An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

First therefore, when we say, That the afflictions of the godly, especially of eminent officers in the Church, are for the good of the Church, you must still distinguish them from the sufferings of Christ for the Church also. The Martyrs they died to witness the truth, and hereby occasionally to procure salvation for others; but Christs •ng for others was in a far more transcendent and efficacious way. For

1. Christs death was not only a martyrdom, but a propitiation, and an atonement also. Christ (we grant) did suffer as a Martyr, he came into the world to bear witness to the truth. And he is said 1 Tim. 6. 13. To have witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate. But those wretched Socinians are therefore to be abhorred, because they make this the only end of his death, That he died by way of example, not by way of propitiation for our sins. Thus with them the sufferings of Christ, and of Paul for the Church, differ only gradually, not in kind. Christ ⟨p. 221⟩died as a more eminent Martyr than Paul, but both only by way of witness to the truth. Take we heed then, that we do not split our souls at this rock of blasphemy, denying the atonement of Christs sufferings.

1. Christs death was not only a martyrdom, but a propitiation, and an atonement also. Christ (we grant) did suffer as a Martyr, he came into the world to bear witnesse to the truth. And he is said 1 Tim. 6. 13. To have witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate. But those wretched Socinians are therefore to be abhorred, because they make this the only end of his death, That he died by way of example, not by way of propitiation for our sins. Thus with them the sufferings of Christ, and of Paul for the Church, differ only gradually, not in kind. Christ ⟨p. 221⟩