CHA P. XII. The Imputation of the Obedience of Christ to the Law declared and vindicated. FROM the last general argument, the following, in particular, proceeds. If it was neceffary, that Chrift, as our furety, fhould fuffer the penalty of the law in our stead, because we have finned; then it was alfo neceffary that, as our Surety, he fhould yield obedience to the preceptive part of the law alfo and if the imputation of the former be needful to our Juftification, then is the imputation of the latter alfo neceffary to the fame purpose. For, Why was it neceffary, that, as our furety, he fhould fuffer the penalty of the law? Was it not, that the glory of his righteoufnefs, as the author of the law, and fupreme governor of the world, might not be violated in the abjolute impunity of finners? And is it not as requifite to the glory of God, that the preceptive part of the law be complied with for us, in as much as obedience thereto is required of us? And as we are no more able of ourselves to fulfil the law, in a way of obedience, than to undergo the penalty of it, fo as to be justified thereby: So no good reason can be given, why God is not as much concerned that the preceptive power of the law be complied with by perfect obedience, as that the fanction of it be established by fuffering its penalty. On the fame grounds, therefore, that Christ's fuffering the penalty of the law for us, was neceflary to our Juftification, and that the fatisfaction he made thereby be imputed to us; on the fame grounds it was equally neceffary, that he fhould fulfil the preceptive part of it, in his perfect obedience there to, to, which alfo is to be imputed to us for our Juftification *. Three things are usually objected against this imputation. That it is impoffible-ufelefs-and the belief of it pernicious. 1. Socinus fays it is impoffible, becaufe "our Lord Jefus Chrift was for himself, or on his own account, obliged to all that obedience which he performed; "for if it were otherwise, then he might, if he would, "have neglected the whole law of God, and have bro"ken it at his pleasure +." To vindicate the truth from this objection, we observe: 1. The obedience of which we treat, was the obedience of Chrift the mediator: but the obedience of Christ, as mediator, was the obedience of his perjon; for God redeemed the church with his own blood,' Acts xx. 28. It was performed in the human nature; but it was the person of Christ who performed it. As in the person of a man, fome of his acts, as to the immediate principle of operation, are acts of the body, and fome are acts of the foul; yet, in their performance, they are the acts of the perfon: fo the acts of Chrift, in his mediation, as to their immediate operation, were the actings of his diftin&t natures; fome of the divine, some of the human but as to the perfecting efficacy of them, they * What we affert is, That Chrift fulfilled the whole law for us; he not only fuffered its penalty, but yielded perfect obedience to it. I fhall not engage in the debate of the diftinction between the active and paffive obedience of Chrift: for, as he exercifed the highest active obedience in his fuffering, fo all his obedience was mixed with fuffering. And it must be owned, that the sufferings of Chrift, as purely penal, are imperfectly called his paffive righteousness: for all righteousness is either in habit, or in action; but fuffering is neither; nor is any man righteous from what he fuffereth. Neither do fufferings give fatisfaction to the commands of the law, which require only obedience; and hence it follows, that we need more than the fufferings of Chrift, if righteoufness is required of us that we may be justified. Part 3. cap. 5. de fervat. they were the acts of his whole perfon: his acts, who was that perfon; and whofe power of operation was a property of his perfon. Wherefore the obedience of Chrift was the obedience of the Son of God, but the Son of God was never absolutely made under the law, nor could he be formally obliged thereby. He was indeed made fo in his human nature, wherein he performed this obedience; he was fo far made under the law, as he was made of a woman *; for, in his perfon, he was Lord of the Sabbath †, and therefore of the whole law. But the obedience itself, was the obedience of that perfon, who never was nor could be made under the law in his whole perfon: for the divine nature cannot be subject to an outward work of its own, such as the law is ; nor can it have an authoritative power over it, as it muft have, if it were under the law ‡. 