CHRIST THE universal peacemaker: OR, THE RECONCILIATION Of ALL the PEOPLE of GOD, Notwithstanding all their Differences, Enmities. By THO: Goodwin, B. D.  
LONDON, Printed by J. G. for R. Dawlman, 1651.   
CHRIST, The universal peacemaker.  

I. PART.  EPHES. 2. 14, 15, 16. 
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the wall of partition between us:  
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the Law of Commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself, of twain, one new man, so making peace.  
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. (or) in himself.  
IT were a manifest folly in the judgements of most knowing men, to go about to use in any set way, exhortatory motives to persuade to peace & reconciliation the people of God amongst us. The provocations are so high, and exasperations so fresh and increasing, that if I had an audience made up of those alone that have the swaying power of either, and together therewith their most favourable attention, and interest in affection without prejudice, I should not know how to attempt it with any hope of success. But though the animosities of men's spirits, augmented by coincident circumstances, are gone beyond the power of the persuasions of men in this present paroxysm: yet they are not above the power of God's wisdom and providence, nor the force and efficacy of Christ's blood. You may therefore, in the midst of all contrary appearances, give me leave, though I cannot hope to persuade, yet to believe (The Catholic Church, and Communion of Saints, they are in my Creed) and because I believe therefore to speak, and so to give you an account of my faith as to this issue. Let your faith but wait, and give God time for it, and leave him to effect it his own way. And to this end I have taken this Text, Christus Pax nostra: For he is our peace who hath made both one, &c. and my inference is, That therefore the Saints SHALL and MUST be one, and reconciled in the end. And this is the best news which in these times can be told you, the seasonablest we can hear of, and is indeed one great part of the glad tidings of the gospel itself, without which it were imperfect, which Christ himself our peace (who came to purchase it, as these words show, so) came to preach, as the very next v. 17. hath it.  
The main and principal intendment of these words is, to give an eminent instance of the efficacy of Christ's mediation in slaying the enmities that are amongst the people of God themselves, and of his being our peace in that respect; instancing in that the greatest that ever was between Jew and Gentile; Whom yet (as here) he hath made both one, and hath broken down the partition wall between us: and however he mentions in the 16. v. our reconciliation made with God (of which elsewhere he treats more largely) yet (here) but by way of confirmation of our faith in this other of reconciliation amongst ourselves. For the aim of its introduction here is but to show, how that Christ in reconciling us to God himself, carried it so, and did it under such a consideration and respect, as necessarily drew on and involved our reconciliation one with another; namely this, that he reconciled us unto God IN ONE BODY among ourselves. It is an happy clause, that addition [in one body] and on purpose inserted thereinto, to show, that when God was to transact our peace and reconciliation to and with Christ, hanging upon the cross, he would not nor did not acknowledge himself, to him, then, reconciled to us by him, upon any other terms, then as withal we were looked at, and represented to him by Christ as one body; and therein reconciled one to another, whilst we were reconciled to himself.  

The Connection of the 16. ver. with the 15. discussed: And how That Reconciliation to God in one body, ver. 16. is to be understood: whether of that reconciliation wrought for us, or in us.  
I Meet but with one eminent difficulty in the coherence and contexture of these words, and that is the connexion of these two verses, v. 15. 16. as namely of these words, And that he might reconcile us to God, v. 16. &c. with the former v. 15. Having abolished the enmity, &c. Now this enmity mentioned v. 
v. 14.  15. is evidently intended of the enmity between Jew and Gentile, 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  as is clear by its connexion with v. 14. Who hath made of twain one, and broken down the partition wall: Having slain the enmity. Now the twain, or the two, thus made one (between whom this enmity was) is not God and we, but the Jews and the Gentiles (of whom he had spoken in the former verses) for he adds, that he might create both in one new man, which could not be said of God and us.  
Now than the difficulty is, what reconciliation to God in one body that should be v. 16. which the Apostle makes the consequent of having slain the enmity between these Jews and Gentiles; For the connexion seems to import the one a consequent of the other: And the words to run thus, Having slain the enmity between themselves, v. 15. that he might reconcile them to God, v. 16. Now this reconciliation to God must be either meant of the work of reconciliation wrought in us, whereby we turn unto God, as 1 Cor. 
V. 15.  5. Be ye reconciled to God, or that Reconciliation which Christ wrought for us unto God: and whether of these should be intended, 
V. 16.  is the Question. And so withal the Question is, whether those words, v. 16. And that he might reconcile both unto God, are to be cast unto the 15. verse as a part of the discourse thereof, or do not rather begin a new and entire discourse full and complete within themselves.  
For the first stand many Interpreters, and the chief reason for that opinion is, 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  The coherence of these words with those next immediately foregoing, Having abolished the enmity, that he might create in himself of twain one New man, and that he might reconcile both unto God, &c. The resolve of which seems to be this, That Christ having on the cross wrought in himself this great work for us, to slay the enmity between us, and make both one, by the sacrifice of himself, and this as the antecedent work: That yet there remained two other as consequent works as the effects that follow therefrom. Namely,  
1. To create both one new man, so making actually peace between themselves. And 2. To bring them both into an actual state of reconciliation with God, by working reconciliation in them towards God, so making them one body.  
And the reason for this interpretation further is, That both these two are brought in and yoked in the like tenor of speech, 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  That he might create, &c. And that he might reconcile; as if they were like parallel fruits of that antecedent work, slaying that enmity mentioned, v. 15. and according to this parallel, look as creating them both into one new man, is and must be acknowledged to be understood of a work wrought in them, viz. the new Creation: so also that other, the reconciling them to God must be understood of the work of reconciliation unto God wrought in them also; and so the new man they are created into, v. 15. answereth but unto that one body they are reconciled unto, v. 16. being one and the same.  
And that which increaseth the difficulty is, that if it should be understood of reconciliation unto God himself wrought by Christ on the cross, how such a reconciliation should be the consequent of his slaying first the enmity between the Saints themselves, so as it should be said, He slew the enmity among the Saints, that he might reconcile them to God: This is not consonant to reason, seeing rather (that according to the harmony and dependence of theological truths) his reconciling them unto God upon the cross is the antecedent and cause of his slaying the enmity of them mutually, because our reconciliation one with another is rather depending upon, and the fruit of reconciliation with God himself, who being first reconciled to us, all things else are reconciled one to another; as Subjects that have been at variance, when reconciled to their Prince or Head, become reconciled one to another among themselves.  
But yet I rather incline to think, that other kind of reconciliation between God and us, wrought by Christ for us on the cross, to be intended v. 16. and so to be brought in as a parallel with that former reconciliation wrought by him also on the cross between and on behalf of the Jew and Gentile mutually. And so this 16. v. to begin a new and entire discourse, apart and sejunct from the other, namely, of our reconciliation with God, as the former verses had discoursed of that reconciliation which is wrought for us between ourselves.  
And so the main proportions of this parallel are these, that as that reconciliation between Jew and Gentile, wrought by Christ on the cross, had two parts, 1. Positive, making both one. 2. Privative, the amoving the impediment that caused the enmity, v. 15. (the consequent of which is the creating of both into one new man:) So the Apostle discoursing, v. 16. of this other reconciliation with God, 
v. 14, 15.  he therein intends to make like two parts thereof, answerable to the other, only with a transposition of speech, 1. Positive, reconciliation to God in one body: 2. Privative, Having slain that enmity, namely, against God: The resolution of all which is, as if he had said, Whereas there was a double enmity, one to God, another among ourselves; Christ that is our peace hath dealt with both: He having slain the enmity between themselves, 
v. 15.  hath made both one: And having slain in like manner the enmity to God, 
v. 16.  hath reconciled us unto God.  
Now that which clears and confirms this connexion is,  
1. That this renders a more full and just analysis of the words, which is this: 1. That v. 14. He in general proclaims Christ our peace. And then 2. In the next words proceeds to the two particular branches, wherein Christ is made our peace, 1. Between ourselves mutually, 2. Between God and us. And then 3. In the handling of either, observeth this parallel in either, namely, between a privotive part, slaying the enmity; and a positive part, reconciling and making one, so enumerating the complete requisites to either.  
Then 2. To show, that these are indeed two disjunct and complete discourses of two such heads of Reconciliation: He severs the first, v. 15. from the second, v. 16. by adding a full period, and as it were a Selah to the first, thus sealing up the v. 15. So making peace, namely, fully and completely, that peace, which had been spoken of among Jew and Gentile, that so he might enter anew, and distinctly from this, upon that other of reconciling both unto God, which he doth, v. 16.  
Then 3. For the close of that 16. v. that he should in like manner bring in a second time these words, [Having slain the enmity] upon occasion of his mentioning our reconciliation to God, argues still more, his aim to be to cut off the 16. v. from the 15. For if those words, v. 16. That he might reconcile us to God, had referred to that other [Having slain the enmity, v. 15.] as a part of that sentence not made complete; then this second [Having slain the enmity] needed not to have been: but doth rather show, that there's another enmity between God and us, distinct from the former intended by him; and so the slaying thereof, joined properly and genuinely with its fellow conjugate, namely, reconciliation unto God, as the former, v. 15. had in like manner been connected with its conjugate also, making both one among themselves. If indeed the Apostle had carried his speech in the 15. v. thus, Having abolished the enmity between them, that he might create one new man, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body, and so ended his discourse of it: then these two, in their reference could not have been parted: but he moreover adding to their reconciling to God, a second time these words, Having slain the enmity (namely, that between God and us) he so maketh the 16. v. an entire sentence and period of itself, as the 14, and 15, do make in like manner a full period of themselves: and so the 14, and 15, are to be read and joined thus; Christ hath made both (Jew and Gentile) one, having slain the enmity (that was between them:) thus Beza and others: and answerably the 16. to this sense, with an easy and fair transposition, And having slain, Or, And hath slain the enmity (namely, between God and them) that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, on which he also slew that enmity.  
And whereas it will be said, That the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, or (And) which the 16. v. begins with, seemeth to cast the reference of this, upon the former slaying the enmity, v. 15. and so the latter to be but an emphatical repetition of the same: I answer, That that (and) v. 16. is but all one with moreover, as it is often used, as introducing a new and distinct discourse, added to a former.  
