The Means Used by the Fore-Recounted Agents in This Work

The means used bn yy he fore-cecounied agents, an this:

work.

Our next employment, following the order of enainine not intention, will be the discovery or laying down of the means in this work; which are indeed no other but the several actions before recounted, but now to be considered under another respect, as they are means ordained for the obtaining of a proposed end; of which afterwards. Now, because the several actions of the Father and Spirit, were all exercised towards*Christ, and terminated in him as God and man; he only, and his performances, are to be

sonsidered as the means in this work; the several con= eurrences of both the other persons before mentioned, -

being presupposed as necessarily antecedent or concomitant.

I. The means then used or ordained by these axils for the end proposed, is that whole economy or dispensation carried all along to the end, from whence our Saviour Jesus Christ is called a Mediator: which may he, and is usually, as I mentioned before, distinguished into two parts; First, his ania, Bienen his inter- eession.

Ast. By his oblation, we do not design only the particular offering of himself upon the cross, an offering to his Father, as the lamb of God without spot or blemish: when he bare our sins, or carried them up with him in his own body on the tree, which was the sum and complement of his oblation, and that wherein it did chiefly consist: but also his whole humiliation, or state of emptying himself; whether by yielding voluntary obedience unto the law, as

2 ere

Chap. VI. As eternally intended. 49

being made under it, that he might be the end thereof to them that believe, Rom.x. 4. or by his subjection to the curse of the law, in the antecedent misery and suffering of life, as well as by submitting to death — the death of the cross; for no action of his, as Mediator, is to be excluded from a concurrence to make up the whole means in this work. Ao hee

2dly.. Neither by his intercession, do I understand only that heavenly appearance of his in the most holy place, for the applying unto us all good things purchased and procured by his oblation; but also every act of his exaltation conducing thereunto, from his. resurrection, to his sitting down at the right hand of Majesty on high, angels and principalities and powers, being made subject unto him. Of all which his resurrection (being the basis, as it were,-and the foundation of the rest; for if he had not risen, then were our faith vain, 1 Cor. xv. 14. and then are we yet in our sin, ver. 17. of all men most miserable, ver. 19.) is especially to be considered, as that to which a great part of the effect is often ascribed; for he was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification, Rom. iv. 25. Where, and in such other places, by his resurrection the whole following dispensation, and the perpetual intercession of Christ for us in heaven, is intended; for God raised up his‘Son Jesus, to bless. us, in turning away every one of us from his iniquities, cts iii. 26.: ie

II. Now this whole dispensation, with especial regard to the death and bloodshedding of Christ, is the means we speak of; agreeable to what we said before, of such, in general. For it is not a thing in itself desirable, for its own sake: the death of Christ had nothing in it,- (we speak of his suffering distinguished from his obedience) that was good, but only as it conduced to a further end; even the end proposed, for the manifestation of God’s glorious grace. What good was it, that Herod and Pon-: tius Pilate, with the Gentiles and people of Israel, should, with such horrid villainy and cruelty, gather themselves together, against God’s holy child Jesus whom he anointed? dcts iv. 27. or what good was it, that the Som of God should be made sin and a curse, to be bruised, afflicted, and to undergo such wrath as the whole frame of nature, as it were, trembled to behold; what good, what beauty and form is in all this, that it should be desired in itself, and for itself? doubtless none at all. It must then be looked upon as a mean conducing to such an end; the glory and lustre whereof, must quite take away all the darkness and confusion that was about the thing itself. And even so it was intended by the blessed agents in it, by whose determinate counsel and foreknowledge he was delivered and slain, Acts ii. 23. there being done unto him, whatsoever his hand and counsel had determined, Acés iv. 28, which what it was, must be afterwards declared: Now concerning the whole, some things are to be observed: That though the oblation and intercession of Jesus Christ, are distinct acts in themselves, and have distinct immediate products and issues assigned ofttimes unto them, (which T should now have laid down, but that I’must take up this in anotherplace;) yet they are not, in any respect - or regard, to be divided or separated, as that the one should have any “respect to any persons, or any thing, which the other also doth not in‘its kind equally respect but there is this” manifold union between them, viz. j ‘Ist. In that they are both alike intended, for the obtaining and accomplishing the same entire and complete end Heit to wit, the effectual bringing of many sons to glory, for the praise of God’s grace — of which afterwards. 2dly. That what persons soever the one respecteth, in the good things it obtaineth, the same, all, and none else, doth the other respect, in applying the good things-so obtained; for he was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification, Hom. iv. 25. ‘That is, in brief, ‘the object of the one is of no larger extent than the object of the other; or, for whom Christ offered himself, for all those, and only those, doth he intercede; according to his own word, For their sakes I sanctify myself (to he an oblation,) that ‘they also might Fe sanctified through the truth, John xvii, 19. -Sdly. That the oblation of Christ i is, as it were, the foundation of his intercession; inasmuch as by the oblation was procured every thing, that by virtue of his in-Chap. VIL. As eternally intended. 51

tercession is bestowed; and that because the sole end why Christ procured any thing by his death, was, that it might be applied to them for whom it was so procured. The sum is, that the oblation and intercession of Jesus Christ, are one entire means for the producing of the same effect; - the very end of the oblation being, that all those things which are bestowed by the intercession of Christ, and without whose application it should certainly fail of the end proposed in it, be.effected accordingly: so that it cannot be affirmed that the death or offering of Christ concerned any one person or thing more, in respect of procuring any good, than his intercession doth for the collating of it. For he interceding above, for all good purchased, and prevailing in all his intercessions, (for the Father always hears his Son;) it is evident, that every one for whom Christ died must actually have applied unto him, all the good things. purchased by his death: which, because it is evidently destructive to the adverse cause, we must a little stay to confirm it; only telling.you, the main proof of it lies in our following the proposal of assigning the proper end intended and effected by the death of Christ, so that the chief proof must be deferred until then. I shall now only propose those. reasons which may be handled apart, not merely depending upon that.

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