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EXERCITATION II.

1. Of the origin of the priesthood of Christ. The eternal counsels of God; how to be inquired into. § 2. No priest or sacrifice in the state of innocence. § 3. Priesthood and sacrifices related. § 4. The nature of the office of the priesthood, Heb. v. 1. explained. § 5. In the state of innocence some might have acted for God towards men, none for o ther men towards God. § 6. No sacrifices in that state. To sacrifice is properly to slay. § 7. Killing essential to sacrifices. § 8. No revelation concerning sacrifices before the fall. § 9. Opinion of some that the Son of God should have been incarnate if man had not sinned. Of the necessity of sacrifices in all religious worship. § 10. Pretences of reasons for the incarnation of Christ, without respect to sin or grace. § 11. The whole unwritten. § 12. Contrary to what is written. § 13. And destitute of countenance from spiritual reason. § 14. Pleas of the Pelagians and ancient schoolmen for the incarnation of the Son of God in the state of innocence. Their first argument from the glory of God and good of the universe, proposed and answered. § 15. The second argument from the capacity of the human nature for the grace of union in the state of innocence, answered. § 16. The mystery of the incarnation not revealed to Adam in the state of innocence. The meaning of those words, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. §17. The order of God's decrees concerning his glory in the salvation of mankind, considered. No order of them to be conceived that is consistent with the pre-ordination of the incarnation, without respect to sin and redemption. § 18. The arguments of Osiander. The Son, how the image of the Father. The order of subsistence and operation in the Trinity. Christ, how the head of angels and men. § 19. The image of God in man, wherein it consist ed. 20. How Adam was made in the image of Christ, and Christ made in the image of Adam. 21. The incarnation, how occasioned by the fall. § 22. The Son of God, the head of angels and men, had not sin entered into the world. § 23. No sacrifices in the state of innocence. Bellarmin's arguments for the necessity of a proper sacrifice in all religion. § 24. The mass not proved a sacrifice thereby. The use and efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ in our religion. § 25. An answer to Bellarmin's arguments. His general assertion overthrown by his own instances. § 26. The conclusion.

§ 1. We have seen that Jesus Christ is a priest, that as such he

was prophesied of under the Old Testament, and that he is declared so to be in the New. The origin of this office, is in the next place to be inquired after. This all will acknowledge in general, to lie in the eternal counsels of God. For known unto him are all his works from the foundation of the world, Acts xv. 18. But these counsels absolutely considered, are hid

in God, in the eternal treasures of his own wisdom and will. What we learn of them is by external revelation and effects. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law," Deut. xxix. 29. God frequently sets bounds to the curiosity of men, as in the station at Sinai, limits are fixed to the people that they should not gaze after his unrevealed glory, nor pry into the things which they have not seen. It was well said, that Scrutator Majestatis, absorbetur a Gloria. Our work is to inquire wherein, how, and whereby God hath revealed his eternal counsels, to the end that we may know his mind, and fear Him for our good. And so even the angels desire to bow down, and to look into these things, 1 Pet. i. 12. not in a way of condescension, as things in their nature beneath them, but in a way of humble diligence, as into things which in their holy contrivance are above them. Our present design therefore is, to trace those discoveries which God hath made of his eternal counsels in this matter, and that through the several degrees of divine revelation whereby he advanced the knowledge of it, until he brought them to their complement in the external exhibition of his Son, clothed in human nature with the glory of this office, and discharging the duties thereof.

§ 2. The counsels of God concerning us, with our relation to him and his worship, are suited to the state and condition wherein we are; for these also are effects of his counsels. Our first condition under the law of creation was a condition of innocence and natural righteousness. In reference to this estate, God had not ordained an establishment of either priest or sacrifice; for as they would have been of no use therein, so there was nothing supposed in that condition which might be prefigured or represented by them. Wherefore God did not pre-ordain the priesthood of Christ with respect to the obedience of man under the law of creation; nor did he appoint either priesthood or sacrifice properly so called in that state of things, whilst it did continue; nor would any such have ever been, supposing it had continued. And this we must confirm against the opposition of some.

§ 3. We have declared in our preceding discourse, that a priest, properly so called, is a sacrificer. There is therefore an indissoluble relation between these two, namely priesthood and sacrifice; and they do mutually assert or deny each other. And where the one is proper, the other is so also; and where the one is metaphorical, so is the other. Thus under the Old Testament, the priests who were properly so by office, had proper carnal sacrifices to offer; and under the New Testament, believers being made priests unto God, in a spiritual and meta

phorical sense, their sacrifices also are spiritual and metaphorical. Wherefore arguments against either of these, conclude equally against both. Where there are no priests, there are no sacrifices; and where there are no sacrifices, there are no priests; I intend only those, who exercise the office of the priesthood for themselves and others. I shall therefore first manifest that there was no priesthood to be in the state of innocence, whence it would follow that therein there could be no sacrifice. And secondly, That there was to be no sacrifice, properly so called; whence it will equally follow, that there was no priesthood therein. That which ensues on both is, That there was no counsel of God concerning either priesthood or sacrifice in that state or condition.

