Book IV
Christ s willingness to the work of redemption from everlasting till
lie accomplish it.
But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away
sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and
offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me : in burnt
offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure ; then said I,Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering
for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein (which, are offered
by the law) ; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, God. He taketh
away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are
sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. HEB. X. 3-10.
CHAPTER I.
That there are two things to be considered in the obedience which Christ per
formed, the will and the deed. That from all eternity he expressed his
willingness, in his consent to undertake the work.
As in all our obedience there are two principal ingredients to the true and right constitution of it, the matter of the obedience itself, and the prin
ciple and fountain of it in us : whereof the one, the apostle calls the deed, the other, the will which latter God accepts in us, oftentimes without,
always more than, the deed or matter of obedience itself even so in
Christ s obedience, which is the pattern and measure of ours, there are
these two eminent parts which complete it.
I. The obedience itself, and the worth and value of it, in that it is his , so great a person s.
n. The willingness, the readiness to undertake, and the heartiness to
perform it. The dignity of the person gave the value, the merit to the
obedience performed by him. But the will, the zeal in his performance, gains the acceptance, and hath besides a necessary influence into the worth
of it, and the virtue and efficacy of it to sanctify us. All which you have
in the text. The offering up the body of Jesus : there is the matter. The obedience of him to death: there is the will by which he offered it
: by which will. As calling not only for a distinct, but a more emi nent consideration, and both necessarily concurring to our sanctification and salvation; By which will we are sanctified. Now the story of his
willingness to redeem and save, or the will by which we are sanctified, is a
story of four parts.
138 OF CHKIST THE MEDIATOR. [BOOK IV.
1. Of his actual consent and undertaking the work, made and given to
his Father from everlasting.
2. The continuance of that his will to stand to it from everlasting, unto
the time of his incarnation and conception.
3. The renewal of this consent when he came into the world.
4. The stedfast continuance of that will all along in the performance, from the cradle to the cross.
And 1. As to his voluntary undertaking it afore the world was. In
the handling and discovery of those transactions of God the Father with him
about the work of redemption, I have spoken something of Christ s willing ness and consent, as it was there necessary ; for else I could not have set
forth the issue and conclusion of that treaty made by the persons shewing themselves ; yet so as I reserved enough to make it a distinct head, when
I should come to Christ s part. And so I here begin with it ; for it was
then, as was said, left by God the Father with him, and did wholly He
upon him.
It was necessary that Christ s consent should be then given, even from
everlasting, and that as God made a promise to him for us, so that he should
give consent again unto God. Yea ; and indeed it was one reason why it was necessary he that was our mediator should be God, and existent from
eternity, not only to the end he might be privy to the first design and con-
trivement of our salvation, and know the bottom and the first of God s mind and heart in it, and receive all the promises of God from God for us, but
also in this respect, that his very consent should go to it from the first, even as soon as his Father should design it. And it was right meet it should be so ; for the performance and all the working, operating part was to be his,
and to lay* all upon his shoulders to execute, and it was a hard task, and
therefore reason he should both know it with the first, seeing he was extant
together with his Father, and should also from the first contrivement by his Father give his consent to it. It was fit that both his heart and head should be in with the first. And you have all in one Scripture, Isa. ix. 6, where, when Christ is promised, Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, observe under what titles he is set forth unto us :
* Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father. Where everlastingness, which is affixed to
one, is yet common to those other two. The everlasting Counsellor, as
* everlasting Father ; for he was both Counsellor and Father, in that he was the mighty God, and all alike from everlasting. For, being God, and with his Father as a Son from everlasting, he must needs be a Counsellor with him, and so privy unto all God meant to do, especially in that very business, for the performance of which he is there said to be given as a son, and born as a child, and the effecting of which is also said to be
well as
laid wholly on his shoulders. Certainly in this case, if God could hide
nothing from Abraham he was to do, much less God from Christ, who was God with him from everlasting. And as he was for this cause to be privy to it for the cognisance of the matter, so to have given his actual consent likewise thereunto : for he was to be the father and founder of all that was to be done in it. And in that very respect, and in relation to that act of will then passed, whereby he became a father of that business for us,
it is he is styled the everlasting Father, and that from everlasting d part* post. For it is in respect of that everlastingness he is God, and so father from everlasting, as well as God from everlasting ; a counsellor for us with God, a father of us, and our salvation. God s counsellor, because his wis- * That is,
< lie. ED.
CHAP. I.] OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 139
dom was jointly in that plot and the contrivement of it : and father both of us and this design, because of his will in it, and undertaking to effect it. In that his heart and will were in it as well as the Father s, he was there
fore the father of it as well as God, and brought it to perfection.