And so 4. As thus understood the parallel is rendered yet more full; for as there is here found a double enmity, and an answerable double slaying of each in order to a double reconciliation, so to make up the parallel (which the Apostle intended) yet the more full, there are two further clauses added to each, fitly answering to one another. For as of the one he says, Having abolished the enmity IN HIS FLESH, v. 15. so of the other (the latter) in like manner he speaks, having slain that enmity IN himself, v. 16. as the Greek bears, and the margin varies it.  
Now as to any difficulty proposed, That which is left as material to be considered, is only this; How his having slain that enmity between us ourselves first, should be conceived to be the antecedent to reconcile us to God?  
Now for answer hereunto; 1. Besides, that according to that connexion which I have given, that the 16. v. should thus make up a full period of itself, and doth keep itself entire within itself (as v. 14, and 15, also do) and so not at all referring to the slaying the enmity, v. 15. as hath been explained; which coherence doth at once cut off the whole of that objection at first made: But besides this (supposing it might take in, and refer to that slaying the enmity v. 15. among the Saints, as the antecedent, or at least ingredient unto their reconciliation with God) there may perhaps this just assoilment be given thereto.  
That 2. In order of nature, All enmity must first be supposed removed, ere friendship or (as here) reconciliation, can be supposed to be procured: the reason of which is obvious to any judgement, first peace by slaying enmity, and then good will. And so upon this and the like grounds, these words, that he might reconcile unto God in one body, may well be supposed to have a secondary aspect to his having first abolished the enmity between ourselves, ver. 15. as well as our enmity against God, ver. 16. And the Apostle his adding [IN ONE BODY] (which he studiously hath done) shows, that they being under that notion and respect reconciled unto God by Christ upon the cross; that then withal at the same time, yea in order of nature, first, their enmities one against another were removed as well as against God himself: All sorts of Enmities being to be removed ere Any sort of Reconciliation attained, surely under that notion, they cannot be considered reconciled to God, but withal it must be said, they are at peace, and so made one among themselves, at least these two do mutually argue each the other. If indeed there had been room left for us to conceive, that our reconciliation with God had been so wrought by Christ for us, as for each person considered only single, and apart (though even so it was intended, namely for each and every person; and this is involved in that other:) Then indeed it might have been supposed that their enmities to God, had been slain and done first away, and reconciliation wrought with him first, by one primary act, & then after that, ex consequenti, as a secondary work, our reconciliation amongst ourselves had been cast in, and followed thereupon; or which is all one, wrought and procured by a second act or intention of Christ's. But if in one and the same very individual act, and intention of their being reconciled to God, they were considered [AS ONE BODY] and that this is put in as an involved ingredient thereinto, so, you must necessarily suppose their own mutual enmities done away also, at least together therewith, by one and the same individual act also; and this consideration if there were no other, is a sufficient salvo to the forementioned difficulty. Now how this reconciliation unto God in one Body was performed by Christ on the cross, I shall handle in the second Section of this discourse.  
I shall trouble you no further with untying this knot, or the drawing out into one smooth continued line, the series of this coherence: For however (take the 16. ver. in which of these senses you please) the words in the 14. and 15. ver. are sufficient bottom for the heads of that whole discourse I intend. For these words, ver. 14, 15. do undeniably (as all must confess) treat of the reconciliation of the people of God among themselves, and sufficiently hold forth these two generals.  
1. The work of Christ on the cross to procure it, He hath made both one, having slain the enmity in his flesh: and hath virtually (in the virtue of his death) broke down the partition wall that occasioned it, which in his providence he after ruined. And 2. the work of Christ by his spirit in us, creating both one new man in himself.  
And now take the other words ver. 16. in either sense, or in both, (which are not inconsistent) however this is observable even therein; that the Apostle was not content to have setly pursued the Saints reconciliation among themselves, in those two whole verses, the 14, 15. but when he speaks of reconciliation with God also, ver. 16. he must needs add, and put in that clause also, IN ONE BODY; the reconciliation then of the Saints mutual is upon all accounts, the principal intendment of the Apostle here.   

The Division of the words. The principal Heads of this Discourse set out, which are four.  
NOw for the DIVISION of the words, That will fall according to either the larger, or else the more special scope of the words. If we take them in that first and largest comprehensiveness, as treating of both our reconciliation with God, and between ourselves also, and how Christ our peace is both, so they admit of this division and Analysis:  
1. That the general theme and argument of the whole should be premised in these words, Christus Pax nostra, Christ is our peace; which is the inscription of a Proclamation of him under one of his eminent royal titles, Christ the great and perfect Peace maker. And then,  
2. Proclaiming him such, in all the branches or particulars thereof, that may argue him such.  
1. As an universal peacemaker, as both, being a peace between all sorts of persons at variance, and also extending his mediation to the removing of all sorts of enmities. 1. Persons, as 1. between us, ver. 19 that is, among ourselves, abolishing {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that enmity, ver. 15. 2. Between God and us, slaying that enmity also, ver. 16. thus an universal peacemaker.  
2. The establisher of a through and a perfect peace, both for time past, and time to come. 1. Who hath already made and concluded it, as in his own person, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, he hath made it, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} he hath dissolved and broke down, and so not now to be done. And 2. the same secured for the future, even for ever; these enmities being abolished, ver. 14, 15. that is, utterly abolished, as never to get head; slain, ver. 16. never to revive.  
3. Our complete peace as in respect to all parts, that concur to it, and ways of peace to accomplish it, and make it sure. 1. In respect of Parts. Both 1. Negative by removing and destroying even the very occasion of the enmity: The partition wall of ordinances, breaking that down, and again, ver. 16. slaying the enmity itself. 2. Positive, expressed in two words, Reconciling, ver. 16. making both one, ver. 14, 15.  
Then 4. By all sorts of ways accomplishing it, 1. representing us in his person, as in one body, ver. 16. personating all his people, and under that consideration reconciling them to God, and one another. 2. Meritoriously, taking on his person, (as representing their persons) all their enmities, [in his flesh] or the human nature, says the 15. v. Hanging on the cross, ver. 16. and so offering that up as one common sacrifice to God for all; (He is said to reconcile all in one body by the cross, ver. 16.) 3. Efficiently by his spirit, creating both into one man, of all conjunctions the nearest, and that creation wrought in himself, of all foundations of union the firmest: for they being both created one man, & united in and to himself, he is able and will be sure to hold them for ever together. And to put the more evident notice upon all he had said or should say of him in this respect, he intermingleth in the midst of his discourse, this Selah or note of observation, so making peace, (take notice of it says he) So or THUS, Universally, perfectly, completely, & eternally. And this is one account of the words, and indeed of the whole and every part and particle thereof.  
But if we single forth that more special and principal aim, afore mentioned, Christus Pax nostra, as in relation unto making peace among us, the elect of God: so in stead of any accurate division of them, I shall only draw forth these four propositions, which will suck into themselves the strength of what these words have in them, as to this great point. Namely,  
1. The story of the greatness of that enmity, (the greatest that ever was,) between Jew and Gentile afore Christ's coming, and a while after, by reason of those Jewish rites and ordinances of the ceremonial Law, which the Apostle by a metonymy termeth therefore the enmity.  
2. The story of Christ's transactions on the cross, by which he virtually slew and abolished this enmity, and meritoriously made them both one, and reconciled both in one body.  
3. The story of their actual accord, and becoming one as the records of the Acts of the Apostles, and they in their Epistles have presented it unto our view: and the principles by which, and the providences whereby, that partition wall was broke down, and the enmity allayed; chiefly by creating both one New man in himself.  
4. That the instance of all this was intended by God as a PRECEDENT, and leading cause under the New Testament, to assure us, that whatsoever should fall out in after ages, of difference among the Saints, yet still however they both might and should in the issue be reconciled, and their differences in a like manner allayed and compounded; as also to show the ways and principles whereby to effect it.   

I. SECTION. 1 Head. The greatness of that Enmity, which was between Jew and Gentile, until Christ purchased their Reconciliation.  
FOr the first, I have to present you out of this text, with an instance of the deepest, and most lasting enmity, between two sorts of men chosen to be one body unto God, that shared as then the whole world between them, (Jew and Gentile) that ever was or will be in all ages: which yet was compounded by Christ. View we it first in the general through those expressions the text useth of it. The Apostle sets it forth to us, not barely by terms of distance and division, calling them {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, Both or two, and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, twain; nor simply of being enemies in an ordinary way, but speaks of an enmity in the abstract, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}; a special enmity it was, not that which is common to man against man, (who as the Holy Ghost that knows our nature tells us, are mutually hateful to, and hating one another, Tit. 3. 1.) But a knotted, twisted, combined enmity. That the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} disolved it, ver. 14. imports. A stirring active enmity, that lay not sleeping. This the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, ver. 15. implies: He made it inefficacious, took away the strength, the energy, the operative virtue of it: Yea and if you will take in, and borrow from the expression ver. 16. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, He slew it. It was a living spriteful enmity, yea that had a rage in it, (we on the contrary call such an one deadly, because it aims at life:) The 
* {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, magisquidpiam quam {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, occidere, significat occidere cum saevitiâ. Beza. Mat. 10. 28 Ezek. 25. 15.  word bears up to this, non tam occidit quam trucidavit; Christ did not barely kill it, but bloodily with a rage, as provoked with the fierceness that was found in the enmity itself. For the rage thereof was cruel, and reached up to heaven, as the Scripture speaks.  
Likewise an old Hatred, (as the Prophet Ezekiel in his times termed it, speaking of that between the PhilistimGentiles, and the Jews; but this was now grown much older, in all, of 2000 years' continuance,) even from the first time wherein God separated the people from the rest of the Nations, as in Abraham by circumcision he did. A wall of separation (if I may pursue the Metaphor in the text) whose foundation was laid in Abraham's time, when circumcision was first given (for that began the quarrel) reared up higher by Moses rites, Further lengthened and stretched out in all the times of the Prophets, throughout all ages, until Christ who came to abolish it, and break it down.  
And lastly, an universal hatred in the Jews to all Nations, and in all Nations to the Jews. Even all who were called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, Gentiles in the flesh, and uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision, ver. 11. as all Nations were termed and reckoned by them.  