§ 4. Πας γαρ αρχιερευς εξ ανθρωπων λαμβανόμενος ; ὑπερ ανθρωπων καθισταται τα προς τον Θεον ; ἵνα προσφέρη δωρα τε και θυσίας ὑπερ ἁμαρτιων; saith our apostle, Heb. v. 1. What is here affirmed of the highpriest (nn) is true in like manner concerning every priest. Only the high-priest is here mentioned by way of eminence, because by him our Lord Christ, as unto this office and the discharge of it, was principally represented. Every priest therefore is one & avgwa ubavouevos, taken from amongst men; he is naturæ humanæ particeps, in common with other men partaker of human nature; and antecedently unto his assumption of his office, he is one of the same rank with other men; and he is taken or separated unto this office from among them. He is vested with his office by the authority, and according to the will of God. This office therefore is not a thing which is common to all, nor can it take place in any state or condition, wherein the whole performance of divine service is equally incumbent on all individually. For none can be taken from among others, to perform that, which those others are every one obliged personally to attend unto. But every priest, properly so called, καθισταται ὑπερ ανθρωπων, is ordained and appointed to act for other men. He is set over a work in the behalf of those other men from among whom he is taken. And this is, that he may take care of and perform τα προς τον Θεον, the things that for men are to be done with God; ben; that is, to pacify, to make atonement and reconciliation. And this he was to do by offering daga Te Jurias, various sorts of gifts and sacrifices, according to God's appointment. Now all slain sacrifices, as we shall manifest afterwards, were for sin. This office therefore could have no place in the state of innocence; for a state of innocence will not admit of an accommodation of any part of this description of the priesthood.

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§ 5. I acknowledge that in the state of uncorrupted nature, there should have been some ὑπερ τε Θεου, τα προς τους ανθρωπους to deal with others for and in the name of God; for some would

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have been warranted and designed, to instruct others in the knowledge of God and of his will. This the state and condition of mankind did require. For both the first relation of man and wife, and that which was to ensue thereon, of parents and children, include subordination and dependance. "The head of the woman is the man," 1 Cor. xi. 3. that is, the husband, Eph. v. 23. And the duty of the man it had been to instruct the woman in the things of God. For a pure nescience of many things that might be known to the glory of God and their own advantage, was not inconsistent with that estate; and their knowledge was capable of objective enlargements. And the design of God was gradually to instruct them in the things that might orderly carry them on to the end for which they were created. And in this, the man would have been used for the instruction of the woman, as the order of nature required. For man was originally the head of the woman; only upon the curse, natural dependance was turned into troublesome subjection, Gen. iii. 16. But the entrance of sin, as it contained in it the seeds of all disorder, so it plainly began in the destruction of this order: for the woman, undertaking to learn the mind of God from herself and the serpent, was deceived, and was first in the transgression, 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14. "Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." From Adam's being first formed, and the woman out of him, and for him, she from this should have learned her dependance on him for instruction, by divine institution. But going to learn the mind of God of the serpent, she was deceived. She might have learned more than she yet knew, but this she should have learned of him who was her head by the law of creation. The case is the same as to the other relation that would have been between parents and children: yea, in this the dependance was far greater, and more absolute. For although the woman was made out of the man, which argues subordination and dependance, yet she was made by the immediate power of God, man contributing no more to her being, than the dust did to his. This gave them in general an equality. But children are so of their parents, as to be wholly from them, and by them. This makes their dependance and subjection absolute and universal. And whereas parents were in all things to seek their good, which was one of the prime dictates of the law of nature; they were in the name and stead of God, to rule, govern, and instruct them; and that in the knowledge of God, and of their duty towards him. They were imię tv, for God, or in his stead to them, to instruct them in their duty, suitably to the law of their creation and the end thereof. But every one thus instructed, was in his own name and person, to attend to the

things of God, or to what was to be performed on the part of men. For in reference to God, there would have been no common root or principle for men to stand upon. Whilst we were all in the loins of Adam, we stood all in him, and we also fell all in him, i zavres hμagtov, Rom. v. 12. But so soon as any one should have been born into this world, and so should have had a personal subsistence of his own, he was to stand by himself, and to be no more as to his covenant interest, concerned in the obedience of his progenitors. For the covenant with mankind would have been distinct with each individual, as it was with. angels. There might have been, there would have been order, subordination, and subjection among men in respect of things from God unto them. So probably there is among the angels, although the investigation thereof be neither our duty nor in our power. But as was said, every one according to the tenor of the covenant then in force, was in his own person to discharge all duties of worship towards God. Neither could any one be taken from the rest of mankind, to discharge the works of religion towards God for them, in the way of an office, for this would have been to the prejudice of their right, and to the hindrance of their duty. It follows therefore that the office of a priest, or of one who should be ordained ύπες ανθρώπων τα προς Toy Oto; was inconsistent with the nature of that condition: and had any such office been possible, there would not have been in it any prefiguration of the priesthood of Christ, as will afterwards appear.

§ 6. The same is the state of things with reference unto sacrifices. There is, as was said before, a relation between them and the priesthood. Hence is that saying in Bereshith. Rabb. MAND 25 MBIND: as is the altar for sacrifice, so are the priests that belong unto it. And by sacrifices in this inquiry, we understand those that are properly so: for that which is proper in every kind, is first. Nor is there any place for that which is improper, or metaphorical, unless something proper, from whence the denomination is taken, have preceded; for in allusion thereunto doth the metaphor consist. Now the first possible instance in this matter, being in the state about which we inquire, there must be proper sacrifices therein, or none at all: for nothing went before, with respect whereunto any thing might be so called; as now our spiritual worship and service is, with allusion. unto them under the Old Testament.

And concerning these sacrifices, we may consider their nature and their end. A sacrifice is ; that is, vom, victima; sacrificium mactatum; a slain or killed offering; yea, the first proper signification of 2 is mactavit, jugulavit, decollavit, occidit; to kill, to slay by the effusion of blood, and the like. Neither is this signification derived from its affinity to 20, to VOL. II.

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