Book V
Christ s actual performance of our redemption. In the general, he gave him
self for us. The particular parts of our redemption are, that he was made sin, and a curse; and by his death obtained a victory over Satan,
whereby he delivers us from slavery ; and hath performed all righteousness which might answer the law for us. And that Christ, as our great shep
herd, takes care to preserve and secure us safe, thus redeemed and freed by him.
Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. 1 TIM. II. 6.
CHAPTER I.
That God presently, on man s fall, making the discovery to him of a Redeemer,
Adam transmitted the knowledge of him to his posterity, and he was accord
ingly proposed to the faith of the patriarchs.
THOUGH believers, before the coming of Christ, had in their faith but some
obscure glimmerings of Christ the Redeemer, yet they had real apprehen sions of such a person to come. And there were certainly some outward
glimmerings and rays, in the things appointed to represent Christ shining through that vail. For the difference that the apostle puts, when he handles and compares the point of both and each of those dispensations, ours and theirs, seems to import so much in saying, that we behold with open face the glory of the Lord, 2 Cor. iii. 18 ; implying that they had some darker, obscure, confused gleams and apprehensions darted into
their minds thereof. It is true the person was then veiled indeed, and hid
in cloudy and dark expressions and representations, that were but shadows ; even as we read of Moses, that his face was covered with a veil, to signify thus much. And Moses being as their mediator then, and face being put in Scripture for person, we may say that Christ s person was then obscured ; and yet with such a veil as did not utterly darken all perceivance of his
glory. It is true, indeed, that they knew not the individual person, who he was to be, as now we do, and is necessary for us to do ; as Christ told
the Pharisees (who lived under the light of his gospel and miracles), unless
you believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins. But that there was one of the sons of men, that was to come, who should be a deliverer, this the saints that were saved generally then knew. Although the vulgar Jew stuck in the letter, as at this day, the veil being on their hearts, as 2 Cor. iii. 15. It is not now on Christ s face, chap. iv. 4, 5, but upon men s hearts.
I shall begin my proof with the first promise in paradise, which appa
rently was, that a son of Eve, the seed of the woman, was to come, that
CHAP. I.] OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 173
should have power to break the serpent s head : that is, in plainer lan
* who should destroy the works of the devil, 1 John iii. 8, or as it is in the epistle to the Hebrews, chap. ii. 14, Who should destroy him that had the power of death, and save and deliver from him that had
guage now said,
just that very day brought sin and death into the world, and thereupon had
the power of death. And therefore also that person promised was to be more than a mere man, or mere creature. For how otherwise could he
have power to overcome and destroy and break the power of those fallen
angels ? yea, and which was more, of God s law, that threatened death ? Now are we to be saved by the knowledge and faith of this person, as Eve
(to be sure) first was by the faith on him, and then we. And the neces
sity to salvation of that knowledge appears in the case of our first parents. For why else did God thus hastily, in the cool of the evening of that very day wherein they had sinned, discover this, but that the knowledge of it was necessary to their salvation ? And the same necessity must be sup posed to hold for the salvation of others that were to be saved after them. And therefore the knowledge of a redeemer was delivered unto them, to be
transmitted down to their posterity.. Adam also living nine hundred and
thirty years and upwards into that first world, and a godly seed and race
being reckoned from him unto the flood, and those our first parents being
godly, and having been the causes of transmitting sin to all their posterity, were the more engaged and obliged, and accordingly zealously moved, to
derive down the knowledge of that means, whereby themselves had been
recovered, by the which their posterity might be saved also ; and it were
strange to think that they should not. And that, de facto, they did so
deliver it, besides what the story in Genesis doth relate of the religion pro
pagated in those times, there were some footprints remaining among the heathen of Eve s fall, by name,* of the serpent s venom and infection, for which they made a collision and bruising of serpents, and of a seed, Jovis
Incrementum, as Virgil calls him, who should be a restorer and confounder
of the devil. Such memorials were left and found among the heathens,
though so defaced, as they could not be saved by them, they wanting a
spiritual light to accompany that knowledge. It would be, therefore, I say, unreasonable to think that those who after were to be saved, should be
utterly kept by God from the inkling and knowledge of that first promise. For there was no other promise (which we read of extant) whereby those
might be saved that were saved.
Now that which I would have observed upon that original promise, is, that there are but two eminent things that promise consists of, First, the
deliverance and salvation from the serpent s power, which is the break
ing the serpent s head. And the second is, that a person, one of the sons
of men, should effect this, and break his head. Concerning this my pre sent argument proceedeth.
The all-wise and gracious Lord first saw and conceived the knowledge of
such a person necessary for the bringing of the sons ofmen in to him, as well
as of his grace to save them, and therefore contented not himself to make
barely a promise of deliverance. And the necessity lies in this, that the
guilty conscience of the sinner, rightly apprehensive of what the heinous-
ness of sinning against God is, and of God s wrath for sin is, even a
consuming fire, hath not the boldness to approach to God in its own
person, in its own sin, but hides himself, as Adam did. Nor would man
dare to approach to him without a mediator promised to him. As is evident * See An Unregenerate Man s Guiltiness, &c.. Book ix., chap. 4.
174 OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. [BOOK V.
from the people of Israel s desire, that Moses should approach to God for them ; and upon which Moses received the promise of a prophet to come after him, like unto him. This also caused Job to wish a day s-man betwixt God and him, Job. ix. 33. And how natural conscience awakened dictates
to men the necessity of a mediator, we have an instance in that Highlander, who hearing Mr Robert Bruce inveighing against those sins, of which he knew himself guilty, his conscience being deeply touched, said, Ise give him twenty cows to gree God and me. Poor man ! He felt the power of God s word on his soul from that man s ministry ; and he thought him
to have acquaintance with God, and thought that he might be able to
reconcile God to him again. Thus the first grand charter granted to Adam held out the person of Christ as a potent victor over Satan, and mediator
for man.
Now this was also succeeded with sacrifices offered to God. Witness
Abel, of whom you read, Heb. xi., which way of worship to God sin alone
brought in, and which the state of innocency knew not of. And these
pointed unto an atonement ; and by the saving faith upon the Messiah to come, who had been held forth in the aforesaid promise, was Abel accepted, which Cain wanted, Heb. xi.