And this is the third thing in this compact, He who prescribes the hard conditions of incarnation, obedience, and death, doth also make the glorious promises of preservation, protection, and success. And to make these promises the more eminent, God confirms them solemnly by an oath. He is consecrated a high priest for evermore by the "word of the oath," Heb. vii. 28. "The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever," etc., verse 21.

4. The Lord Jesus Christ accepts of the condition and the promise, and voluntarily undertakes the work: Ps. xl. 7, 8, "Then said I, Lo, I come: I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." He freely, willingly, cheerfully, undertakes to do and suffer whatever it was the will of his Father that he should do or suffer for the bringing about the common end aimed at.

He undertakes to be the Father's servant in this work, and says to the LORD, "Thou art my Lord," Ps. xvi. 2;-"Thou art he to whom I am to yield obedience, to submit to in this work." "Mine ears hast thou bored, and I am thy servant;"-" I am not rebellious, I do not withdraw from it," Isa. 1. 5. Hence the apostle tells us that this mind was in him, that whereas he was "in the form of God, he humbled himself to the death of the cross," Phil. ii. 6-8. And so, by his own voluntary consent, he came under the law of the mediator; which afterward, as he would not, so he could not decline. He made himself surety of the covenant, and so was to pay what he never took. He voluntarily engaged himself into this sponsion; but when he had so done, he was legally subject to all that attended it,-when he had put his name into the obligation, he became responsible for the whole debt. And all that he did or suffered comes to be called "obedience;" which relates to the law that he was subject to, having engaged himself to his Father, and said to the LORD, "Thou art my Lord; lo, I come to do thy will."

5. The fifth and last thing is, that on the one side the promiser do approve and accept of the performance of the condition prescribed, and the undertaker demand and lay claim to the promises made, and thereupon the common end designed be accomplished and fulfilled. All this also is fully manifest in this compact or convention. (1.) God the Father accepts of the performance of what was to the Son prescribed. This God fully declares, Isa. xlix. 5, 6, "And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." And eminently, verses 8, 9, "Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I

heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; that thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves," etc.;-" Now, I have been with thee, and helped thee in thy work, and thou hast performed it; now thou shalt do all that thy heart desires, according to my promise." Hence that which was originally spoken of the eternal generation of the Son, Ps. ii. 7, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," is applied by the apostle to his resurrection from the dead: Acts xiii. 33, " God hath fulfilled his word unto us, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." That is, God by the resurrection from the dead gloriously manifested him to be his Son, whom he loved, in whom he was well pleased, and who did all his pleasure. So Rom. i. 4, " He was declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead." Then was he declared to be the Son of God. God, approving and accepting the work he had done, loosed the pains of death, and raised him again, manifesting to all the world his approbation and acceptation of him and his work; whence he immediately says to him, Ps. ii. 8, "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance; "-"Now ask what thou wilt, whatever I have promised, whatever thou didst or couldst expect upon thy undertaking this work; it shall be done, it shall be granted thee." And,

(2.) Christ, accordingly, makes his demand solemnly on earth and in heaven. On earth: John xvii., throughout the whole chapter is the demand of Christ for the accomplishment of the whole compact and all the promises that were made to him when he undertook to be a Saviour, which concerned both himself and his church; see verses 1, 4-6, 9, 12-16, etc. And in heaven also: he is gone into "the presence of God," there " to appear for us," Heb. ix. 24, and is "able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them," chap. vii. 25; not as in the days of his flesh, with strong cries and supplications, but by virtue of his oblation, laying claim to the promised inheritance in our behalf. And,

(3.) The whole work is accomplished, and the end intended brought about: for in the death of Christ he "finished the transgression, and made an end of sins, and made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness," Dan. ix. 24; and of sinful man God says, "Deliver him, for I have found a ransom," Job xxxiii. 24. Hence our reconciliation, justification, yea, our salvation, are in the Scripture spoken of as things actually done and accomplished in the death and blood-shedding of Jesus Christ. Not

as though we were all then actually justified and saved, but upon the account of the certainty of the performance and accomplishment of those things in their due time towards us and upon us are these things so delivered: for in reference to the undertaking of Christ in this covenant is he called "The second Adam," becoming a common head to his people (with this difference, that Adam was a common head to all that came of him necessarily, and, as I may so say, naturally, and whether he would or no; Christ is so to his voluntarily, and by his own consent and undertaking, as hath been demonstrated); now, as we all die in Adam federally and meritoriously, yet the several individuals are not in their persons actually dead in sin and obnoxious to eternal death before they are by natural generation united to Adam, their first head; so, though all the elect be made alive and saved federally and meritoriously in the death of Christ, wherein also a certain foundation is laid of that efficacy which works all these things in us and for us, yet we are not viritim made partakers of the good things mentioned before we are united to Christ by the communication of his Spirit to us.

