rap

I.

expreft, 'tis conceived only in the minds of SER M. fincere Chriftians who are in an habitual state of penitence and devotion. The fudden tures of beginners in religion, and violent excurfions of a warm imagination, are but like flashes in the lower region of the air; this is a beam of glory from the father of light. This full affurance of being washed from all our guilt in the blood of the lamb is a thought that overcomes the mind, and leaves us in filent wonder. We know not what to fay of it now; for in truth our time of rejoycing is to come. "Tis sweet and cordial to the foul that poffeffes it; let them enjoy it for the prefent, and it will one day break out like the morning fun from a cloud, and difplay it self in rays of unconceiveable brightnefs; and then shall be put into our mouths that new fong in the Revelations, Worthy is the lamb that was flain, to receive power, and riches, and wifdom, and firength, and honour, and glory, and bleffing: For thou haft redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.

And therefore unto him that hath thus loved us, and washed us from our fins in his own blood; to him be glory, and dominion for ever and ever.

Amen.

SERMON

SERMON II

That the Blood of Chrift cleanses us from Sin.

PART II.

SER M.

II.

HEBR. ix. 14.

How much more fhall the blood of Chrift, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without fpot to God, purge your confcience from dead works, to ferve the living God?

IN

N a former difcourse on these words, after I had shewn how the Apostle in them had compared the blood of the legal facrifices with that of Chrift in feveral inftances; and how the purging in the text was to be literally understood of washing and sprinkling; before I fpoke more particularly of the virtue of the blood of Chrift in refpect of men, I obferved to you these two things.

1. That it was an opinion univerfally prevailing among all nations that washing of the body was neceffary in order to take away the guilt of fin. 2. That

2. That the whole cuftom of washing with SER M. water and sprinkling with blood referred to II. the washing away of fin by the blood of Christ.

Then I laid before you the opinion of the Socinians in this point, together with the ground of their error; from whence it appeared that the true question in difpute between them and us on this head of the prefent controversy, was not, whether the blood of Chrift literally and properly washes away the guilt of fin? but whether the holy fcriptures do not represent the manner of our consciences being freed from guilt by the blood of Chrift under fuch emblems as exprefs a real effect in nature? And whether by that analogy is not fignified a real proper supernatural efficacy?

Thus we divide the two parts of the queftion, which having been treated of jointly hath neceffarily caused confusion.

Now as to the first part of the question, whether the holy fcriptures do not represent the manner of our confciences being freed from guilt by the blood of Chrift under fuch emblems as exprefs a real effect in nature? This I believe no one can deny, for washing and purging and cleanfing, &c. are real effects in nature, and these are the things by which this great mystery is revealed to us, which is in itself unconceivable in this our prèsent condition of infirmity.

As

SER M.

II. w

As to the fecond, whether by that analogy we are not to understand fome real proper fupernatural efficacy of the blood of Chrift, by which the guilt of our fins are wholly done away? This I think appeared from thofe inftances. I made ufe of in my last discourse, namely that of Zacharias's prophefy of a fountain being opened for fin and for uncleannefs; that of the brazen ferpent in the wilderness and from this of the words of my text; and therefore now I am to make this yet more evident.

But before I proceed to this, it will be neceffary to obferve to you here one great error which runs through all that Socinus and Crellius fays upon this head of the controversy, and that is their confounding every where liberatio a pœnâ, and liberatio a reatu, which it is plain they do induftrioufly; for it is a plaufible thing to fay as they do, that God can remit freely what fins he pleases, he can forgive whom he will without any other profpect than that of the eternal goodness of his own nature: And for us to say that he cannot forgive without a fatisfaction, is to deny him the fame liberty we take ourselves, and allow him less power and goodness than we do a

man.

But even on the fuppofition the Socinians go, namely that all punishment of fin is purely arbitrary and an immediate pofitive act of God, yet it were injurious to his nature to let fin go unpunished; because he being as they

fuppofe

fuppofe him infinitely good, he must from SER M. that internal rectitude of his own nature be II. supposed to love all goodness and hate all evil, (i. e.) in other words to reward one and punish the other; and therefore as Anfelmus argues, proving the neceffity of the incarnation of the fon of God in order to an atonement for fin, it is as abfurd to say that God can remit fin without fome atonement, as to fay that God can do an ill thing. To wink at a fin, and let it pafs without cenfure or punishment; nay to embrace and cherish the finner, is really an evil thing. Non debet tolerare Deus (fays he) quo nibil injuftiùs tolera ur, nihil autem injuftiùs toleratur quam quo nihil minus eft tolerandum. And therefore what he would infer follows directly; Quapropter non pertinet ad ejus libertatem, ac benignitatem, ac voluntatem peccantem impunitum dimitttere. It is a plain contradiction in refpect of God, and doth not touch his power, or his freedom, or his goodnefs; and the contrary would be a manifest injury to them.

Let us put this cafe in the perfon of a merciful prince, and fuppofe that he fhould forgive murder and robbery, and treat the committers of them on the level with others that were not guilty of any fuch crime; the Socinians would cry out upon him for an unjust man, a cherisher of villany, and call him a man of a weak and impotent fpirit, that could not bear the thoughts of a juft punishment inflicted on wilful offenders; and yet this very

indecency