sacrificia ideo Deo offerebantur (6.) et coram ipsius vultu perficiebantur, ut iis peractis (7.) vi decreti ipsius homines, pro quibus offerebantur, remissionem peccatorum ab ipso obtinerent; ita (8.) interveniente Christi oblatione, seu apparitione coram Dei vultu (9.) per sanguinis fusionem facta, et cum summo salutis nostree perficiendze desiderio conjuncta, (10.) homines a Deo vi decreti ipsius, ipsiusque virtute, quam eum in finem Christo concessit, liberationem a penis obtinent. (11.) Indicare nempe hac loquutione Spiritus Sanctus voluit remissionem peccatorum quam Christus in ccelis apud Patrem degens nobis preestet, a Deo ejusque benignitate primo pro- ficisci, et quicquid ad eam in nobis perficiendam sit, id totum ipsius virtute et auctoritate, Christo, qui ut eam adipisceretur, et sic nos a peccatorum pecenis reipsa liberare posset, safguinem suum fuderat, eoque cum desiderio ccelum fuerat ingressus, data peragi. (12.) Ita- que ut id exprimat non modo Christi in ccelos ingressum atque ad Deum accessum, per quem factum est ut ad dextram ipsius consi- deret, et plenam peccata nobis remittendi potestatem obtineret, sed et perpetuam apud ipsum permansionem, cum salutis nostre cura conjunctam ita considerat, ac si e& Deus aliqua ratione moveretur ad remissionem peccatorum nobis vi decreti sui concedendam, (13.) Et sic inter hanc et illam actus quidam ipsius Dei, propitium se ~ nobis exhibentis, et nos a pcena liberantis interveniret; cum tamen ipse Christus potestate sibi, a Deo, et olim jam decreta, et in celum
224 OF THE ACTS AND ADJUNCTS [EXERC. XXXII
ingresso donata, id totum, quod ad nos a pcena liberandos pertinet ejus nomine faciat.”
Ans. (1.) The name of oblation and sacrifice is not applied at all unto that action of Christ which this man intends, namely, his ap- pearance in heaven; which, as to its efficacy on our behalf, belongs unto his intercession, Rom. vil. 34; 1 John i. 1. There is more also in the sacrifice of Christ than the transferring the name of ob- lation unto any action of his which is not so indeed. These little artifices and insinuations, which when discovered are a mere begging of the thing in question, make up the principal parts of-Crellius’ defence. Wherefore,—(2.) The name of oblation is not transferred unto that action of Christ wherein his sacrifice did truly and really consist, namely, his death and blood-shedding, merely by an allusion taken from the legal sacrifices; but it is so called by the Holy Ghost because 2t 1s so indeed, as having the true, proper nature of a sacri- fice, so as that it was the pattern or idea in the mind of God of all the other sacrifices which he appointed, and which, therefore, were ordained unto no other end but to prefigure the nature and exhibit the efficacy thereof. (3.) That expression, of doing things “ apud Deum,” or doing for men the things that appertain unto God, can- not, on the hypothesis of these men, be ascribed unto Christ out of a similitude unto what was done by the priests of old: for whatever they did, as priests, they did it unto God; but the Lord Christ, ac- cording to these men, did nothing as a priest unto God. And how can that which he doth towards us be called by the name of what the priests did of old towards God, because of its likeness thereunto, seeing there is no likeness between these things? for what similitude is there between the offering of a bloody sacrifice to God, thereby to make atonement for the guilt of sin, and the actual powerful deliverance of us from the punishment due to sin? What such. similitude, I say, is there between these things, as to warrant their being called by the same name, which answers unto one of them properly, and to the other not at all? That, therefore, which is here pretended amounts to no more than this, namely, that where- as he doth nothing in his offering with God, but with men, he is said to offer himself by reason of a similitude in what he did unto what the priests did in their oblations, who did nothing with men therein, but with God! As, therefore, we know that the sacerdotal acting of Christ was not called an oblation, offering, or sacrifice, merely out of the similitude that was between it and the sacrifices of old,—although we grant that indeed there was more than a mere similitude between them, even a typical relation, the one being de- signed to represent the nature and exhibit the virtue of the other, whence they are both properly called by the same name,—so, ac-