IRENICAL

ANIMADVERSIONS.

CHAPTER I.

Concerning the translation of Sin to Christ.

I. Six chief heads of controversy. II. Six controversies concerning the purchase of salvation. III. Election to salvation. IV. Most free. V. And immutable. VI. The covenant between the Father and the Son, concerning the procuring of salvation to the elect. VII. In virtue of which the sins of the elect were translated to Christ. VIII. As typically of old to the sacrifices for sin. IX. So truly to Jesus the Surety. X. Wherefore they are also called his sins. XI. Yet so, that by imputation, no prejudice is done, either to the holiness of Christ, or to the truth of the Divine judgment. XII. For they are not Christ's, except inasmuch as he represents the person of sinners. XIII. Whether they are also imputed to Christ as to their stain. XIV. How they are ours, not Christ's; and again Christ's, not ours. XV. The emphatic phrases of scripture are not to be exchanged for ours as better.

I.

THESE things which use now to be

CHAP.

I.

chiefly controverted, may be reduced to six For there is a dispute, 1. chief heads

principal heads.

Concerning the

and manner of OBTAINway

B 2

I. Six

of controversy.

CHAP. ING SALVATION. 2. Concerning the APPLICA

I.

II. Six

controversies con

cerning the

purchase of

TION of the purchased salvation. 3. Concerning JUSTIFICATION. 4. Concerning the NATURE and GENIUS OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE. 5. Concerning THE UTILITY OF HOLINESS and good works. 6. Concerning the preaching of the LAW AND THE GOSPEL. Under which general heads are comprehended many particular controversies, to be distinctly explained.

II. Concerning the purchase of salvation, these things are chiefly the subject of inquiry: 1. Whether only the PUNISHMENT due to salvation. the sins of the elect, or the VERY SINS of the elect, both as to their stain and as to their GUILT, are translated to Christ as Surety. 2. Whether Christ on account of that translation, was, and ought to be called, as great a SINNER as the elect themselves, yea, THE GREATEST OF ALL SINNERS. 3. Whether by the suretiship of Christ there be a certain exchange of persons between him and the elect. 4. Whether the translation of sins to Christ, and his carrying them, began in his crucifixion, and terminated in his resurrection from the dead. V. Whether, at that time when he chiefly carried the sins of the elect, he was separated from God, was odious and abominable to him, and whether God did then abdicate his Son, and again acknowledge him for his Son, when he raised him from the dead. 6. Whether Christ, by taking upon him the sins of the elect, and satisfying Divine justice, ab

solutely purchased eternal salvation for them; or CHAP. this only, that they could be saved, and in reality should, if they believe. These questions I shall so prosecute in order, that what I judge should be determined as to each, may be explained in the clearest manner. And I choose to begin with the origin of salvation.

III. Elec

III. The ever-blessed and the great God determined from eternity to render himself tion to salglorious and wonderful, in delivering certain vation.. men, designed as by name, from sin and death, and in their eternal salvation; salvation to be acquired by his only begotten Son, to whom as he hath life in. himself, he has also given. to have life in himself; and to be applied by the Spirit of life.

IV. Most

IV. Since God is entirely independent in all the acts of his will, and the supreme free. ruler of all things and persons; and likewise the only author of all good, and therefore of all faith, virtue, and holiness in men, the favour of which things he most freely confers on whom he pleaseth, doing all things according to the counsel of his will; no faith, no virtue, nay, no good at all could be foreknown in some men more than in others, in consideration of which he should choose the one rather than the other: but all the reason of this difference is to be placed in the absolute dominion of God, and in the immense freedom of glorious grace, concerning which he is accountable to none.

B 3

CHAP.

I.

V. And since the counsel of Jehovah stand

eth for ever, since established in unsearchable V. And wisdom, by a God who knows not to repent, immutable. it has the inconceivable power of omnipotence subservient to it, to bend the minds of men whithersoever it will, without any prejudice to rational liberty; it is absolutely impossible that they should not be saved, whom God hath appointed to obtain salvation.

tovenant

and the Son,

ing of sal

vation to the elect.

VI. The VI. That he might execute this purpose, between not only without diminishing or obscuring in the Father the least any of his attributes, but also in the concerning clearest demonstration of them, he most wisethe procur- ly determined in the same eternal decree, to give for a Saviour to those elect, his only, coeternal, and co-equal Son; who, in the appointed time should assume the nature of man, the form of a servant, and represent them as a surety or undertaker for them; should by the most exact obedience of his life, and the meritorious suffering of death, satisfy the Divine majesty and justice, injured by the sins of men; and victorious over all sufferings, and death itself, should be constituted the head of the elect in eternal glory. Further, since the will of the Son is the same with that of the Father, he voluntarily offered himself, from eternity, to undertake and perform that suretiship, for the elect. And in this consent of will, there is some resemblance as of a mutual compact, or covenant..

VII. In

(virtue of

VII. By virtue of this covenant, God LAID ALL THE SINS OF ALL THE ELECT upon his

I.

Son, whom he called Jesus Christ: I say, sins; CHAP. for so the scripture every where speaks. Isa. liii. 6. «All we like sheep have gone astray, which, the we have turned every one to his own way," elect were

>> sins of the

made the iniquity of us all to rush upon him. to Christ.

and the Lord translated דיחוה המגיע בך את עון כלגן

and he shall דעוגתם הוא יסבל .11 .Again ver

,and he bare the sin of many (חוא תטא רכים

bear their INIQUITIES. Again, ver. 12. xwa

add, 1 Pet. i. 24. "Who his ownself bare our sins in his own body."

VIII. As typically of

for sin.

VIII. This was typically prefigured of old by the laying on of hands and of sins upon to the the beast destined to be a sacrifice, instead of sacrifice the sinner. For it was the end of that ceremony to signify that sin was taken away from the men who offered, and translated to the sacrifice; hence the sacrifice itself was called. 78D7 and DWN, sin and guilt. Nay, the sacrifice was reckoned to be so polluted by the sin laid upon it, that even they who were employed in the sacred ministry concerning it, were defiled by touching it. For so it happened, not only to him who led the piacular goat into the wilderness, Lev. xvi. 26. but also to those who attended the red heifer and the goats burnt without the camp, Numb. xix. 7, 8. Lev. xvi. 28. So that the priests who feasted on such sacrifices, were reckoned to bear the iniquity of the congregation, because they converted part of their substance into their own.

IX. There is no doubt but these things Ix. so should be referred to Christ Jesus of whom in truth to