LECTURES ON THE SHORTER CATECHISM OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES-ADDRESSED

TO YOUTH.

LECTURE XXIII.

Your attention will be occupied in this lecture, by two answers of our catechism-The first is "Christ, as our Redeemer, executeth the office of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation."

This answer is chiefly to be regarded as introductory and preparatory to the three which immediately follow it, in which the offices of Christ are distinctly and particularly explained. There are, however, some things, of a general nature, which may, with more propriety and advantage, be considered here than elsewhere.

You will observe then, in the first place, that it is in his mediatorial character, that our Lord Jesus Christ is to be considered as exercising all the offices which have been specified. The mediatory of fice of Christ may be considered as a general one, which he always and invariably sustains, and of which the others are only several, or particular and constituent parts; that is, the office of mediator is never laid aside or suspended, but is always exercised by our Redeemer, when he VOL. IV. Ch. Adv.

acts as prophet, priest and king of his church. "There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."

Observe in the next place, that there is a clear foundation for these several offices of the great Mediator, both in the scriptures and in the reason and nature of things. This has sometimes been denied, and even treated with contempt; as if to speak of Christ as the prophet, priest, and king of the church, was no better than theological jargon. Nothing, however, can be farther from the truth than this. Christ was expressly predicted to the ancient Israelites under each of these characters; and he actually sustains them in the work of our salvation. Moses foretold the coming of our Lord, under the character of a prophet, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me: unto him shall ye hearken." Accordingly our Saviour was recognised as being he of whom Moses spake. When the people had seen one of his miracles, they said-"This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world:" and Peter, in the Acts, expressly applies the prediction of Moses to Christ.

Our Lord is also distinctly predicted as a priest, in the 110th

2 U

Psalm.-"The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a priest forever, after the order of Melchisedeck." This prediction is quoted and applied to Christ by the author of the epistle to the Hebrews; and a considerable part of that epistle is employed, for the very purpose of showing in what a superior manner our Lord sustained and performed the office of a priest. Again. In the 2d psalm, which is a continued prediction of the Messiah and his acts, Christ is re-, presented as the anointed and reigning king of Zion-"I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." Under this character the Messiah was, and indeed still is, looked for by the Jews-sadly mistaking, as they did and do, the nature of his kingdom, in supposing he was to be a temporal, and not a spiritual prince. Hence it was, that on one occasion they were about "to take him by force, and to make him a king."

You will be careful to notice that these offices of Christ, as mediator, relate to the state, character, and situation of mankind, as sinners--"The nature of our salvation required that it should be revealed by him as a prophet; purchased by him as a priest; and applied by him as a king. His prophetical office, therefore, respects our ignorance; his priestly office our guilt; and his kingly of fice our pollution, defilement, and thraldom in sin: Accordingly, as a prophet he is made of God unto us wisdom; as a priest righteousness; as a king sanctification and complete redemption."*

So also, in regard to the promises of God made to his people" They are revealed by Christ as a prophet; confirmed by his blood as a priest; and effectually applied and fulfilled, by his power, as a king."t

And here it may be proper just to mention, that all these offices did

* Fisher's Cat. altered. + Idem.

never centre in any one person but in Christ alone. In order, as it would appear, to shew the unequalled dignity of our blessed and glorious Redeemer, none of those who were typical of him, under the Old Testament, were ever clothed with them all. Melchisedeck was a king and a priest; Moses was a ruler and a prophet; Jeremiah was a priest and a prophet; David was a king and a prophet; but Christ alone was prophet, priest and king.

It is only necessary farther to remark on the answer before us, that Christ did and does execute these several offices, both in his estate of humiliation on earth, and in his state of exaltation in heaven. Having done on earth whatever these offices here required, he hath gone to heaven, there to sustain them in the kingdom and temple of God above. The manner in which this is done, is explained in the three following answers to the first of which we now proceed.

"Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by his word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation."

The office of a prophet is, to reveal and teach the counsel and will of God. Of the nature of prophecy in general, it would lead me too far from the subject immediately before us, to speak particularly. Yet it is an important subject in itself, and does not occur again in the very compendious system of theology given in the catechism. In Buck's Theological Dictionary, a work to which you may easily have access, under the word prophecy, you will find an extremely well written article, which I would recommend to your careful perusal. In the mean time, some leading ideas on the subject, will naturally mingle themselves in the discussion before us.