Thus God foreordained, that as to honour his son in reconciling us to himself, he permits the greatest sins and enmities to be in the hearts and lives of those he intends to save, against himself: so likewise that the highest and toughest animosities should be found, amongst those, (when he should come on earth,) that were ordained to be his people, to show the sovereign power, and efficacy of his mediation, in constituting them one new-man in himself. These but in general for a foundation out of the text.  
The story of the Particulars of it hath two branches: 1. What it was between them before Christ, and the conversion of either to the Christian faith. 2. What after conversion, and that both equally had embraced Christ.  
1. Take the elevation of it before, both out of the Scriptures and other authentic Testimonies: Both, 1. Of the Jew against the Gentile. 2. Of the Gentile against the Jew. And I shall withal by the way, make a parallel of the one with the other.  
1. Of the Jew against the Gentile. The quarrel was begun indeed by them; they out of a carnal fleshly boasting of their privilege to be the only people of God, (as they were) scorned and contemned the poor Gentiles. The 11. verse insinuates this: Yea were Gentiles who are called uncircumcision by that (nation namely) which is called the circumcision in the flesh. It began at Nicknames: and the Jews were they, that began to call names first, as interpreters have observed. And it began early, almost from the time when the seed of Abraham first received that badge of difference. You hear on't in Jacob's time, To give our sister to one that is uncircumcised, that were a reproach to us. Gen. 34. 14. say the sons of Jacob in the case of Dinah. And after amongst all the race of the Jews both good and bad in all ages, The same was used as a reproach, as by Samson, Judg. 15. 18. by Jonathan, 1 Sam. 14. 16. By David, Chap. 17. 26. 36. By Saul, Chap. 31. 4. They judging it, (though but a circumstance, yet) far worse than death itself, to die by the hands of the uncircumcised, or have the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 2 Sam. 1. 20. And in the Prophets uncircumcised and unclean are all one. Isa. 32. 1. When they would accurse one to the most accursed death, (as all Nations, according to what they have esteemed the worst of Deaths, they have accordingly expressed such like curses; As Abi in malam crucem, among the Romans) Let him die (said the Jew) the death of the uncircumcised, as Ezek. 28. 10. When they imprecated the most ignominious burial, Thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, Ezek. 31. 18. A person excommunicate, accursed, and a heathen was to them all one; Let him be as an heathen, Mat. 18. and they distinguish themselves from the Gentiles, by appropriating the title of sinners, wholly to the Gentiles; we that are Jews BY nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Gal. 2. 15. and God foreseeing how apt their spirits were to grow from hence into an abhorrency of all other Nations, made a specal Law to prevent it, concerning some particular Nations. Deut. 23. 7. Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his Land.  
Next see this enmity expressed in their carriages and dealings with the Gentiles, they not only not communicate with them in sacris, in holy things, but their zeal was such, and this after the light of Christianity appeared to them, that they would have killed Paul, Acts 21. 31. for no other crime but this, ver. 28. This is the man hath brought Greeks, (that is Heathens) into the Temple, and hath polluted the holy place, ver. 28. nay they accounted it an abominable thing, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, (as in 1 Pet. 4. 3. the word is rendered, abominable Idolatry) and so the vulgar Here) to keep company, that is, familiarly, yea or so much as to come, (unnecessarily,) to one of another Nation; founding all this, upon that which was a peculiar command, upon a special ground, against the Ammonites and Moabites, Deut. 23. 6. Thou shalt not seek their peace, nor their prosperity all thy days for ever. This they extended to all Nations: and This to that rigidity, that they would not do ordinary courtesies of common humanity,  
Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti, 
Lib. 14. satire.  says Juvenal, not tell a man's way, to a poor wanderer, an act of civility: Non ad fontem deducere, to lead to a well for water, which was an act of charity. The Woman of Samaaia therefore wonders at Christ, Joh. 4. 8, 9 How is it that thou being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Each one of you (Says Christ) will, and that on the Sabbath day, lose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering, Luke 13. 15. but they would not do thus much for an Heathen though ready to perish for thirst, not show him a Well hard by, says the same Juvenal in the same place, Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos: not give a cup of cold water, which Christ makes the least of courtesies, save only to their own 
* The word signifies both worms & circumcised.  Verpi, as we say vermin and circumcised ones. So Juvenal scoffs them, & hoc Judaicum Jus, This is the Jewish Law.  
And no wonder of all this, for indeed they accounted all the Heathen as beasts made to be destroyed: (upon the mistake of their Commission concerning those seven Nations, 
Deut. 7. 11.  given up by God the Judge of the World (in whose sovereignty it was,) into their hands.) Even Christ speaking in the common language of the Jews, calls the Syropheniciam Woman and all the Gentiles dogs, Mat. 15. 25, 26. as the Turks call Christians at this day; yea out of their own records some of the rabbinical interpreters upon Deut. 21. 11. they have delivered, that they accounted them feris deteriores, worse than beasts, & nuptias eorum innuptas, their marriages, no marriages, and therefore nec homicidium nec adulterium in eos committi posse, that it was no adultery to abuse their Wives, no murder to kill any of them, no robbery to take from them, by never so much violence. 
Hispanus.  Which Josephus Albo Justifies in his disputation adversus Christianos, giving this reason, that be that lived without their Law and worshipped false Gods, he was a common enemy, & in eum illicitum nihil, and nothing can be unlawful, that is done against him by them.  
Can malice be supposed to rise any higher? and yet in that Nation it did against these poor Gentiles. 1 Thess. 2. 16, 17. Contrary they are to all men, and it follows, forbidding us to preach to the Gentiles, that they might be saved. The Apostle speaking it by way of aggravation, of their malice, seems to intend it not only consequenter, that they denied them the gospel, without which, they could not be saved: but farther intentionaliter, what was in their intentions, that suppose, they had thought the gospel a means of salvation, they would have forbade it to be preached to them, that they might not be saved. Is there not work for a Peacemaker now? This on the Jews PART.  
And can we think the GENTILES were behind hand with them? and yet the truth is, the Gentiles were the more moderate of the two, as the 11 verse here, and the Parable of the good Samaritane, that poured oil into a stranger's wounds, and the story of the Samaritan Woman, All show: for she lays fault on the Jew, that HE would not ask water of a Samaritan, and not è contra. It were too much to reckon up all that might be, out of their Poets and Historians. I will but so far make mention of some Testimonies of the Gentiles hatred against the Jews, as they make up a parallel with what hath been said of the Jewish enmity against the Gentiles: thereby to manifest that the Gentiles were even with them, if not in malice, get in jeers and scorns.  
1. Did the Jews reproach them as uncircumcised, as you heard? the Gentiles on the contrary scorned the Jews as much for circumcision, calling them Apellas, Judaeus Apella: Curtos, so 
* 1 Serm. sat. 5.  Horace; Recutitos, so 
† L. 7.  Martial. And 
* Sat. 5.  Persius, Verpos, as also Juvenal. There is wit in these, but so unseemly as I must forbear to English them: They were jeers at their circumcision.  
2. Did the Jews abhor the Gentiles and not converse with them? the Gentiles on the other side would hold their Nose at the Jews when they met them, and cry 
* Malvenda hom. de Antichristo, c. 3.  Faetentes Judaeos, stinking Jews: 
† Barn. An 72. c. 31. Am mian de Marco lib. 11.  vel fortuitum eorum occursum oculis horrebant, animo persequebantur, they abhorred the sight of them, if by chance they met them.  
And 3. 
Ibid.  esteemed them of all Nations the worst: so Marcus the Emperor, but passing through Judaea to Egypt, and observing their manners, dolenter dicitur exclamasse, O Marcomanni, O Quadi, O Sarmatas, tandem alios vobis deteriores inveni: which was as if when we would express the wretchedness of any Nation we accounted most vile, should say, O you cannibals, yea barbarous savages, that are found amongst the wildest Africans or Americans, We have at length found, and light upon a Generation of men, worse by far than you. In this manner doth he speak of these Jews.  
And 4. As the Jews turned it into a curse to be a Gentile, as you heard: so the Gentiles in their cursings, turned the like upon the Jews. Jer. 24. 9 And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the Earth for their hurt, to BE AREPROCH, and a PROVERB, and a taunt, and a CURSE in all places whither I shall drive them. It was God's own Retaliation upon them and fulfilled; as we now, so the Hearthen then imprecated on themselves, I were a Jew, if I did so or so, and thus in all places, as the Prophet hath it: yea Jer. 42. 18. they were made, an EXECRATION, AN ASTONISHMENT, and A CURSE. What can be more?  
5. As they esteemed all other Nations as dogs and Beasts: the Gentile doth the like by them, and reckons them but as Swine, the most contemptible of Beasts, and this in a witty retortion from the Jewish practices, 
Nec distare putant humana carne suillam.  putting this interpretation upon their forbearance to eat swine's flesh, that mankind and swine were alike to them.  
And 6. As they hated all Nations, so the Gentiles resented accordingly this Catholic spirit in the Jew against them all, which turned their hearts universally to hate them. Ashuerus had 127. Provinces, amongst which, the Jews (as we read) had enemies in them all. Est. 8. 9 and 9 16. compared, whom the King's Letters restrained with difficulty from falling on them in every Nation: And they accuse and arraign the Jews, 1. As hurtful to Kings and Provinces, Ezra 4. 15. as continually moving sedition, in the same place of Ezra 4. 15. They are a people that of old time have moved sedition. And the same aspersion went current among the Romans and greeks many hundred years after: These men being Jews do exceedingly trouble our City, Acts 16. 20. say the Philippians to the Magistrates of the City. They lay their accusation that it was the genius of the Nation: it is their known custom so to do. 2. As unsociable to the rest of mankind. 
