"of the Gospel." If either the work of redemption was too big for a creature to engage in, or if the honours attending it were too high for a creature to aspire afters, then certainly the very notion of condescension is sunk and lost, upon every hypothesis which does not make Christ truly and properly God, God eternal. I am very sensible, that while I am arguing for the importance of the doctrine, I may seem at the same time to be pleading for the truth of it, and so to run unawares into the other question. But the two questions are so nearly allied, that I know not sometimes how to avoid it. The same considerations generally which prove one, must of course obliquely glance at the other also: and every Scripture argument, which intimates the use and importance of the doctrine, must at least tacitly suppose and insinuate the truth of it, and so in effect prove both in one. If Scripture has laid down motives which are not naturally or reasonably accounted for, or understood, but upon the supposition of the truth of such a doctrine, then both the doctrine itself and the practical nature of it are at the same time insinuated: which I mention here once for all, to prevent confusion, and now proceed to what remains.

The satisfaction or propitiation for the sins of the world, made by Christ, is of great importance to the Christian life, and seems also to have a close connection with the doctrine of the Trinity. The truth of the satisfaction, and

Sherlock's Vindication of the Defence of Stillingfleet, chap. v. p. 268. • Oixsrouía, quæ ipsi tribuitur, 9soλyíav necessario supponit, ipsamque omnino statuit. Quid enim? Messiam sive Christum prædicant sacræ nostræ literæ et credere nos profitemur omnes, qui sit animarum sospitator, qui nobis sit sapientiu, justitia, sanctificatio, et redemptio, qui preces suorum, ubivis sacrosanctum ejus nomen invocantium, illico exaudiat, qui Ecclesiæ suæ per universum terrarum orbem disseminatæ, semper præsto sit, qui Deo Patri, cúv↓govos, et in eadem sede collocatus sit. Qui denique, in exitu mundi, immensa gloria et majestate refulgens, angelis ministris stipatus, veniet orbem judicaturus, non modo facta omnia, sed et cordis secreta omnium quotquot fuere hominum in lucem proditurus, &c. Hæccine omnia in purum hominem, aut creaturam aliquam competere? Fidenter dico, qui ita sentiat, non modo contra fidem, sed et rationem ipsam insanire. Bull. Judic. Eccl. Cath. cap. i. p. 291, 292.

the necessity there was for it, may be substantially proved a posteriori from Scripture itself, independent of the doctrine of the Trinity. But after proceeding so far, it will be difficult to clear and extricate that Scripture doctrine, without admitting this other also: because it is not reasonable to think that any creature could do more than was his bounden duty to do upon God's requiring it; or that he could by any services or sufferings attain to such a degree of merit, as should atone for a world of sinners; or that he should be intrusted with such an office (supposing him otherwise equal to it) as would of course draw after it the adoration and homage both of men and angels. The question properly here, is not, whether any thing less than God could pay an infinite satisfaction, but whether a creature could pay any, or could merit at all. If it be said, that God might accept it as he pleased, it may be said likewise, upon the same principle, that he might accept the blood of bulls or of goats. Yet the Apostle tells us, that "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins ":" which words appear to resolve the satisfaction not merely into God's free acceptance, but into the intrinsic value of the sacrifice. And while we rest it upon that foot, I do not see why we may not say, that it is not possible for the blood of any creature to take away the sins of the world, since no creature can do more than his duty, nor can have any stock of merit to spare for other creatures. In this light, the Scripture doctrine of the satisfaction infers the Divinity of him that made it and hence it is, that those who have denied our Lord's proper Divinity have commonly gone on to deny any proper satisfaction also; or while they have admitted it in words or in name, (as they admit also Christ's Divinity,) they have denied the thing. Scripture itself seems to resolve the satisfaction into the Divinity of the Person

See a late rational and judicious discourse upon the subject, entitled, Jesus Christ the Mediator between God and Man, printed for J. Noon, 1732. " Hebrews x. 4.

suffering. It was Jehovah that was pierced. It was God that purchased the Church with his own bloody: it was ideamorns, the high Lord that bought us: it was the Lord of glory that was crucified a. And indeed it is unintelligible, how the blood of a creature should make any proper atonement or expiation for sin, as before intimated. This again is another of those arguments, or considerations, which at once insinuate both the truth of our doctrine and the importance of it. However, if Scripture otherwise testifies that Christ is properly God, and if the same Scriptures elsewhere, independently of our present argument, declare that Christ has atoned for us; then from these two propositions put together results this third, that a divine Person has satisfied for us: consequently, whosoever destroys the Divinity of Christ, justly so called, does at the same time destroy the true notion of the satisfaction made by him. Hence it appears, at the lowest, that the doctrine of the Trinity involves several other important doctrines of Christianity with it, and gives another kind of turn and significancy to them, than what they would have without it: and therefore, most undoubtedly, it is no barren speculation, no indifferent or slight matter, but a doctrine of the foundation, nearly affecting the very vitals of Christianity, and the Christian life.

