CHAP. ning Death to the Sinner, and the Relation between Governor and Governed muft both have been fo far injured, as to die, and be diffolv'd.

XI.

WHEN fuch a one therefore presents himself, who has a real Property in his own Life, and whose Offer is so valuable before Him, who is fupreme over the Law; it is as much his Right to relax and dispense with his own Laws, as it was at first to make them; He is accountable to none: Nor has He any Rule to go by in guiding his Proceedings with Men, but what fhall moft engage their Love and Efteem, their Fear and Awe of his Authority over them; and best promote their real Good and Happiness, which is his own Glory. If any Expedient therefore offers from a third Perfon that effectually answers thefe Ends, his Mercy and Goodness would never hefitate to close with it, as the best Course that could be taken with frail, peccant Man, for the better Obfervance of his Laws for the future.

THAT Paffage therefore in the Characterifticks, quite mistakes the Character wherein God judges and determines: "Whoever thinks there

is a God, and pretends formally to believe "that he is just and good, muft fuppofe that "there is independantly fuch a thing as Justice "and Injustice, Truth and Falfhood, Right and

Wrong; according to which he pronounces "God is juft, righteous, and true. If the mere "Will, Decree or Law of God, is faid abfolutely to conftitute Right and Wrong, then "are these latter Words of no Signification at "all. For thus if each Part of a Contradiction

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* Chara&erifticks, Vol. II. page 50.

"was

"was affirmed for Truth by the Supreme Power, CHAP. "that would confequently become true. Thus XI. "if one Perfon was decreed to fuffer for an

"other's Fault, the Sentence would be just and equitable.

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In answer to this Reflection upon Christianity. We are not to eftimate the Goodness or Juftice of God by the Measures of the Goodness and Juftice of a fubordinate Judge in his Proceedings. For then neither Chrift could have fuffered tho he had offered himself, nor could the Offender any way escape the Punishment of the Law. But. He is to be confider'd as a Legiflator, who does not vary, but is ftill conftant and true to the Defign of Punishment, and the End of his Law, which is to have it obferved. If it can be done one way, and not another, upon a Change of Circumftances, and a Perfon offers himself freely to Punishment whofe Suffering answers the Defign of Punishment; in that Cafe, the Sentence will be both righteous and true, because true to the righteous Intention of the Law; though it is not properly a Sentence on the Part of God, but a Permiffion in Him, that the third Perfon fhould fuffer according to his own Offer. And if the Intention of Punishment, and of the Law, can be better obferv'd and fulfilled one way than another, then the Sentence is not only righteous and true, but wife and merciful moreover. So that there is no Notion of Right or Wrong inverted, as if an inferior Judge had acted. And God himself eftimates, and measures out to us his own Juftice, by this Difpenfation: That he might be just, and the Juftifier of him that believeth in Jefus, and in many Places calls this Method Rom. iii. 26.

by

XI.

CHAP, by the Name of his own Righteoufnefs, as if he gloried in accepting defective Righteousness upon Earth, in that manner, and that manner only.

If the transferring of Punishment from the guilty Principal, to the innocent Substitute, might prove the Reformation of the guilty, and the preferving the Principal alive (to whom the perfonal Execution of the Punishment must be utter Ruination) the Substitute at the fame time fuffering no Injury, it would be fo far from misplacing of Punishment, or perverting the due Course of Juftice, that it would be the greatest Improvement to both of them, that either of them could poffibly receive. An Improvement that God could have added to neither of them, before Man had finned, or before the Mediator had offered his Service in behalf of Man.

AND, if admitting Him voluntarily offering Himself to Death for redeeming Man from the Curfe of the Law, the Sentence of it, would ingratiate and engraft into Man the Love of God's Name, with Refolutions of obeying him better, and enhanfe the Fear of offending any more; Man would be the Gainer, and God would be rejoiced at it, and the Mediator would be no Lofer: And fo the Divine Government, which had been disorder'd by the Perverfenefs of Man, would go on in, its due Course.

THE Mediator was fo far from being a Lofer by what he fo lovingly fuffer'd for us Men, that God was as willling as he was able, to let him find that very human Nature of his, wherein he did fuch fhameful bitter. Penance for the Sins of Men, (which should vacate and fet afide all other Penances,

Penances, Satisfactions, Maffes, and Merits for CHAP. Sin) recompenced and exalted to his own Right, XI. Hand; and made Lord and King, not only over all the Worlds of Angels, Principalities, Powers; and over Death, the laft Enemy that shall be subdued: And the Homage of all these is due unto Him, as a Reward of his unparallel'd Humiliation to the Death of the Crofs. And confidering who he was in our Nature, it must be confefs'd his Humanity earnt it all, by what he fuffer'd.

THE DIGNITY of the Perfon fuffering fuch Things for us, is a very awful, and affecting Confideration, and concerns us to improve in it, as a prime Fundamental of our Holy Religion. Thus the Scriptures would raise and exalt our religious Contemplations of his Sufferings, by the fublime Value of the Divine Nature perfonally united to the Human. The Lord of Glory is faid to be crucified; and He who was in the Form of God, bumbled himself and became obedient unto the Death of the Cross +, and the Church to be purchafed with the Blood of God. Though he fuffer'd what he did in his Human Nature, yet that being perfonally united to the Divine, and He being God as well as Man, the Value is rated, and the Denomination taken from the principal Nature in the Union.

THUS of the two different Natures, Soul and Body of Man, what is properly done by one, is familiarly afcribed to the other, as touching, eating, &c. to the Soul, fo vice versa. O

XI.

CHAP. thou that heareft Prayer, unto thee fhall all Flef come*, &c. Or if a Plebean is adopted to be an Emperor, any Suffering or Indignity done to him afterwards, is enhanfed from his emperial Elevation. The People estimated the Life of David worth more than ten Thousand of themselves t. Thus the Civil Law determines that a Tree

tranfplanted from one Soil to another, and "taking Root there, belongs to the Owner of "that Ground; in regard that receiving Nourish"ment from a new Earth, it becomes as it were "another Tree, though there be the fame in"dividual Root, the fame Body, and the fame "Soul of Vegetation as before. Plantata &

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confita ut folo cedant eft juris conftituti, cujus ratio

eft quod ifta folo alantur. Grot. de Jur. Bel. & "Pacis, Lib. II. cap. 8. Thus the Human "Nature, taken from the common Mafs of "Mankind, and transplanted by perfonal Uni"on into the Divine, is to be reckon'd as entirely belonging to the Divine, and the Actions "proceeding from it are not merely Human, "but are raised above their natural Worth, and "become meritorious."

IT is very unfafe and unbecoming the Obligations of Chriftians to deprefs the Dignity of the Mediator, or fubtract from his Divine Nature, as Son of God, the next Perfon to the Father. Because the depreffing of that, depreffes 1. The Perfection of the Mediator, which was fhewn before to confift in the perfonal Union of the Divine and Human Nature. 2. The Certainty of our Reconciliation. 3. The Wisdom of God in accepting fuch a Perfon to suffering,