Diod. 1. 5.  Antiochus friends in Diodorus pleaded thus against the Jew: 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}  That they alone of all Nations were insociable, and not capable of any mixture or coalescency with them; no not at table; {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}. In Esther you have the same intimated, c. 3. 8. There is a certain people (speaking of the Jews) scattered abroad and dispersed among the people, whose laws are diverse from all people, &c. 3. The Gentiles accused them as enemies to all Nations, so in that of Diodorus, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, that they wished well to none: and not only so, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, to account all others enemies. So also Tacitus l 5. adversus omnes alios hostile odium, an hostile and deadly hatred is in them against all others. Yea {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, haters of mankind; so also it follows there in Diodorus. 'Tis strange the Apostle should express it, in the very same manner, and near the same words, They ARE CONTRARY TO ALL MEN, and God they please not, 1 Thess. 2. 16, 17.  
4. As they founded their hatred against the Gentiles on this, that they were Worshippers of other Gods, so the Gentiles accused and detested them as 
* Cicero pro Flacco.  hosts immortalium Deorum, Enemies of the immortal Gods: and Religion was the cause of all this, these rites here were the partition wall.  
And Lastly, Under the notion of such a manner of persons as these, were they universally hated by all Nations, as the books of the Prophets do show, especially Ezekiel and Jeremy, where the Cup is carried to all Nations for no other crime than their enmity to the Jews; likewise the books of Esther and Ezra: and accordingly persecuted they were, upon that account; banished out of Rome again and again, as by Claudius, Acts 16. 20. As by other Emperors: and at last they destroyed both their City and commonwealth.  
You have seen the enmities of both. And was there not cause to wish and pray, as David Ps. 14. upon the like occasion, Oh that the salvation (or Saviour and Messiah) were come out of Zion: or, The desire of all Nations were come?  
This for the story of their enmity afore their conversion: that of their enmity and dissensions that continued after, though proper to this, yet comes more fitly in, and cannot be disjointed from the third part of this Discourse, where it will have its place in order, to show, How those enmities were actually allayed, and composed between them.    

II. PART.  
II. Head. What hath been done in the person of Christ himself on the cross, Virtually and Representatively, towards our reconciliation mutual. A twofold reconciliation between the Saints themselves, in and by Christ, held forth in the words, and distinguished.  
THis second is to unfold the transactions by which Christ hath virtually slain and abolished all this enmity, and procured this peace.  
Now to make way for the distinct handling of what belongs to this second Head from what is to follow in the third; And to sever the one from the other, I desire that in the text this difference may be observed between the things that Christ hath done for the effecting and accomplishment of that peace. 1. What was transacted and done simply and abstractly in his own person alone, for the procurement of it, On the cross. 2. What he works efficiently in us, (though concretely, in himself, upon us) by his Spirit; and through Providences, to the full accomplishment thereof. The first of these belongs to this second Head; the last of these takes up the third Head.  
Only for the clearing of this method, I shall desire it may be noticed, how evidently in the text, these two sorts of workings by Christ are distinguished each from other, and ranged there in the order I have proposed them.  
Here is manifestly a double making of these twain one: 1. The one expressed in time past; the other as to come, and to be perfected. 1. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, who hath made both one, v. 14. and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, having abolished, v. 15. in his own flesh personally. 2. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, That he might make both one. The first antecedent, and already done; the other consequent, and to be accomplished: the latter distinguished from the former, as the consequent or effect from its cause: He hath made both one, THAT HE MIGHT create both one into one new man; the influence and virtue of the first, bringing about the latter. And 2. accordingly in the original, these two are further distinguished by words of a different import (though our Translation hath taken no notice of it, but hath folded them up each, under one and the same word [making one] so making them one indeed; But) the first {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} making one, v. 14. is of a more large signification, and is appliable and extendible to express (as here also it is intended) a virtual, influential making Us one in his own person, afore we are made one in ourselves. The latter {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} (more restrictive) properly and strictly signifies Creation, [CREATING both one] or making both one by a new creation: And therefore [IN ONE NEW MAN,] is added as the product of this second kind of making: and this imports a physical efficiency, and working upon us; a moulding and forming us, by creation, into this oneness among ourselves, although the mould in which this latter is wrought and cast, is his person also, [in himself:] Yet not in himself, considered personally and alone, but as uniting us to himself, and so working upon us concretely through in and by himself. And therefore 3. they differ, the first being performed in himself singly, personally when he was in this world, and especially on the cross, and is therefore expressed as past, Hath made one, as a business done, and perfected already, as much (in respect of such a way making one) as ever it shall be. The other to be effected afterwards in us, in our several ages, and by degrees, as the new Creature is: that he might create of two, one new man.  
To illustrate the difference of these two makings one, but in one parallel instance (although the like duplicate is found, and distinction holds in all kind of works done in us, and for us by Christ:) because it is the next akin to this. The parallel is that of Reconciliation or making peace between God and the Saints. These two works, as they are the nearest twins of all other done for us by Christ: so are they, herein, exactly parallel and alike. Now unto the accomplishment of our reconciliation with God, a double reconciliation is necessary: The one wrought out of us, in Christ's person for us; God was in Christ reconciling the world: The other in us; We beseech you to be reconciled to God, 1 Cor. 5. 19, 20. The like holds in this our Reconciliation mutual. Or to set the likeness of these Gemelli to your view in another glass (that is, another Scripture) that gives forth the nearness of the resemblance of this sort of Reconciliation, in parallel words and lines, to those in the text, it is, 1 Coloss. 20. He says first, Christ having made peace by the blood of his cross, to reconcile all to himself; this is a work already done, and done FOR ALL, at once, meritoriously, and representatively, as there it follows. [In the body of his flesh through death, v. 22.] After which he speaks of another reconciliation of us, wrought in us, towards God too, in these words, And you that were enemies hath he now reconciled. This latter therefore wrought since, and after the former, was perfected, as the effect of it. The very same or like here you have expressed of that reconciliation or making one of the Saints mutually, which we have in hand. 1. He hath made both one, v. 14. in his flesh, v. 15. in one body by the cross, v. 16. thus meritoriously and representatively. 2. That he might create of twain in one new man, so efficiently: Both must go in their several seasons and successions to the effecting thereof, or there would not be peace. I have given you the grounds for these general heads out of the text; I come to such particular branches of each, as into which the text also spreads itself, and is a root unto them.  

1 SECTION. Two Branches of what Christ did in his own person, On the cross, to reconcile the Saints. 1. By way of sacrifice, and taking on him their enmities. 2. Of representation, [in one body] in himself.  
THat which is proper (as was said) to this PART, is, What hath been done in Christ's own person. The particulars hereof are two, which I find in the text, (to the materials of which I confine myself, and shall take them in that order in which they lie:) 1. By way of sacrifice, having taken on him before God the enmities of both against each other, and so offering up his flesh as a sacrifice for both. The 2. By a voluntary assuming and gathering the persons of all the Elect into one BODY in himself: he representing and sustaining their persons, and so [in one body] reconciling them unto God.  
Both are expressly and distinctly mentioned: The first in these words, Having abolished the enmity (namely, between them) in his flesh: which flesh, taking on him their enmities, was made a sacrifice on the cross, therefore v. 16. By the cross is added. The second in these words, That he might reconcile both to God in one body: and though both these were performed at once, and by one individual act, yet that act is to be looked at, as having these two distinct considerations concurring in it. And the first in order of nature, making way for the second, as in opening the connexion of v. 15, and 16. I have already showed; I must handle them therefore each apart.  
How Christ's offering himself up as a sacrifice to God, and his standing as a common person in our stead before God, should abolish all our enmities against God himself, and reconcile us unto him, This is ordinarily and generally apprehended, and were proper to speak of, if our reconciliation to God himself had been the theme set out to be treated of: But how these very same acts and transactions of Christ should together therewith conduce to our reconciliation one with another, this only is genuine at this time, and to be eyed as the direct and proper level of what doth ensue: although even this is so involved with that other, that this cannot be explicated without supposing and glancing thereat: this but to set and keep the Readers eye steady upon the single mark aimed at.  

1. Branch. Two things to explicate the first Branch. 1. That Christ's offering himself was intended as a sacrifice for Enmities between the Saints, as well as against God.  
TWo things are distinctly to be spoken unto for the clearing of these things.  
1. That the offering up Christ's flesh on the cross, was intended as a sacrifice, as well for our reconciliation mutual, as for reconciliation with God.  
2. How according to the analogy of the ends, use, and intent of sacrifices of old, the offering up of Christ's flesh should be intended and directed as a sacrifice, to take away these our own enmities, and make peace and friendship amongst ourselves.  
For the first, which is the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} of this point, That as a sacrifice it was so intended, the whole frame and contexture of these words doth evince it.  
1. When he says v. 15. That he hath abolished the enmity in his flesh, he doth undeniably intend that enmity which was between these twain, the Jew and Gentile (this hath been proved afore:) and therefore he is found particularly to instance in the rites of the ceremonial Law, (which by a metonymy he calls the enmity,) as the outward occasion of that bitter enmity in each others hearts.  
Now then 2. That this enmity was taken away by his flesh as a sacrifice;  
First, The laying together the phrases of the Text, evinceth it; as when he says, He hath abolished this enmity in his flesh. 1. In saying the enmity in his flesh, it necessarily imports his having taken that enmity in or upon his own flesh, to answer for it in their stead. Even as well, as when in the 16. verse, he is said to have slain the enmity (namely, against God) in himself; thereby is intended, that he took that enmity on himself; undertaking to pacify and allay, and by being himself slain, to slay it. 2. In saying in the time past, that he hath abolished it, in his flesh, this notes out a virtual act perfectly done and past, (as in him:) by virtue of which it is to be destroyed actually in us after. Unto which 3. add that in the 16. v. there is an additional word [By the cross] put in, which {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, or in common, is to be referrd to the abolishing of this enmity in his flesh, v. 15. and reconciling us mutually; as well as to the slaying of the enmity against God mentioned, v. 16. as that which equally and alike shows the way, how, we are to understand that in his flesh, he hath perfectly abolished both these enmities; namely, by taking on his flesh that enmity, and offering it up upon the cross as a sacrifice for it. For to say, by the cross, or by the sacrifice of himself on the cross, is all one: so as what the one verse wants, the other supplies: In his flesh, says the 15. v. By the cross, says the 16. and (which will warrant this) we have elsewhere both put together, 1 Coloss. 20, 22. By the blood of his cross, in the body of his flesh, through death.  