The author of Sober and Charitable Disquisition has spent several pages, to invalidate the argument drawn from the common doctrine of the satisfaction; and so I must stop for a while to examine what he says. He thinks it cannot be proved, that "none but God could make such "satisfaction." But I conceive, it may be proved from the nature of the thing, that no creature could merit; and from Scripture, that he who made the satisfaction is God,

* Zechar. xii. 10. compared with John xix. 37.

Acts xx. 28. For the reading, consult Mills in loc.

z 2 Pet. ii. 1. See Taylor's True Scripture Doctrine, p. 391, &c.

is Jehovah and these two considerations taken together do amount to what we pretend to. He himself allows, the truth of our doctrine once proved, as to God's being sacrificed, the consequence to be indisputable, that it "was

some way or other necessary c." This indeed is not the whole of what we are able to prove, as may appear from what hath been said: but even this is sufficient to our present purpose; namely, that if our doctrine is true, it must be important, because of the other important doctrines which hang upon it. Therefore the doctrine of the Trinity is no speculative opinion of slight value or significancy. If it be true, it is worth contending for, and earnestly too.

He asks, whether we are sure," that no being inferior "to God could make full amends to divine justiced?" We conceive, with very good reason, that no creature could merit with God, or do works of supererogation. I pass over what he observes about infinite satisfaction, not affecting the question as here by me stated. He asks, how we can be sure, that God "cannot accept of "the sacrifice of the best and most excellent of created "beings?" I say not, what God can or cannot accept : I know nothing a priori about it. But Scripture, as before observed, rests not this matter upon the foot of divine acceptance, but upon the intrinsic value of the sacrifice and when we consider the thing in that view, we say, that a creature's services or sufferings carry no proper intrinsic merit in them. And we add further, that God has accepted no sacrifice less than a divine sacrifice, because we prove from other topics, that Christ our passover was strictly God, and he was sacrificed for us. In short, the question is not what God might have accepted, if he had so pleased, but whether, when he has chosen the way of expiation, and the Scriptures lay a particular stress and emphasis upon it, as carrying intrinsic merit in it, both

Sober and Charitable Disquisition, p. 25. d Ibid. p. 25.

Ibid. p. 25, 26, 27.

real and great, whether this can be justly accounted for, on the supposition that our Lord was no more than a creature f.

The author goes on to raise difficulties, and to advance divers subtilties to perplex the notion of a compound person: most of them, I conceive, run beyond the mark, and might as soon prove that soul and body make not one person, or man, as that God and man make not the one Person of Christ. For example; he pleads that a person compounded of God and man "must be inferior in dig"nity to a Person wholly and only divines." By the same argument, a man, being partly spirit and partly body, is inferior in dignity to the separate soul, which is wholly and only spirit: and if there be any force in the argument, I know not how far it may affect the doctrine of a future resurrection. Now, we say, that the divine nature loses nothing of its dignity by assuming the human; but retains all the dignity it before had; and therefore the whole Person becomes not inferior. He further pleads, that "it is not God that dies, but God-man." Allowed; but still that Person, that Christ, who is God, dies as when a man dies, that Person (who is soul, as well as body) dies. We never suppose that the Godhead dies, any more than we imagine that the soul dies. He says further, that "the Person which makes the satisfac❝tion is not a divine Person h." How so, when the Person is both God and man (as he had before allowed) in our scheme? Do we make two Persons? He argues next against the humanity becoming part of the Person of Christ. "Nothing can really be this who, but must be

f Verbo dicam : nulli creaturæ, licet excellentissima ea sit, excellentissimoque modo operetur, illud competat, ut vitæ æternæ præmium ei ex stricto jure debeatur. Præterquam enim quod bonum æternæ vitæ sit absolutissi. mum, immensum, infinitum, atque adeo omnia omnium creaturarum opera infinitis gradibus transcendens; illud etiam Apostoli, igúrnua tale est, ut ei a nemine responderi possit: τίς προΐδωκεν αὐτῷ, καὶ ἀνταποδοθήσεται αὐτῷ; Rom. xi. 35. Bull. Harmon. Apostol. Dissert. ii. c. 12. p. 490.

Sober and Charitable Disquisition, p. 29.

h Ibid. p. 30.