CHAPTER 18 THE MEDIATOR CONTINUED.
Objection: If we should admit that there are three persons in the Godhead, and that the first person created the world by the second person, and appointed him heir of all things, would not this difficulty subside?
Answer: By no means, for then it would not only appear that the second person was inferior to the first, and only was heir of all things by the appointment of the first person, and that the first person was the creator, and the second person was only the medium through and by which the first person displayed his power. This would plunge us into Arianism, if not something worse, and prevent us from ascribing creation to the divine Immanuel or the second person, in any other than as the vehicle by which the first person exercised his creating power, and so the glories of these two persons must be diverse; the one a creator, the other the medium; the one an appointer of an heir, the other an appointed heir, etc. If Christ was held in any kind of recognizance for his people, he must have existed ever since this recognizance existed; for to hold a surety bond who never existed is but a nominal thing, and the saints of old could have had no more than a nominal and non-existing surety or mediator, that is a surety that was in nonexistence.
Objection: Could not the second person in the divine trinity have stood in this engagement or recognizance, and so be the existing surety of his people?
Answer: If the second person of the divine trinity was the surety, and was bound in this suretyship for his people, he must suffer death in order to redeem his people, for their crime demerited death, and either they or their surety must die, thus their sins being laid on their surety and he coming forward to suffer for them, he becomes obnoxious to death in the eye of the law, and if the second divine person in the divine trinity was the surety; we see it must die, or redemption can never be obtained.
Objection: The second divine person might have engaged to take on him human nature, and offer that nature for sin.
Answer: This would argue that the human nature, although not in existence, was bound, and the second person was its agent in making the engagement, while the principal sufferer was in non-existence. This would argue that the second person was inferior to the first, and acted as a sort of sponsor for the human nature before its existence, and all we can say of this is, that the second person, according to this objection, was only surety for the human nature, and engaged that it should die for men. But if the second person became incarnate, and was truly God, then God was surety, and at the same time holding himself surety for others; or in other words, the first person is holding the second person bound for men, and yet both these persons are but one God. Then God holds himself bound, and the idea of a mediator is lost; but if the mediator in both natures existed, each nature doing what was proper to itself, all is easy; as man he could agree to suffer for man, and fulfill it; as God he could propose to offer and perform it; so we see that it was as necessary for both natures to exist in the mediator, in his first acts as mediator, as in any other of his mediatorial acts or offices.
As we will agree that both natures, divine and human were indispensable to Christ as mediator, and that he could not act the part of a mediator for man, or between God and men, without being both God and man, I am surprised that the existence of his mediatorial nature should be denied by any man; for surely there was a mediator before the gospel era, or else no soul for about four thousand years after creation could have been saved! Then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, where are you? Then David and all the prophets, where are you? And then all ye saints, who lived before the mediatorial nature of Christ existed, where are you? If ye all died before there was a mediator in existence, and none can be saved without a mediator, we mourn your early birth, and give you up for lost!
But stop, the promise to Abraham “was ordained in the hand of a mediator;” and a “mediator is not a mediator of one” nay; he is the “man Christ Jesus;” whom Job knew was in existence in his day, and could say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”
Objection: Is it not very assuming in you, to rise up at this late hour and oppose all the wise and learned men that have ever written for many centuries; and even the venerable reformers themselves, whom we have always been taught to look up to as criterions in matters of faith, and many shining lights in the Lord’s vineyard who have supported those points which you oppose. Must we now cast them away as heretics?
Answer: I highly value those learned reformers, and eminent authors, but value them as mere men like ourselves, and they never pretended to be infallible; but like ourselves they only knew in part, and understood in part, and we pretend to nothing more; if they were all agreed amongst themselves, it would be a sort of argument that we should not depart from their judgment; but the truth is, the learned differ with each other as much as the more ignorant do, and we find men of equal learning, talents and piety, on every side, of almost every religious controversy, even the reformers differed from each other, and the Baptists in some things differed from them all; and while we are looking up to them as reformers; we cannot receive them as criterions in matters of faith. While we read any man’s works, we should follow him no further than he follows the scriptures.
There are many learned, wise, and pious men, that have understood this subject as I do; there is Dr. Watts, Mr. Stephens, Allen, and a host of our best and most orthodox writers, with whom I most perfectly agree, and if you do not reject all these as heretics, I see no reason why I should reject those that I differ with as heretics; but if all the learned and religious world, for ten centuries past, were of my sentiments, it would not prove, beyond a doubt, that I was right, and if all were opposed to me, I might not be wrong; for it is not men; but the word of God, which must settle this point. To the scriptures I have made my appeal, to them only will I submit this question. The word of God alone will I acknowledge as a criterion in matters of faith; for in religion, or matters of faith I will call no man on earth master or father, but must search the scriptures for myself “to see whether these things be so;” knowing that “whatsoever was written aforetime was written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope”.
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