2. The paralleling this place with that of the 2 Coloss. argues this: The enmity here instanced in, by a metonymy is the rites of the ceremonial Law: which he is said to have made void or weak. Thus expressly v. 15. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, the Law of commandments in Ordinances: Now the abolishing thereof is in that second to the Colossians expressly said to have been by the sacrifice of His Flesh on the cross: or which is all one, That, by His being nailed to the cross, He nailed it to His cross, Coloss. 2. 14. Blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, NAYLING IT TO HIS cross, which fully accords with this Text, He abolished it in his Flesh by the cross.  
Lastly, (for a winding up of this) The parallel which the Apostle observeth in his Discourse between his effecting our Peace and Reconciliation with God, and this our Peace and Reconciliation one with another, will induce to it: He being first alike in common termed our peace. v. 14. in respect to either. Then to demonstrate each apart, a double enmity (as I observed at first) is distinctly and apart mentioned by him. The one v. 15. the other v. 16. Of the one he says, he hath abolished: of the other, he hath slain it: of the one he says, he hath abolished it in His Flesh: of the other, in himself (as the Greek hath it v. 16.) And so those words by the cross are common to each: As those first words, [He is our Peace] were to all that followed. And so as the Parallel hath hitherto run along in these particulars, so it holds on, that look How in this, or by what way He slew the enmity betwixt God and us, on the cross, by the same way he abolished the enmity between the Jew and Gentile, or the people of God mutually: But he slew the enmity between God and us, on the cross by taking those our enmities against God on himself, and they being found on him, he was slain and sacrificed for them on the cross, and thereby slew them and reconciled us to God: In like manner than it is to be understood, that HE first took all our enmities against one another on His Flesh [in His Flesh] says the Text: (and it was the general intent of Sacrifices to be offered up, for what was laid upon them or reckoned to them.) And so, our enmities being there all found in His Flesh, that Flesh was offered up for them, and so they were all dissolved and abolished and made weak, as the Text speaks of them, in his being dissolved or made weak (as the 2 Cor. 13. and Phil. 3. speaks in like manner of him.)  
So then as there was a double enmity, and a double slaying which the Apostle mentions; so there must be in this one Sacrifice a double consideration in the intention thereof: It is a Sacrifice serving at once, to slay & abolish both the one and the other: he being in common alike and indifferently termed, Our peace, as in relation unto either; there being nothing also done for us by Christ, but the like was first done on himself.   

The second thing to explicate the first Branch. That one end or Use of Sacrifices, both among Jews and Gentiles, was to ratify peace between Man and Man, as truly as between God and Man: and that Christ's Sacrifice holds an analogy herein to other Sacrifices.  
THis being cleared, I come to the second, the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, namely to demonstrate how according to the Analogy of the ends, and use of sacrificing of old in the shadow, Christ's Sacrifice was likewise intended and directed to make peace between Man and Man, Jew and Gentile, as truly and as genuinely as between God and Man. For the illustration of this, we must know and consider, that of old Feuds or enmities between Man and Man, were removed and put to an end, by Sacrifice: and also leagues of amity and friendship even between Man and Man, were anciently ratified and confirmed, and Reconciliation established by Sacrifices: and as by Sacrifices so likewise AFTER Sacrifices, or over and beside Sacrifices, by eating and feasting together, and this both among Jews and Gentiles (of which latter, namely, that by eating together, friendship was sealed, 
Liquet quod apud Israclitas faedera partim epulis partim Sacrificiis inita fuisse & sancita. Vide Rivet in Gen. 31. Exercit. 135.  we shall have further use anon to confirm and explicate this very Notion in hand.) I say leagues of peace and friendship were used to be ratified by Sacrifices solemnly afore God: so to make such Covenants, a matter of Religion (to bind the stronglier:) and not to be merely the obligations of human faith and honesty: even by this, that men did find them ratified in the presence of a Deity; which they worshipped as their God, by so solemn and Religious and Action; which did withal invocate from God a curse upon the infringers of that peace and friendship made thereby. This to have been their use, I am to clear.  
We may consider that though all Sacrifices were offered up afore and unto God, yet not all only by way of expiation, or atonement made unto God, or as expressions of thankfulness unto him: but some were Sacrifices of pacification, and faederal in their intention, between Man and Man, being offered up before God as a witness and avenger. This to have been one use of Sacrifices is evident both among Jews, and likewise Gentiles (who were in their Sacrifices and the rites thereof imitators of the Jews.)  
1. The Jews. Jer. 34. from v. 8. &c. we read, That Zedekiah the King made a solemn Covenant with the people, and they with their servants to let them go free according to God's Law in that behalf made Exod. 21. 1. and Deut. 15. 12. and this sacrificial Covenant was solemnly performed in God's House, and before God, as v. 15. and 18. The rites of it were, They cut a calf in twain, and passed between the parts of the calf, even the Princes and all the people, v. 19 in token that it was one common Sacrifice between All those parties, Masters and Servants, and the joint act of each, which being thus solemn, afore God, carried with it an implicit or tacit execration, That if either broke this Covenant in this manner confirmed, then let God so deal with them, as this calf sacrificed was dealt withal: and therefore these having broken this Covenant, v. 11. (which breach of Faith was the occasion of this part of Jeremy's message to them) God threatens to bring the curse invocated and signified by that rite, upon them, and to retaliate the like unto them v. 18. I will GIVE the men that have transgressed MY COVENANT so he calls it, because the matter of it was his command, and it had been ratified before him, as it follows:) which have not performed the words of the COVENANT which they had made BEFORE ME, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof. That, therefore [I will give,] it is verbum similitudinis (as 'tis often used:) whose meaning is, I will make them as that calf, I will answerably deal with them: and so it is explained; I will give them into the hands of them that seek their life, and expose them to the Sword of the slayer, to slay at his pleasure, as you have done this beast, which you Sacrificed: and their dead bodies shall be for meat to the fowls of Heaven, &c.  
The like intendment of Sacrifices with the same rite, and like imprecation to confirm Leagues and Covenants, & end feuds, was in use among the Heathen, as might be evidenced by many Quotations, which I have met withal. To instance in one out of Livy which is most punctual to the thing in hand, and parallel to the former out of Jeremy. They cut a beast in two, 
Caput, medium, & prior pars ad dextram, posterior ad Laevam viae: pariter inter hanc divisam hostiam copiae armatae traducuntur. Liv. L. 39  The midst and the head with the bowels were placed at the right hand of the way: and the hinder parts on the left hand, and both the Armies (that made the league,) passed between this divided Sacrifice. And as the same rites with the former are expressed in this, so the same imprecation is recorded at the making of this Covenant, and by Sacrifice confirmed, recorded by the same Author, when these two Nations, Albans and Romans, made this league: Si prius defexit, 
The Latin Foedus à feriendo; and hence percutere, elicere faedus, to strike a Covenant (with us.) Thus Sanctio à sanguine, which that of Tacitus confirms, Sacrificiis conspiratio sancitur: agreements and combinations had their sanction and confirmation by Sacrifices: and faedus cruore sacratum, lib. Annal. 12.  Tu illum Jupiter sic ferito, ut ego hunc porcum hodie feriam: Let God strike him that breaks it, as I strike this Swine, said the Sacrificer.  
Et caesâ jungebant foedera porcâ. Aeneid Virgil. l. 8.  
The Holy Ghost speaks in like language, Psal. 50. 5. My people that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice.  
To bring all this home to the point in hand: There being to be a perpetual League and Covenant of Peace to be strucken between Jew and Gentile, and all other the elect of God, who should be at variance in any Age; and Christ having interposed himself as a mediator for us to God, he did with all undertake to be an Arbiter between them, (and us all) among ourselves, for all Our differences also: and he offered up his Flesh as one common Sacrifice upon the cross, at once to be expiatory, to God, to blot out the sins and enmities of ours against God himself: So also pacificatory between Man and Man, Jew and Gentile, and all other the elect: and therein answering to, and fulfilling one true end and intendment of Sacrifices, as well as in the other of making atonement to God. And the Text you see having said first, that he is made our Peace, in making both One, vers. 14. and then pointing us to his Flesh, as (in) which he bore their enmities, vers. 15. and then carrying us to the cross, vers. 16. it evidently (as was said,) argues, That he was made our Peace, by being thus made a pacificatory Sacrifice, for both. And surely (if there were no other reason to confirm it,) all Sacrifices in all their ends and uses having been but shadows of this, and His Flesh and the Sacrificing it being the subtance, this eminent Sacrifice of his must needs be supposed (as such,) to have the Perfection, Use and Efficacy, that all other Sacrifices could any way be supposed subservient unto, or it had not been the complete perfection of them; Especially there being this need of having His Sacrifice directed to this end, as well as to that other, there falling out so great animosities among those that were members of Him; which as it called for a Sacrifice to be offered up to allay and destroy them: so CHRIST in Sacrificing himself would not leave out, or lose this part of His Glory and Perfection in this respect.  
Hence accordingly, as here He is termed our Peace; so elsewhere the Covenant of the People, and both in the like latitude of sense and meaning. When here He is called our Peace, the meaning extends not only to His being our Peace between God and us; but between ourselves also: so when he is called the Covenant of the People, it intends not only His being a Covenant unto God for us, but a Covenant afore God OF US; or (as there 'tis expressed) of the People of God, namely among themselves. He is twice so called, and with much evidence, as to this sense: Isai. 4 2. 6. I will give thee for a Covenant of the People, that is, (Says Sanctius,) to the Jew, and for a light of the Geatiles: and thus a Covenant of both. And Ch. 49. 8. For a Covenant of the People to establish the Earth, that is, to this end, to settle in peace the whole Earth, both Jew and Gentile; so than a Covenant of the People (as you see) even in this very respect: Peace on Earth, among men, as well as good will toward men from God in Heaven, being the foot of that Song was sung at His Birth, and the sum of what is here said; He is our Peace.    

II. SECTION. The Analogy between the Rites of such pacificatory Sacrifices, and this Sacrifice of Christ's as offered up for our mutual enmities: and how This end and intention of Christ's Sacrifice is held forth in the Lord's Supper.  