My children, we owe it entirely to our Lord Jesus Christ, in his prophetic character, that we have a Bible." He executes the office of a

prophet, (says the catechism) by revealing to us the will of God for our salvation"in the first place, "by his word." The Holy Spirit, the third person in the adorable Trinity, is the immediate agent in making prophetic communications inwardly to the minds of men. Hence says the apostle Peter"The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."-But the blessed Spirit, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, is considered, in this work, as the Spirit of Christ. This is expressly taught, or affirmed, by the very apostle just quoted-Attend carefully to the following passage. "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace which should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." Here we see that it was the Spirit of Christ, which was in those holy men of God; who, in old time, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

You must observe that there have been three dispensations of the covenant of grace, Patriarchal, Mosaick, and Christian. Revelations were made to prophets and holy men, from the very time of the first apostacy. We are not told of the precise manner in which a communication was made of the threatening and doom pronounced on the tempter, nor of the gracious intimation given to our first parents immediately after the fall, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head: Yet we are explicitly informed of the fact, that these communications were made; and we have reason to believe, that the faith of our first parents in the intimation of a Messiah to come, was effectual to their salva

tion. We are expressly informed, in the New Testament, that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was a prophet; and a part of his prophecy, or the subject of it, is given us. Divine communications, after this, were made to Noah, to Melchisedeck, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Ja, cob, to Joseph, and it is probable to several others, till the time of Moses.

Moses was the most eminent prophet of the dispensation to which he bas given name. He wrote the first five books of the Bible, which from their number are denominated the Pentateuch. He has given us the history of the creation, of the fall of man, of the antediluvian world, and of the church up to his own time. It is of no consequence to know, if it were possible to knowwhich it is not-how much of this early history Moses might be able to give from authentick tradition; which, before the use of letters and during the long lives of the antedi. luvians, was doubtless much more accurate than with us at present. That much of these things was then known by tradition to others, as well as to Moses, there is no reason to question. But we are sure that the history of the creation itself could not be known to any mortal, but by a revelation from God: And if revealed, as it no doubt was, to Adam, Moses, who wrote under the guidance of inspiration, was preserved from all error, in the account he gave, both of this and of subsequent events. In whatever manner his information was acquired, whether by tradition or revelation, or both, the portion that has come down to us was just as much as God saw meet to be put on record. The whole, I repeat, was at least verified by an unerring revelation to Moses; so that all errors of tradition, if errors there were, were corrected, and an account, free from all inaccuracy, was thus secured, for the use of the church to the end of time.

After Moses there was a succession of prophets with some intervals between the death of one and the appearance of another-till the time of Malachi; which was about 400 years before the birth of Christ. Prophecy then ceased till the time of John Baptist.

(To be continued.)

ON THE ATONEMENT.

No. VI.

My dear Brother,-Agreeably to promise, I am to show, in this let

ter,

III. That Christ, as our Redeemer, bore the penalty of the law, or endured the punishment of our sins. It is admitted by the new school, that one person may suffer for another, but not that one can suffer the punishment due to another; and accordingly, while they affirm that Christ died and suffered for us, they strenuously deny that he was punished for us. "If," says one, "another person, of his own accord, offers to bear the suffering, which was due to me for my offences, he may do so. But it cannot be punishment to him. Punishment supposes guilt. He cannot take my actions upon himself, so that they shall become his own actions, and cease to be mine. He cannot become guilty without his own personal transgression. If he suffers in my place, therefore, his sufferings are not punishment to him."* This reminds me of the manner in which Dr. Fuller attempts to prove that the sufferings of our blessed Redeemer were not the punishment of our sins. It was done by the magic of a definition. His definition is this: "Punishment is natural evil inflicted for PERSONAL guilt." Admitting the definition to be correct, his point was gained. But suppose his definition to be altered so as to suit our

taste, and to read thus: Punishment is natural evil inflicted for personal, or IMPUTED sin: and what then becomes of his argument? To the author of the argument in the above quotation we readily concede that punishment supposes sin; but we deny what he maintains, that it always supposes personal transgression. Jesus Christ, it has been proved, had the sins of his people imputed to him, and thus became subject to the punishment of them. By this we do not mean, that he took their actions upon himself so that they became his own personal actions, and no longer the actions of his people. The absurdity of such a supposition has already been exposed. He consented to have them so charged to his account, that the punishment of them might be justly required of him. To maintain that punishment, in all cases, supposes personal guilt, is as unreasonable as to maintain that a person can never become responsible for any actions but his own personal actions. This, however, the common occurrences of civil life will prove unfounded. It is well known, that when a citizen has incurred the penalty of a violated law, and being unable to pay the fine, is liable to imprisonment, a friend may release him by assuming his obligation and paying his fine. When this is done there is no transfer of moral character; and no one is so absurd as to imagine the transaction implies that the offender's friend committed the trespass.

A man is apprehended as a murderer. He is tried, convicted, condemned to death, and finally executed. It cannot be denied that this man has suffered the punishment due to murder. Afterwards his innocence is proved beyond dispute; what will result? Will you say he suffered no punishment? No punishment! What greater punishment could he have suffered? He certainly did die under the imputation of murder; and to expiate