An exposition of the Symbol or Creed of the Apostles according to the tenor…An exposition of the Symbole or Creed of the Apostles according to the tenour…

Therefore most damnable and wicked is the opinion of the Papists, who besides the alone passion of Christ, maintain works of satisfaction, partly of their own, and partly of the Saints departed: which they add to the passion as an appendance thereof. IV. The end of the passion is, that God might bring to pass a work in which he might more fully manifest his justice and mercy, then he did in the creation, and that is the reconciliation between God and man. And here remember with the passion to join the obedience of Christ in fulfilling the law: for Christ in suffering obeyed, and in obeying suffered. And they must be jointly conceived together for this cause. In reconciliation with God, two things are required, the ⟨p. 177⟩removing of sin in regard of the guilt, of the fault, and the punishment, and the conferring or giving of righteousness. Now the passion of Christ considered apart from his legal obedience, only takes away the guilt and punishment, frees man from death,¹ and makes him of a sinner to be no sinner, and that he may be fully reconciled to God, and accepted as righteous to life everlasting,² the legal obedience of Christ must be imputed. And therefore in the Scriptures, where all obedience is ascribed to the death and passion of Christ, this very obedience which stands in the perfect love of God and man must be included and not excluded. V. The time of the passion was from the very birth of Christ to his resurrection: yet so, as the beginnings only of his sufferings were in the course of his life, and the accomplishment thereof to the very full, upon the cross. VI. The person that suffered was the son of God himself: concerning whom in this case two questions must be resolved. The first, how it can stand with Gods justice, to lay punishment upon the most righteous man that ever was, and that for grievous sinners: considering that tyrants themselves will not do so. Answer. In the passion, Christ must not be considered as a private person: for then it could not stand with equity that he should be plagued and punished for our offences;³ but as one in the eternal counsel of God set apart to be a public surety or pledge for us, to suffer and perform those things which we in our own persons should have suffered and performed.