N00556:175
The doctrine of the covenant of redemption. Wherein is laid the foundation of all…
The doctrine of the covenant of redemption. Wherein is laid the foundation of all our hopes and happiness. Briefly opened and improved. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Three lines from Psalms]
Boston: printed by Benj. Harris over against the Old-Meeting-House, 1693
Chapter 10: The necessity of this Covenant, in order to Mans Salvation.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. Hence without the coming in and undertaking of a sufficient Surety, there can be no discharge to man who is become a Delinquent. The Scripture tells us that the Sinner is Guilty: that he is bound fast; that he is concluded or shut up under Sin. The word that is Translated, is in danger, Mat. 5.21. Signifies, is held fast. It is a Metaphor from a condemned man, who is manacled or fettered against the day set for his Execution. Now the Law sets no such at liberty, but by an exchange. If it remove the Curse by taking it off from the Sinner, some other must become a Curse in his room, Gal. 3.12. 2 Cor. 5. ult. and it must be one that is sufficient; one that can and will make reparation for that Sin; otherwise the Sin is not legally punished.
3. That none but the person of the Son of God could be a suitable and sufficient Surety for sinning man. This will best appear, if we consider, what was requisite in such a Surety, viz.
1 He must be one that might be both God and Man in One Person. The nature of this Suretyship, having a reference to the Law of the first Covenant, required that he must be Man, because it was Man that had sinned, Heb. 2 14. The nature of the work to be done in this state of Suretyship, made it necessary that he should be God, as will appear in the following Considerations. Now, though the reason why this best suited the Second person in the Trinity, rather than any other, be abstruse to us, yet in the Economy of these affairs, it better became the Son than any of the other persons. It was meet that the Father should appoint the person, and that the Holy Ghost should finish this Affair, which is done in Application: but Redemption, which must Intervene, best suited the Order of personality, to be the Province of the Second Person.