in this world. If God were fo incenfed against the Heathens for difobeying the light of nature, what is it in you to fin with eyes clearly illuminated with the pureft light that shines in this world? You know, God charges it upon Solomon, 1 Kings xi. 9. that he turned from the way of obedience, after the Lord had appeared to him twice. Jefus Chrift intended when he opened your eyes, that your eyes fhould direct your feet. Light is a fpecial help to obedience, and obedience a fingular help to encrease your light.

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SERMON XI.

Discovers the Nature and Neceffity of the Priesthood of CHRIST.

HEB. ix. 23. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these ; but the heavenly things themfelves with better facrifices than thefe.

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ALVATION (as to the actual difpenfation of it) is re vealed by Chrift as a Prophet, procured by him as a Pricft, applied by him as a King. In vain is it revealed, if not purchafed; in vain revealed and purchafed, if not applied. How it is revealed, both to us, and in us, by our great Prophet, hath been declared. And now, from the prophetical office, we país on to the priestly office of Jefus Chrift, who as our Prieft, purchased our falvation. In this office is contained the grand relief for a foul diftreffed by the guilt of fin. When all other reliefs have been effayed, it is the, blood of this great facrifice, fprinkled by faith upon the trembling confcience, that must cool, refresh, and fweetly compofe and fettle it. Now, feeing fo great a weight hangs upon this office, the apoftle induftriously con firms and commends it in this epiftle, and more efpecially in this ninth chapter; fhewing how it was figured to the world by the typical blood of the facrifices, but infinitely excels them all : and as in many other most weighty refpects, fo' principally in this, that the blood of thefe facrifices did but purify the types or patterns of the heavenly things; but the blood of this facrifice purified or confecrated the heavenly things themtclves, fignified by those types.

The words read, contain an argument to prove the neceffity
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SERM. XI. of the offering up of Chrift, the great Sacrifice, drawn from the proportion betwixt the types, and things typified *. If the fanctuary, mercy-feat, and all things pertaining to the fervice of the tabernacle, were to be confecrated by blood; those earthly, but facred types, by the blood of bulls and lambs, &c.; much more the heavenly things fhadowed by them, ought to be purified or confecrated by better blood than the blood of beafts. The blood confecrating thefe, fhould as much excel the blood that confecrated thofe, as the heavenly things themselves do, in their own nature, excel thofe earthly fhadows of them. Look, what proportion there is between the type and anti-type, the like proportion alfo is betwixt the blood that confecrates them; earthly things with common, heavenly things with the most excellent blood.

So then, there are two things to be especially obferved here: firft, The nature of Chrift's death and fufferings: it had the nature, ufe, and end of a facrifice; and of all facrifices the moft excellent. Secondly, The neceffity of his offering up: it was neceffary to correfpond with all the types and prefigurations of it under the law; but efpecially it was neceflary for the expiating of fin, the propitiating of a juflly incenfed God, and the opening Away for reconciled ones to come to God in. The point Ishall give you from it, is,

Doct. That the facrifice of Chrift, our High-prieft, is most excellent in itself, and most neceffary for us.

Sacrifices + are of two forts; euchariftical, or thank-offerings, in teftification of homage, duty and service; and in token of gratitude for mercies freely received: and ilaftical, or expiatory, for fatisfaction to juftice, and thereby the atoning and recon

* He concludes the foregoing argument on the neceffity of redemption, from the proportion between the types and the heavenly things: for, if the things typically facred, behoved to be purified with typical blood; furely, the heavenly things behoved to be purified by blood fo much more excelling that other, as these things themfelves excel their earthly types. The reafon is plain : because, what proportion there is between the types and the things typified, must likewife take place as to the blood that confecrates them. Pareus on this place.

+ Of facrifices, fome are typical, others are nified by the type and both are of two forts, or suxapisina, eucharistical, i, e. thanksgiving.

the very things fig asia, expiatory Lucas Trelcat.

ciling of God. Of this laft kind was the facrifice offered by Jer fus Chrift for us: to this office he was called by God, Heb. . 3. In it he was confirmed by the unchangeable oath of God, Pfal. cx. 4.; for it, he was fingularly qualified by his incarnation, Heb. x. 6, 7. ; and all the ends of it he has fully an fwered, Heb. ix. 11, 12.

My prefent design is, from this scripture, to open the general nature and abfolute neceffity of the priesthood of Chrift; fhew. ing what his priesthood implies in it, and how all this was indif penfably neceffary in order to our recovery from the deplorable State of fin and mifery.

First when, we will confider, what it fuppofes and implies; and then, wherein it confifts. And there are fix things which either pre-fuppofeth, or neceffarily includeth in it.

The nature of Chrift's prieft; hood opened.

1. At first fight, it supposes man's revolt and fall from God s and a dreadful breach made thereby betwixt God and him, else no need of an atoning facrifice. "If one died for all, then were all dead," 2 Cor. v. 14. dead in law, under fentence to die, and that eternally. In all the facrifices, from Adam to Christ, this was still preached to the world; that there was a fearful breach betwixt God and man; and even fo, that justice required our blood fhould be fhed. And the fire flaming on the altar, which wholly burnt up the facrifice, was a lively emblem of that fiery indignation that fhould devour the adverfaries. Bat above all, when Chrift, that true and great Sacrifice, was offered up to God, then was the fairest glafs that ever was in the world, fet before us, therein to see our fin and mifery by the fall.