NOw observe further, A correspondency unto those rites mentioned, that were used in those Sacrifices of peace, also held forth in this Sacrifice of His. The Beast in such cases was divided and cut in twain for both parties to pass through, and so peace to be made between them. And Christ to make both, or, twain one (as here,) was divided and cut (as it were) in twain: The Godhead for a time forsaking the manhood, 
Psal. 22.  My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? His soul also being by Death separated from His Body; his joints loosened, to dissolve this enmity; the veil of His Flesh rent, to rend the partition wall. Thus He was cut in twain as one common Sacrifice, between both.  
And again as the sacrificing of the beast cut a sunder was reckoned the common joint Act of both parties in such a case, and they were esteemed by God, and by one another, each to have an hand in the sacrificing of it, and as consenting to the Covenant and peace that was intended to be entered into and ratified by it: so here in this. And though we then personally existed not, yet all we being considered in Him, by God, (who gave us to Him;) and by himself, that voluntarily sustained our persons, and He offering up himself as a Sacrifice on our behalf, and for our behoof and in our names; Hence His Will in offering up himself, was volunt as totius, the act and will of the whole body, whose persons He sustained; our wills were thereby involved in His will; His act was our act: and it may truly be said, that a Covenant of peace was then made afore God, BY US, and for us: for He was our Priest therein for us, as well as our Sacrifice.  
And hence in a further correspondency to the manner of those typical Sacrifices: Therein although the Priest only offered up the Sacrifice for the People, and in their name and stead, yet to show it was their act, they used to eat of it after, or of that which was offered up with it. The interpretation of which eating thereof, by the People, the Apostle gives us to be this, 1 Cor. 10. 18. They that did eat of the Sacrifices were partakers of the Altar: that is, thereby they declared the Sacrifice to be theirs, the offering it up to be their Act, that they partook, and had an hand in it, as if they had been at the Altar with the Priest himself. Just in like manner, to show that we were reckoned consenting to, and partakers in this sacrifice of Christ our Priest, and that it was our own act, we do in like manner partake of that Sacrifice by eating of it; The Lord's Supper being as Tertullian rightly termed it, Participatio Sacrificii, which Notion the Apostle there confirms in a parallel of the Lord's Supper in this very respect, to the case of those Sacrifices then (for unto this purpose it was that he brings in that instance of the sacrifices, v. 16.) The bread which we break, (Says he) is it not the communion of the body of Christ? namely considered, as sacrificed once upon the altar of the cross, and so by eating thereof, we are all partakers of that one bread, as the thing signifying; and of that one body sacrificed, as the thing signified: and so by this way of partaking therein, namely, by eating thereof, is shown, as in the sacrifices of old, that it is our own sacrifice. And this not only as 
a Edendo censebantur, ipsius sacrificii tanquam pro ipsis oblati fieri participes. Est. in loc.  Estius upon the place, who says, That by eating they were accounted partakers of the sacrifice, as that which was offered for them: But further as 
b Christus vult in se credentes participes fieri ejus sacrificii, plane, quasi ipsi hoc sacrificium obtulissent, quia oblatum ab eo qui naturam eorum susceperat.  Grotius, (speaking of the Lord's Supper, upon Mat. 26. 25.) They are in Christ's intent, says he, through their eating thereof, So partakers of this his sacrifice, quasi ipsi hoc obtulissent, as if themselves had offered it up. And thus to hold forth this previous consent of theirs, was one part of Christ's intent in instituting eating and drinking in the Lord's Supper, in a correspondency to the like mysterious intent in the people's eating of the sacrifices of old: Grotius indeed puts the reason, why it is to be esteemed, as if we had offered up that sacrifice, only upon this, because it was offered up by him (Says he) that had taken their nature: but I add out of this text, because he had took on him their persons, in One Body, and their enmities, and stood in their stead, as their Priest, as well as their sacrifice: and so it was to be reckoned their act on his cross, as much as the peoples then, who used to bring the sacrifice to the Priest, who, there, offered it alone upon the Altar; whereas here WE (our selves) were brought to Christ by the Father to undertake to be a Priest for Us, and he voluntarily undertook Our persons. And so, as Levi is accounted to have offered tithes in Abraham his Father, when he paid them to Melchisedech; so we much rather to have offered up a common sacrifice of peace amongst ourselves, when Christ offered up himself.  
And hence also likewise, as in those pacificatory federal sacrifices between two parties of men, whoever of them went about to violate or infringe the terms of peace, that sacrifice was intended to confirm, did (by reason it was his act) bring upon himself the curse, which ceremonially and visibly was inflicted on the beast or sacrifice slain: so here this act of sacrificing of Christ for mutual peace being thus interpretativè OURS, and our consent involved, Hence I say in like manner, whoever goeth about to break this Covenant, and seeketh to uphold the enmity among the people of God, he doth not only renounce his own act, but what in him lies, frustrates that intention of it; and so further incurs the imprecation enfolded in it, and brings upon himself the blood of the Covenant, as in allusion to this curse (according to the employed intent of such a sacrificial Covenant) the Apostle speaks Heb. 10.  
Now further to finish this Branch, let this be added; That Christ was not simply offered up as a sacrifice to confirm a mere or bare league of peace and amity between us: (sometimes such sacrifices afore spoken of were designed only to make and bind new Leagues and Covenants between such parties, as never had been at variance:) But here in this case of ours, as there was a Covenant of amity to be struck, so there were enmities to be abolished and slain, as the text hath it; and that by this sacrifice and slaying of his flesh: which cannot be conceived otherwise to have been transacted, but that as in other sacrifices offered up, the trespasses were laid upon the head of the sacrifice, and so in a significant mystery slain and done away in the death of the thing sacrificed: And that as in that other way of reconciling us to God, The Lord did lay upon him the iniquities of us all, namely, against himself (as isaiah speaks in allusion unto the rites (and the signification thereof, in those sacrifices:) to which this text simularly speaks when it says, He slew the enmity in himself, v. 16.) So answerably it was in this (which is its parallel:) All the enmities and mutual injuries and feuds between us the people of God, were all laid upon him, and he took them in his flesh, and in slaying thereof slew these also, and abolished them, that so he might reconcile them in one body. And so the same nails that pierced through his hands and feet, did nail all our enmities, and the causes and occasions of them, to the same cross, as 2 Coloss. insinuates. So as, we are to look upon Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, as an equal Arbiter between both parties, that takes upon himself whatever either party hath against the other. Lo here I hang (Says Christ a-dying) and let the reproaches wherewith you reproach each other fall on me: The sting of them all fix itself on my flesh; and in my death die all together with me; lo I die to pacific both: Have therefore any of you ought against each other? Quit them, and take me as a sacrifice, in blood between you; only do not kill me, and each other too, for the same offence: for you, and your enmities, have brought me to this altar of the cross, and I offer myself as your peace, and as your Priest: will you kill me first, and then one another too?  
And thus, if taking all your sins against God himself upon his flesh, and sacrificing it for you, is of prevalency to kill, and slay that enmity; much more is it of force to kill these your enmities also. Thus, like as by assuming the likeness of sinful flesh, 
Rom. 8.  he killed the sin in our flesh: so by taking these our enmities and animosities in his flesh, he slew and abolished them: 
1 Cor. 15.  and as his death was the death of death, so of these. And like as he cured diseases by taking them on himself by sympathy, 'tis said of him when his healing of them is recorded) himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses: And as not our sins against God only, but our sicknesses by sympathy: so, not our enmities against God only, but our animosities one against another; and by bearing them abolished them; by dying as an Arbiter between us, slew them: and therefore in the text, he is called our peace, not our peacemaker only, (when this peace amongst ourselves is spoken of,) to note out, as Musculus observes, that he was not only efficiently our peacemaker, the Author of our peace, but our peace materially, the matter of our peace, by the sacrifice of himself. God is styled our peacemaker, our reconciler; God was in Christ reconciling the world: but not our peace; this is proper to Christ: and why? but because he only was the sacrifice of our peace, and bore our enmities. Even as he is not only called the Redeemer, (so God also is,) but redemption itself.  
Now for a coronis to this first Branch, and withal to add a further confirmation yet, that Christ's death was intended as a sacrifice to these ends, for amity and unity among God's people, we may clearly view and behold this truth in the mirror of the Lord's Supper. One most genuine and primary import whereof, and end of the institution of it, being this very thing in hand: (I shall have recourse thereto again in the next Branch also upon the same account that now.)  
The Lord's Supper in its full and proper scope, is, as you know, a solemn commemoration of Christ's death offered up upon the cross, or if you will, in the Apostles own words, it is a showing forth his death till he comes: And do this (Says Christ) in remembrance of me; namely, in dying for you: and so withal to commemorate with application to themselves, the principal ends and intendments of that his death, which is therein acted over afore their eyes. Hence therefore I take this as an undoubted maxim, which no knowing Christian will deny (and it's the foundation of what I am now a building:) That look what principal ends, purposes or intendments this Supper or sacrificial feast holds forth in its institution unto us: those must needs be looked at, by all Christians, in the like proportion, to have been the main ends and purposes of his death to be remembered. So that we may argue mutually from what were the ends of Christ's death, unto what must needs be the designed intendments of this Sacrament. And we may as certainly conclude, and infer to ourselves, what were the intendments of his death, by what are the genuine ends of that Sacrament. These answer each to other, as the image in the glass doth to the principal lineaments in the face; the impress on the wax, to that in the scale; the action, the sign and remembrances, to the thing signified and to be remembered.  
Now it is evident that Christ upon his death instituted that Supper, As, to be a seal of that Covenant of Grace between God and us, ratified thereby; so, also to be a communion, the highest outward pledge, ratification and testimony of love and amity among his members themselves. And accordingly, it being in the common nature of it, a feast: look as between God and us, it was ordained to be epulum foederale, a Covenant feast between him and us: (the evidence whereof lies in this, That he invites us to his table as friends, and as those he is at peace withal, and reconciled unto:) So, in like manner between the Saints themselves, it was as evidently, ordained to be a Syntaxis, a love feast, in that they eat and drink together at one and the same table, and so become as the Apostle says, ONE BREAD. And again, look as between God and us, to show that the procurement of this peace and reconciliation between him and us, was this very sacrifice of Christ's death, (as that which made our peace,) God therefore invites us, post sacrificium oblatum, after the sacrifice offered up, to eat of the symbols of it; that is, of Bread and Wine, which are the signs and symbols of his body and blood sacrificed for peace: So in like manner doth this hold as to the peace between ourselves: And we may infer, that we were through the offering up thereof, reconciled one to another, and all mutual enmities slain and done away thereby, in that we eat together thereof in a communion; which was a sacrifice once offered, but now feasted upon together: And doth show, that Christians of all professions or relations of men have the strongest obligations unto mutual love and charity: For the bread broken and the cup are the symbols of their saviour's body and blood once made a sacrifice; and therefore they eating thereof together, as of a feast after a sacrifice, do show forth this Union and Agreement, to have been the avowed purchase, and impretation of the body and blood so sacrificed.  