I acknowledge the Scripture is more sparing in recording that hand and
will that the Son of God had in it as from everlasting. And I have long apprehended this to be the reason of it ; because his will is so necessarily and naturally resolved into his Father s will, they having but one will be tween them (as I have elsewhere alleged it upon this very argument), but
chiefly because what was done as in the point of our salvation from ever
lasting, it is and was the proper honour of God the Father ; and so the concurrence of the Son is swallowed up in the Father s contrivements about
it ; and the rather also, because the Son hath manifested his willingness so
abundantly in the very performing it, which necessarily imported and re
quired this everlasting consent of his, and argues it. Hence so little is
explicitly said of it. But as the work of redemption performed in time is
attributed to the Son, so these works from everlasting to the Father. And
therefore all the speech is of what he then did ; how he made promise to
Christ, and blessed us in him with all spiritual blessings, and sware he should be priest upon the very day he begat him, in Heb. v., which refers both to his eternal generation and call to the office of priesthood, from the same everlasting, as well as to that in time.
Yet there are two things said elsewhere, that imply Christ s full consent
given from everlasting, in answer unto that oath of God. For it is not
barely said, as in that place, that he was made a priest passively, as dedi
cated only by his Father to the priesthood, that might have been supposed to have been without his own actual consent given ; like as parents, from
the births of their children, have dedicated them to the ministry, or the like
calling, as Hannah did Samuel without his knowledge ; and thus also Sampson was a Nazarite. But it was not so here, that his being made a
priest then by his Father, is elsewhere interpreted by his being made a
surety of a covenant. So Heb. vii., by comparing the 21st and 22d
verses together. In the 21st verse that oath is mentioned, The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest. And this is interpreted by an
inference from it, ver. 22, By so much was Jesus made surety of a better
testament. Now, this oath, though it was recorded and uttered by David, Ps. ex., after Moses law supposed given, as the last verse of that chapter insinuates, yet we elsewhere find this covenant to be called an everlasting covenant, and the everlasting gospel, as Rev. xv., as that which had been made and lain hid in God from everlasting, d parte post, as the apostle, speaking of the gospel, plainly insinuates, Horn. xvi. 25, 26,
* The mystery kept secret since the world began ; but now is made manifest, according to
the commandment of the everlasting God, which special attribute of
eternity is there given God, to signify that though he had kept it secret
since the world began, and but now revealed it, yet he had framed and contrived it from everlasting and afore the world. And it is certain, that
as all promises in the word are but the copies of God s promises made to Christ for us from everlasting, so these oaths and covenants recorded in the word are but the copy of that oath and covenant struck betwixt God and Christ from everlasting. These the extracts, those the original. Now, then, if the intent of God s oath was to make a covenant of it, and not only a promise but a covenant, then Christ s consent is manifestly im
ported. If it had only been called a promise from God, that would not
140 OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. [BOOK IV.
necessarily have implied Christ s consent, though it would have implied his
existence or being then, as I have used to argue from that place, Titus i. 2,
1 In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the
world began. But it being called further a covenant, it doth import two ;
for as a mediator is not of one but two, so a covenant is always the consent
of two, and not of one only ; it cannot be a covenant else. You use to
say, to every bargain two words must go ; the meaning is, the consent of two parties. So to every covenant ; it had not been a complete covenant
else. If God had sworn to it ; yea, if Christ himself had been secretly
willing, yet if by his consent expressed it had not been struck up, it had
not been a covenant. A purpose also it might have been called, but not a
covenant.
Yea, and let me further improve it. If Christ had not fully and perfectly consented, it had not been a perfect covenant. Yea, and if he had not at
first propounding of it (which was from everlasting) come off to it, without
taking any time to deliberate, it had not been an everlasting covenant ; that
is, from everlasting.
But (which is more) the second person did so fully engage himself, that God calls him not only his covenanter, but his covenant. It is in that place, Isa. xlix. 8, out of which I have elsewhere shewed how the covenant was
struck dialogue -wise. You may see there how it was driven ; and after he had shewn upon what considerations Christ came off to it, he thereupon in
the 8th verse calls him his covenant.
And if it be objected that a covenant may be made without the consent of both parties, for God says,
* This is my covenant, when he promiseth to give to us (who had not then consented) a
* new heart, &c.
|" Yet for answer, consider that this promise alleged was necessarily made
first to Christ for us, and was driven covenant-wise with him ; and in that
respect it is that it becometh to be called a covenant ; as thus it respects us, because indeed made with him for us first, and so made known unto us. The meaning is, that therefore it is that God promiseth on his part to give us a new heart, because Christ promised afore to him, for his part, to work
redemption for us, otherwise it could not have been called a covenant till we had consented.
Then (2.) the word, He was made a surety, doth argue it also, for that
: and so as the oath was God s, so the suretyship was Christ s. And a surety, Eyyvog is a plighter of his troth, by striking hands, as the phrase in the original, Prov. xxii. 26. Now 2. for the second interval of the continuance of that his willingness from everlasting unto the -time of his coming to perform it, that is as evident also out of Prov. viii. 30, which shews how his delights were in it all the while ; and therefore his heart was more especially set upon it than all works else. But this I have also spoken unto elsewhere.
evidently imports an undertaking on Christ s part
CHAP. II.] OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 141