2. His priesthood fuppofes the unalterable purpose of God to take vengeance for fin t; he will not let it pafs. I will not determine what God could do in this cafe, by his abfolute power; but I think it is generally yielded, that, by his ordinate power, he could do no less than punish it in the perfon of the finner, or of his furety.

Those that contend for fuch a forgiveness, as is an act of charity, like that whereby private perfons forgive one another, must at once fuppofe God to part with his right, cedendo de jure fus, and alfo render the fatisfaction of Chrift altogether useless, ás to the procurement of forgiveness; yea, rather an obftacle,

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The reader may find this cafe learnedly and folidly handled by Dr. Twiffe, Vindic. gratia, digres. 8.

than a means to it. Surely, the nature and truth of God oblige him to punish fin. "He is of purer eyes than to look upon i"niquity," Heb. i. 13. And befide, the word is gone out of his mouth, that the finner fhall die.

3. The priesthood of Christ pre-fuppofeth the utter impotency of men to appeafe God, and recover his favour by any thing he could do or fuffer. Surely God would not come down to af fume a body to die, and be offered up for us, if at any cheaper rate it could have been accomplished: there was no other way to recover man and fatisfy God. Thofe that deny the fatisfaction of Chrift, and talk of his dying to confirm the truth, and give us an example of meeknefs, patience, and felf-denial, affirming thefe to be the fole ends of his death, do not only therein root up the foundations of their own comfort, peace and pardon, but most boldly impeach and tax the infinite wif dom. God could have done all this at a cheaper rate the fuf ferings of a mere creature are able to attain these ends: the death of the martyrs did it. But who by dying can fatisfy and reconcile God? what creature can bring him an adequate and proportionable value for fin? yea, for all the fin that ever was, or fhall be tranfmitted to the natures, or committed by the perfons of all God's elect, from Adam, to the last that fhall be found alive at the Lord's coming? furely, none but Christ can do this.

4, Chrift's priesthood implies the neceffity of his being God mant. It was neceffary he fhould be a man, in order to his paffion, compaffion, and derivation of his righteoufnefs and ho linefs to men. Had he not been a man, he had had no facrifice to offer, no foul or body to fuffer in. The Godhead is impatible, immortal, and above all thofe fufferings and miferies Christ felt for us. Befides, his being man, fills him with bowels of compaffion and tender fenfe of our miferies: this makes him a merciful and faithful High-prieft, Heb. iv. 15.; and not only fits him to pity, but to fanctify us alfo; for he that

fanctifieth, and they that are fanctified, are both of one," Heb. ii. 11, 14, 17. And as neceffary it was our High-priest

* In no other way can God's hatred at fin be made to appear, than by inflicting the deferved punishment. Brad. on Juftific. p. 61. + Hence therefore it appears, how neceffary it was that Chrift the Mediator fhould be both God and Man: had he not been Man, he would not have been a fit facrifice and had he not been God, that facrifice would not have been of fufficient efficacy. Amef. Med.

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fhould be God, fince the value and efficacy of his facrifice refults from thence.

2. The priesthood of Chrift implies the extremity of his fufferings. In facrifices, you know, there was a destruction, a kind of annihilation of the creature to the glory of God. The fhedding of the creature's blood, and burning its flesh with fire, was but an umbrage, or faint refemblance of what Chrift endured, when he made his foul an offering for fin.

And lastly, It implies the gracious defign of God to reconcile us at a dear rate to himself, in that he called and confirmed Chrift in his priesthood by an oath, and thereby laid out a facrifice, of infinite value for the world. Sins, for which no facrifice is allowed, are defperate fins; and the cafe of fuch finners is help. lefs: But if God allow, yea, and provide a facrifice himself, how plainly doth it fpeak his intentions of peace and mercy? These things are manifeftly pre-fuppofed, or implied in Christ's priesthood.

"This priesthood of Chrift is that function, wherein he comes before God, in our name and place, to fulfil the law, "and offer up himself to him a facrifice of reconciliation for "our fins; and by his interceffion to continue and apply the

purchase of his blood to them for whom he shed it :" All this is contain'd in that famous fcripture, Heb. x. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Or, more briefly, the priesthood of Christ is that whereby he expiated the fins of men, and obtained the favour of God for them, Col. i. 20, 22., Rom. v. 10. But because I fhall infift more largely upon the feveral parts and fruits of this office, it fhall here fuffice to fpeak this much as to its general nature; which was the first thing propofed for explication.

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Secondly, The neceffity of Chrift's priesthood comes next to be opened. Touching which, I affirm, according to the fcriptures, it was neceflary, in order to our falvation, that fuch a Prieft fhould, by fuch a facrifice, appear before God for us.

The truth of this affertion will be cleared by these two principles, which are evident in the fcripture, viz. That God food upon full fatisfaction, and would not remit one fin without it:

Sacerdotium Chrifti eft functio qua coram Deo apparet, ut legem ab ipfo acceptam noftro nomine obfervet, feipfum victimam reconciliationis pro noftris peccatis ipfi offerat, fuaque apud Deum interceffione opem ipfius perennem, ac donationem Spiritus Sancti nobis impetret, atque efficaciter applicet. Synopfis purioris theol. P. 318.