There was a controversy of late years fomented by some through Popish compliances, That the Lord's Supper might be styled a Sacrifice, the Table an Altar, which produced in the discussion of it (as all controversies do in the issue some further truth) the discovery of this true decision of it: That it was not a sacrifice, but a feast after and upon Christ's sacrificing of himself; Participatio sacrificii, as Tertullian calls it, a sacrificial feast commemorating and confirming all those ends for which the only true and proper sacrifice of Christ was offered up, and so this feast a visible ratification of all such ends, whereof this, is Evidently One.   

III. SECTION. A Digression showing: 1. That Eating and Drinking together. Especially upon, and after a pacificatory Sacrifice, was a farther confirmation of mutual peace, both among Jews and Gentiles: And 2. That the Eating the Lord's Supper, hath the same intent and accord thereunto: The Harmony of all these notions together.  
NOw therefore to draw all these lines into one centre, and to make the harmony and consent of all these notions the more full; and together therewith to render the harmony more complete between the Lord's death, and its being intended as a sacrifice to procure this peace, and the Lord's Supper as a feast after this sacrifice, holding forth this very thing, as purchased thereby, and so further to confirm all this: look as before I showed (as in relation to the demonstration that Christ's death was intended as a sacrifice for such a peace) that that was one end and use of sacrifices both among Jews and Gentiles, to found and create Leagues of amity between man and man so it is proper and requisite for me now to make another like digression, (as in relation to this notion of the Lord's Supper) to show how that also by eating and feasting together (especially after or upon such a kind of sacrifice) these Leagues of Love were anciently used to be further confirmed and ratified: that so it may appear that as according to the analogy of such sacrifices, Christ's death was a sacrifice directed and intended to that end; so also that according to the analogy of such feasting in and upon sacrifices, this eating and feasting together upon the symbols of that sacrifice by believers, is as genuinely intended a scale of this reconciliation amongst them, and that in a due correspondency and answerableness to the genuine intent of that sacrifice itself, as that which had purchased and procured it.  
I might be as large in this as in the former. When after a grudge and enmity past between Laban and Jacob, Laban to bury all things between them would enter into a Covenant of peace; Come (Says he, Gen. 31. 44.) let us make a Covenant I and thou: and (that by a sign, for he adds) let it be a witness between thee and me: Now what was that sign and witness? in the 46. 'tis said, They took stones, and made an heap, and did eat THERE: and v. 54. (after an Oath passed v. 53.) Jacob offered a sacrifice on the Mount; and called his Brethren (or Kinsmen) to eat bread; and early in the morning Laban departed. The like did Isaac with Abimelech, Gen. 26. 28. David with Abner, 2 Sam. 3. 20. I single forth chiefly those two, 1. Because the parties that used and agreed in this signal rite, were the one Jews, as Isaac and Jacob; the other Gentiles, as Abimilech and Laban: to show at once that this way of convenanting was common to them both, as the former by sacrificing was also shown to be.  

* Some instances have been collected by Mr. Meade, Diatr. 2. part. upon Mal. 1. 11. as also by R. C. after him. Grotius, Rivetus, of the customs of several Nations, ancient and modern, to show eating and drinking together to have been intended testimonies, and ratifications of amity. I only shall cast in one from the custom of the East-Indians (as in the stories of whom there are found, as well as in other Eastern Nations to this day, many footsteps of like customs to the Jews of old:) Sir Th. Roe Ambassador there, in his journal observations relates, how he was invited by one of the great ones of the Court to a Banquet with this very expression (simular to those which those Authors allege as in use among other Nations:) We will eat bread and salt together to scale a friendship which I desire. Purchas Pilgri. 1 Part. p. 348.  And further, that this rite of eating together, the Gentiles themselves did use, especially after such sacrifices as were federal, unto this intent, that by that superadded custom of eating together, upon or after sacrificing, they might the more ratify and confirm such Covenants, first made, and begun by sacrificing. This seems to me to be the intendment, Exod. 34. 15. Lest thou make a Covenant (God speaks it to the Jew) with the Inhabitants of the Land, and thou go a-whoring after their Gods, and do Sacrifice unto their Gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of their Sacrifices: namely upon pretence of confirming that Covenant, which having first been contracted and agreed on, they might further be drawn on, to Sacrifice and so eat of the Sacrifices also, with those Heathens in token of confirming such a league, as was the known common manner and custom of each to do.  
Yea, and those that were more barbarous and inhuman among the Gentiles, when they would put the more binding force into their Covenants, or some such more solemn conspiracy, they used to sacrifice a man (a slave suppose,) and eat His Flesh, and drink His blood together; which because they judged the more stupendious, they judged would carry with it, the deepest and more binding obligation. Thus, 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}  we read in Plutarch, Those Roman Gallants entering into a Covenant drank the blood of a man, whom first as a Sacrifice they had killed. And the same Plutarch says of another company (those conspirators with Catiline:) that they Sacrificed a man, and did eat His Flesh. So to bind and unite each other more firmly to stick fast, and close together in so great an undertaking, by the most sure and firmest way that their Religion could invent. 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}  And Psal. 16. 4. makes an express mention of such among the Heathens, terming them Their drink offerings of blood. See also EZek. 39 17, 18, 19 Men and Nations less barbarous took WINE instead of blood, to confirm their leagues after Sacrifices, it being the likest and nearest unto blood, the blood of the Grape.  
Now then to bring all this home to the point in hand, Christ our Passeover, (and so our Sacrifice for us) having been slain and offered up for our mutual peace, hath instituted and ordained us Believers to keep this feast, (It is the Apostles own allusion, agreeing with and founded on the notion we have been prosecuting:) and that to this end, That by partaking of it as a Sacrifice, and by showing forth His death, we might hold forth, all the avowed ends of that Sacrifice with Application to ourselves. The eminent ends of the one as a Sacrifice, corresponding and answering to the eminent ends of the other as a Feast. A Feast it is, of God's providing, and he the great entertainer of us at it, in token of peace between Him and us: for HE it was, who prepared the Sacrifice itself, and unto whom as a whole burnt offering Christ was offered up; But God is not as one that sits down and eats with us, though He smelled a sweet savour in it, we are the guests, and He the Master, of this Feast: And yet He thereby proclaims, and professeth His being reconciled, in that He causeth us to sit down at His Table. And this is the prime, and most eminent significancy of it. And to hold forth this intent thereof, as between God us, others have prosecuted this notion. But there is another, (more conspicuously suited to the notion which hath been driven, and) which is no less in the intention of the institution itself: and indeed of the two more obvious to outward sense,) and that is, that the Persons themselves, for whom it is prepared, that do visibly sit down, and do eat and drink (in proper speech,) the Bread and Cup together, that they are agreed, and at peace each with other. God He is but as an invisible entertainer: but our eating and drinking together, is visible to all the world; we outwardly show forth his death, and do withal as visibly show forth this to have been the intent of it. Yea and if we could raise up those Nations of old, both Jews and Gentiles, and call together the most part of the world at this day: and should but declare, that this is a Feast, especially a sacrifical Feast, a Feast after a Sacrifice, offered once up for our amity & peace by so great A mediator: the common instinct, and notion which their own customs had begot in them, would presently prompt them, and cause them universally to understand and say among themselves, These men were at enmity one with another, and a Sacrifice was offered up to abolish it, and to confirm an Union and Pacification amongst them, and lo therefore, they do further eat and participate thereof, and communicate therein. A manifest profession it is, that they are in mutual love, amity and concord one with another: and thereby further ratifying that Unity, which that Sacrifice, had been offered up afore, for the renewing of. This is truly the interpretation of that solemn celebration even in the sight of all the Heathens and unto the Principles of all the Nations, among whom Sacrifices were in use: yea and this they would all account, the strongest and firmest bond of union that any Religion could afford. And add this, the more noble the Sacrifice was, as if of a man, being a more noble Creature, the more obliging they accounted (as was observed) the bands of that Covenant made thereby.  
Now our Passeover is slain, our peace is sacrificed, not man, but Christ God-man; He sanctifying by the fullness of God dwelling personally in him the Sacrifice of that His Flesh and human nature, to an infinity of value and worth. He hath become a Sacrifice of our mutual peace, was cut in twain; and to complete this union among ourselves, He hath in a stupendious way appointed His own Body and blood to be received and shared as a Feast amongst us, succeeding that Sacrifice once offered up. The bread we break is it not the communion of the Body of Christ: 
1 Cor. 10.  the Cup the Communion of His blood: 
Scipio, Jovis epulo, cum Graccho Concordiam Communicavit.  (so speaks Paul a most faithful interpreter of these mysteries) and a Communion of many as one Body (as it follows there.) 'Tis strange that an Heathen speaking of one of their sacred Feasts, intended to confirm an agreement between two great personages, should use the same expression; 
Vale Max. lib. 6. c. 2.  Communicarunt concordiam they are said TO HAVE COMMUNICATED CONCORD, And this because they communicated together in the same Feast dedicated to their chief God, and which was ordained to testify concord between them: The Apostle calls it in like manner, A COMMUNION: whereby MANY are made ONE Bread, IN THAT THEY eat OF THAT ONE BREAD; Which whilst they eat and drink in, they eat and drink the highest charity and agreement each with, and unto other.  
