42 MEDITATIONS AND DISCOURSES a little light unto the words of the evangelist, that he I own souls unto a contemplation of them as contained opened untohis disciples out ofMoses and all the prophets 1 therein. . the things which concerned himself; and to stir up our CHAPTER IX. THE GLORY OF CHRIST IN HIS INTIMATE CONJUNCTION WITH THE CHURCH. \)THAT concerns the glory of Christ in the mission ofthe Holy Ghost unto the church, with all the divine truths that are branched from it, I have at large de- clared in my discourseconcerning the whole dispensa- tion of the Holy Spirit. Here therefore it must have no place amongst those many other things which offer I themselves unto our contemplation, aspart of this glory, or intimately belonging thereunto. I shall insist briefly on three only, which cannot be reduced directly unto the former heads. And the first of these is, that intimate conjunction that is between Christ and the church; whence it isjust and equal in the sight of God, according unto the rules of his eternal righteousness, that what he did and suffer- ed in the discharge of his office, should be esteemed, reckoned, and imputed unto us, asunto all the fruits and benefits of it, as ifwe had done and suffered the same things ourselves. For this conjunctionof his with us, was an act of his ownmind and will, wherein he is ineffably glorious. The enemies of the glory of Christ and of his cross, Atake this for granted, that there ought to be such a conjunction between the guilty person and him that suffers for him, as that in him the guilty person may be said in some sense to undergo the punishment him- self. But then they affirm on the other hand, that there was no such conjunction between Christ and sin- ners, none at all; but that hewas a man, as they were men; and otherwise, that he was at the greatest distance from them all, as it is possible for one man to be from ano- ther, Socin. de servat, lib. S. cap. 3. The falseness of this latter assertion, and the gross ignorance of the scripture under a pretence of subtlety, in them that make it, will evidently appear in our ensuing discourse. The apostle tells us, 1 Pet. ii. 21. that " in his own- « selfhe bare our sins in his own body on the tree;" and chap. iii. 18. that a hé suffered for sin the just for " the unjust, that he might bring us unto God. But this seems somewhat strange unto reason; where is the justice, where is the equity, that the just should suffer for the unjust? where is divine righteousness herein? For it was an act of. God, the Lord hats laid on him the iniquities of as all. lsa. liii. 6. The equity hereof, with the grounds of it, must be here a little inquired into. First of all, it is certain that all the elect, the whole church of God, fell in Adam, under the curse due to the transgression of the law. It is so also, that in this curse, DEATH both TEMPORAL and ETERNAL WaS con- tained. This curse none could undergo and be saved. Nor was it consistent with the righteousness, or holiness, or truth of God, that sin should go unpunished. Wherefore there was a necessity, upon a supposition of God's decree to save his church, of a translation of punishment; namely, from them who had deserved it, and could not bear it, unto one who had not deserved it, but could bear it. A supposition of this translation of punishment by divine dispensation, is the foundation of Christian re-. ligion, yea of all supernatural revelation contained in the scripture. This was first intimated in the first pro- mise; and afterwards explained and confirmed in all the institutions of the Old Testament. For although in the sacrifices of the law, there was a revival of the greatest and most fundamental principle of the law of nature, namely, that God is to be worshipped with our best, yet the principle end and use of them was, to represent this translation of punishment from the offender, unto another who was to be a sacrifice in his stead. The reasons of the equity hereof, and the unspeak- able glory of Christ herein, is what we now inquire in- to. And I shall reduce what ought to be spoken here- unto, to the ensuing heads, 1. It is not contrary unto the nature of divine justice;
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