2. As Chrift owed not, in his own person, this obedience for himself, by virtue of any authority that the law had over him, so he intended it not for himself, but for us. It was in our nature, that he performed all this obedience: now the fufception of our nature was his voluntary act, with respect to fome end; and the end which he had in view in the affumption of our nature, was the end of all he did therein: Now it was for us, and not for himself, that he affumed our nature; nor was any thing added to him thereby : wherefore, in the iffue of his work, he proposes this only to himself, that he may be glorified with that glory which he had with the Father, before the world was," by the removal of that veil which was put upon it in his humiliation. Whereas, therefore, he was made man, not for himself, but for the church, that he might become thereby the furety of the covenant; his obedience, as a * Gal. iv. 4. + Mark ii. 28. man, Socinus evades the force of this argument, by denying the Divine Perfon of Chrift; but here I take that for granted, having proved it elsewhere, beyond what any of his followers are able to contradict, man, to the law, was for us, and not for himself; fo defigned, fo performed, and without a refpect to the church was of no ufe to himself. He was born to us, given to us, lived for us, and died for us; obeyed for us, and fuffered for us; that " by the obedience of one many might be made righteous." And what he did for us, is imputed to us; and this is included in the very notion of his doing it for us. 3. Setting afide the confideration of the grace and love of Christ, and the compact between the Father and the Son, as to his undertaking for us (which proves that all he did was for us, and not for himself ;) the human nature of Christ, by virtue of its union with the perfon of the Son of God, had a right unto, and might immediately have been admitted into the highest glory whereof it was capable, without any antecedent obedience to the law; for from the first instant of that union, the whole perfon of Chrift, with our nature existing therein, was the object of divine worfhip from angels and men, wherein confifts the highest exaltation of that nature. It is true, there was a peculiar glory that he was actually to poffefs, confequent to his obeying and fuffering for us; but as to the right thereto, it was laid in the union of his perfon. 4. It is granted, that the human nature of Chrift, or "that which was made of a woman," was made under the law, and thereby obedience became neceffary to him; but this being by a fpecial difpenfation, intimated in the expreffion of it-he was made under the law; namely, as he was made of a woman; the obedience he yielded *It is faid, "That this obedience was neceffary as a qualification "of his perfon, that he might be meet to be our Mediator, and there"fore was for himself." This I deny; for He was every way meet for this work, by the union of the human nature with the divine: befides, that which he did, as Mediator, could not concur to the making him meet fo to be. yielded thereon, was for us, and not for himself: for, as made under the law, he not only owed obedience to its precepts, but he was made obnoxious to its curse; but furely this was not for himself, but for us. We owed obedience to the law, and were obnoxious to its curfe : obedience was as neceffarily required of us, if we would enter into life, as the answering of the curfe for us was, if we would efcape death eternal. Chrift, as our furety, is made under the law for us, whereby he becomes obliged to the obedience which it required, and to the penalty that it threatened. Who will now fay, that indeed he fuffered the penalty of the law for us, but yielded obedience to it for himself only? 5. The Lord Chrift, in his obedience, was not a private, but a public perfon. He obeyed, as he was a Surety and Mediator. But what a public perfon does, as a public person or reprefentative of others, whatever may be his own concern therein, he doth it not for himself, but for others; and were it not for them, it would be of no ufe: yea, it implies a contradiction, that a public perfon, as fuch, fhould do any thing for himself only. Wherefore, as Socinus would have Christ to have offered for bimfelf, (which is to make him a Mediator for himself,) fo to affirm his mediatory obedience, to have been for himself, has little lefs of folly and impiety in it. 6. It is granted, That Christ having a human nature, which is a creature, it was impoffible but that it should be fubject to the law of creation; but this law respects not the prefent life only, but the future and eternal ftate alfo; and the human nature of Chrift is therefore fubject to it, even now in heaven, and cannot but be fo but none will say that he is now under the law in the sense intended by the Apostle. But the law, in the fenfe defcribed, the human nature of Chrift was subject to, on its own account, while in this world. And this is fufficient to answer the objection juft mentioned -" that |