And this, I say, is the covenant and compact that was between Father and Son, which is the great foundation of what hath been said and shall farther be spoken about the merit and satisfaction of Christ. Here lies the ground of the righteousness of the dispensation treated of, that Christ should undergo the punishment due to us: It was done voluntarily, of himself, and he did nothing but what he had power to do, and command from his Father to do. "I have power," saith he, "to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again; this commandment have I received of my Father;" whereby the glory both of the love and justice of God is exceedingly exalted. And,

1. This stops the mouth of the Socinian clamour concerning the unrighteousness of one man's suffering personally for another man's sin. It is true, it is so if these men be not in such relation to one another that what one doth or suffereth, the other may be accounted to do or suffer; but it is no unrighteousness, if the hand offend, that the head be smitten. But Christ is our head; we are his members. It is true, if he that suffereth hath not power over that wherein he suffers; but Christ had power to lay down his life and take it again. It is true, if he that is to suffer and he that is to punish be not willing or agreed to the commutation; but here Father and Son, as hath been manifested, were fully agreed upon the whole matter. It may be true, if he who suffers cannot possibly be made partaker of any good afterward that shall balance and overweigh all his suffering; not where the cross is endured and the shame despised for the glory proposed or set before him that suffers,-not where he is made low for a season, that he may be crowned with dignity and honour. And,-

2. This is the foundation of the merit of Christ. The apostle tells us, Rom. iv. 4, what merit is: it is such an adjunct of obedience as whereby "the reward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt." God having proposed unto Christ a law for obedience, with promises of such and such rewards upon condition of fulfilling the obedience required, he performing that obedience, the reward is reckoned to him of debt, or he righteously merited whatever was so promised to him. Though the compact was of grace, yet the reward is of debt. Look, then, whatever God promised Christ upon his undertaking to be a Saviour, that, upon the fulfilling of his will, he merited. That himself should be exalted, that he should be the head of his church, that he should see his seed, that he should justify and save them, sanctify and glorify them, were all promised to him, all merited by him. But of this more afterward.

Having thus fully considered the threefold notion of the death of Christ, as it was a price, a sacrifice, and a punishment, and discovered the foundation of righteousness in all this, proceed we now to manifest what are the proper effects of the death of Christ under this threefold notion. Now these also, answerably, are three:--I. Redemption, as it is a price; II. Reconciliation, as it is a sacrifice; III. Satisfaction, as it is a punishment. Upon which foundation, union with Christ, vocation, justification, sanctification, and glory, are built.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Of redemption by the death of Christ as it was a price or ransom.

HAVING given before the general notions of the death of Christ, as it is in Scripture proposed, all tending to manifest the way and manner of the expiation of our sins, and our delivery from the guilt and punishment due to them, it remains that an accommodation of those several notions of it be made particularly and respectively to the business in hand.

I. The first consideration proposed of the death of Christ was of it as a price; and the issue and effect thereof is REDEMPTION. Hence Christ is spoken of in the Old Testament as a Redeemer: Job xix. 25, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." The word there used is Si, whose rise and use is commonly known. 5 is "vindicare, redimere;" aávoda, in Greek; which is commonly used for "suum vindicare:" "Ori av ris ixrnuévos ž, ・ ・ ・ ・ μηδεὶς ἐπιλάβηται, ἐὰν οὕτω τις ἐνιαυτὸν ὁτιοῦν ἐκτημένος . . · μὴ ἐξέστω τοιούτου κτήματος ἐπιλαβέσθαι μηδὲν ἀπελθόντος ἐνιαυτοῦ, Plato de Legib. 12. And that may be the sense of the word iλauCáveras, if not in the effect, yet in the cause, Heb. ii. 16.

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καὶ

The rise and use of this word in this business of our deliverance by Christ we have Lev. xxv. 25, " If any of his kin come to redeem it.","redimens illud propinquus." The next who is i [is to] redeem it, or vindicate the possession out of mortgage. On this account Boaz tells Ruth that, in respect of the possession of Elimelech, he was goël, Ruth iii. 13, a redeemer; which we have translated "a kinsman," because he was to do that office by right of propinquity of blood or nearness of kin, as is evident from the law before mentioned. Christ, coming to vindicate us into liberty by his own blood, is called by Job his goël, chap. xix. 25; so also is he termed, Isa. xli. 14, 2, thy redeemer," or "thy next kinsman;" and chap. xliv. 6, in that excellent description of Christ, also verse 24, chap. xlvii. 4, xlviii. 17, xlix. 26, liv. 5, lix. 20, lx. 16, lxiii. 16, and in sundry other places. Neither is the church of God at all beholding to some late expositors, who, to show their skill in the Hebrew doctors, would impose upon us their interpretations, and make those expressions to signify deliverance in general, and to be referred to God the Father, seeing that the rise of the use of the word plainly restrains the redemption intended to the paying of a price for it; which was done only by Jesus Christ. So Jer. xxxii. 7, 8. Hence they that looked for the Messiah, according to the promise, are said to look for, or to wait for, brpwa, "redemption in Israel," Luke ii. 38: and, in the accomplishment of the promise, the apostle tells us that Christ by his blood obtained for us "eternal redemption," Heb. ix. 12. And he having so obtained it, we are "justified freely by the grace of God, dià τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ̓Ιησοῦ,—by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;" iv for diά, “in him," for " by him," or wrought by him, Rom. iii. 24. And this being brought home to us, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins," Eph. i. 7, Col. i. 14; whence he is said to be "made unto us ároλúrpwois," or redemption," 1 Cor. i. 30.

How this is done will be made evident by applying of what is now spoken to what was spoken of the death of Christ as a price. Christ giving himself or his life λúrpov and άvríλurpov, a price of redemption, as hath been showed, a ransom, those for whom he did it come to have λύτρωσιν and ἀπολύτρωσιν, redemption thereby, or deliverance from the captivity wherein they were. And our Saviour expresses particularly how this was done as to both parts, Matt. xx. 28. He came δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν,—that is, he came to be an avríuxos, one to stand in the room of others, and to give his life for

them.

To make this the more evident and clear, I shall give a description of redemption properly so called, and make application of it in the several parts thereof unto that under consideration:"Redemption is the deliverance of any one from bondage or cap

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