But that this sort of Peace and Love, namely mutual among the Receivers was an avowed intendment of our partaking of the Lord's Supper, needs not to be insisted on: this import of it hath took the deepest impression upon the most vulgar apprehension, of all that profess Christianity, of any other. To be in charity with their Neighbour, &c. hath remained in all ages of the Church, upon the spirits of the most ignorant and superstitious, when those other higher ends and intendments of it were forgotten. My inference therefore is strong and sure: that what was thus eminent an intention of this Feast upon a Sacrifice, must needs be, upon all the former accounts, as eminent an intention of that Sacrifice itself, as such.  
Only let me add this: That though all the people of God will not; some of them not at all: many not together eat of this Feast through difference of judgement, (And it is strange, that this which is the Sacrament of concord, should have in the controversies about it more differences, and those more dividing then any other part of Divine truth or worship,) yet still however this stands good, to be the native original end, and institution of the Ordinance itself, and so by inference, This to have been the intent of Christ's death as a Sacrifice to the same end: of which death, to be sure, they all must partake; and unto which Christ they must have recourse, even all and every person that are, or shall be the people of God; And by so doing they find themselves upon all these accounts forementioned, engaged and obliged unto peace and concord with all the Saints in the world, how differing so ever in judgement, in Him, who is our Peace, and by that Sacrifice hath made both one. And thus much for this Branch, which treats of what Christ hath done in his own person to procure this peace.   

IV. SECTION. The second Branch, What Christ did by way of Representation of our persons: That phrase in one Body explained.  
THe second Branch of this first head is, What Christ did by way of Representation of our persons, and how that conduceth to this mutual Reconciliation of the Saints among themselves. This we have in that small additional which is found in the 16. verse, That he might reconcile both unto God [IN ONE BODY,] by the cross having slain the enmity. The meaning whereof is this, that he did collect, and gather together in one Body all the people of God, that is, did sustain their persons, stood in their stead, as one common person in whom they were all met, representing them equally and alike unto God, and so reconciled them to God in one body. 
Bullinger. Zanchius. Beza. Groius.  As you heard he bore their enmities in his flesh and so abolished them: so withal He bore their persons, considered as one collective body, and under that consideration reconciled them to God.  
And this superadds to the former consideration of being a Sacrifice for their enmities mutually, for that he might have been, and have performed it for each of their persons, considered singly and apart. But further we see he was pleased to gather them into one body in himself.  
If you ask me where and when this Representation of all the Saints was by Christ, more especially made, and when it was they were looked at by God as one body; The text tells us, ON THE cross. By which He thus reconciled us to God in one body.  
I will not now insist on that which at first, to make my way clear, I was so large upon: That that kind of reconciliation of us, wrought by Christ for us on the cross, is here intended: to all which this may be added; That it was that Reconciliation which at once took in and comprehended, all both Jew and Gentile in all ages into one body; which was never yet since actually done, but therefore then was done in himself. That which is now only left for clearing my way, is the opening the import of those words [in one body,] which clause is that I take for my foundation of this second Paragraph.  
There is a question among interpreters, whether by this one body in the text be meant the Church only, considered as one mystical body in Christ; or only the body and human Nature of Jesus Christ himself, hanging upon the cross: I would to reconcile both senses take in both, as conducing to the reconciliation of us.  
1. Supposing, (which is necessary,) Christ's person, His human nature, or (His Flesh v. 15.) to be the Ubi, the substratum, the meeting place, and rendezvous of this other great body of the Elect, where this whole company appeared, and was represented, so to be reconciled unto God. For indeed what the Apostle mentions here apart, and at distance each from other: His Flesh, v. 15. and Body, v. 16. these elsewhere he brings together, 1 Coll. 22. Having made peace IN THE BODY OF HIS FLESH through death.  
Which body as hanging on the cross was 2 clothed upon when most naked with this other body, which He himself took on Him to sustain and represent, and to stand in their stead, even the whole body of His Elect: His body (personally His) becoming by representation one with that His other body, (mystically His) In sum, in the body of Christ personal, as the body representing, the whole body of Christ mystical, as the body represented, was met in one afore God, and unto God. And in that one body of Christ personal, were all these persons (thus represented,) reconciled unto God together, as in one body, by virtue of this Representation.   

V. SECTION. The influence, That our being reconciled to God, IN ONE BODY, hath into our reconciliation mutual: in two eminent respects.  
IF any shall ask what influence and virtue this their being considered as one body, met in His body, and under that consideration reconciled to God hath into their reconciliation one to another; I answer, much every way; neither is it mentioned last (as last in order,) but as the foundation of all other considerations thereto belonging.  
1. In that they were thus all once met in one body, in the body of Christ both in his intendment, and his father's view, This consideration, (if no more,) hath force enough in it to bring them together again, in after times. Even this clandestine union (such indeed in respect of our knowledge of it then, yet having all three persons the witnesses in Heaven present) this precontract, this anticipated oneness, this forehand union hath such virtue in it, that let them afterwards fall out never so much, they must be brought together again and be one; Heaven and Earth may be dissolved, this union thus once solemnised, can never be frustrated or dissolved: what God and Christ did thus put together, sin and devil, men and angels cannot always, and for ever keep asunder. His father's donation of them to Him, and Christ's own representation of the same persons to His Father again, have a proportionable like virtue in them: for there is the same reason of both. Now of the one Christ says, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, Joh. 6. 37. Christ mentions that gift of them, by the lump to him, by the Father, as the reason or cause (rather) why they could not ever be kept from him: And as none can keep them from him, because given of the Father to him, in like manner and for the like reason, the whole body of them cannot be kept one from another, because presented by him again to the Father: Christ mentions both these considerations as of equal efficacy in that prayer, whereby he sanctified that Sacrifice of himself, John 17. Thine they were, And thou gavest them me. All mine are thine, and thine are mine, And I pray v. 21. that they all may be one, (and that in this world) as we are. Christ then not only died for his sheep apart, that they might come to himself, as Joh. 10. 15. but further that they might be one fold, as it follows there. And as the Evangelist interprets Cajaphas' prophecy; he died to gather together in one the children of God, that were scattered abroad. Joh. 11. 51, 52. To make sure which gathering to come, He in and at His death gathered them together representatively, they met all in him, and ascended the cross with him, as Peter's phrase is of all their sins, (therefore much more their persons) 1 Pet. 2. 24. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}. He himself carried up in (or together with) his body, our sins up to the tree: ascendere fecit sursum simul cum seipso. The cross was the first general Rendezvouz in this world appointed for him and his members, where they were crucified in him and with him, as the Apostle often speaks. Christ told the Jews, If I be lifted up, Joh. 12. 32. (speaking of his death on the cross, v. 33.) I will draw all to me: And here you see the reason of it, for in their lifting up him, they lift up all his with him, as hung to and adjoined with him in one body, in his body. This great and universal loadstone set in that steel of the cross, having then gathered all these lesser magnetic bodies, pieces of himself, into himself; the virtue hereof will draw them all together in one again, as they come to exist in the world: They may be scattered, they may fall out, but as branches united in one root, though severed by winds and storms, and beaten one from and against another, yet the root holding them in a firm and indissoluble union, it brings them to a quiet order, and station again. And if the now scattered Jews must one day come together, and make one body again; because those dry bones (the Umbrae, the ghastly shadows of them) were seen once to meet in Ezekiel's vision: how much more shall the Elect coalesce in one New man, because they once met in him, that is, the body, and not the shadow? If those Jews must meet, that the prophecy, the vision might be fulfilled, these must much move, that the end of his death, and his hanging on the tree may be fulfilled, in whom all visions and promises have their Amen and accomplishment. As in his death, so in his resurrection also, they are considered as one body with him, isaiah 26. 19 Together with my dead body they shall arise (Says Christ) and both, in death and resurrection, one body, to the end they may be presented (together) in one body, all at last, Coloss. 1. 22. and in the mean time in the efficacy of these forehand meetings are they to be created into one new man, v. 15. and that even {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, ONE individual man, Gal. 3. ult. not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, one bulk, body, or thing only. This one new man, which they are to grow up into, answereth exactly to that one body, which was then gathered together, represented and met in him on the cross, bearing the image of it, and wrought by the virtue of it.  
The second is, that if such a force and efficacy flows from their having met once, as One Body, then much more from this, (which the text adds) that they WERE RECONCILED TO GOD in that one Body. This clause, In one Body, was on purpose inserted together with their RECONCILIATION TO GOD, to show, that they were no otherwise esteemed, or looked at by God as reconciled to him, but as under that representation, view and respect had of them (as then) by him, that so, dum sociaret Deo, sociavit inter se: 
Crocius.  their reconciliation with God was not considered, nor wrought only apart, singly, man by man (though Christ bore all their names too) but the terms were such, unless all were, and that as in one body, and community together among themselves reputed reconciled, the whole reconciliation, and of no one person, unto God, should be accounted valid with him. So as their very peace with God, was not only never severed from, but not considered, nor effected, nor of force without the consideration of their being one each with other, in Christ. Insomuch as upon the law and tenor of this original act thus past, God might according to the true intent thereof, yea and would renounce their reconciliation with himself, if not to be succeeded with this reconciliation of theirs mutually. And although this latter doth in respect of execution and accomplishment succeed the other in time, (the Saints they do not all presently agree, and come together as one body) yet in the original enacting, and first founding of reconciliation by Christ, these were thus on purpose by God interwoven and indented the one in the other; and the terms and tenure of each interchangeably wrought into, and moulded in one and the same fundamental Charter and Law of reconciliation mutual: than which nothing could have been made more strong and binding, or sure to have effect in dne time.   

VI. SECTION. This Reconciliation of the Saints to God considered as in One Body, Held likewise forth in the Administration of the Lord's Supper. And one eminent foundation of the institution of fixed Church Communion, hinted Herein.  
THe impress and resemblance of this, namely Christ's Reconciling us to God in one Body, we may likewise perceive: (And I shall mention it the rather to make the harmony of this with all the former still more full) in the administration of the Lord's Supper: in which we may view this truth also, as wehave done the other.  
That Supper being ordained to show forth his death; look as he died, so it represents it. As therefore Christ was sacrificed representing the general assembly of Saints, & so in one body reconciled them to God: so, this Supper was ordained, (in the regular administration of it,) to hold forth the image of this, as near as possible such an ordinance could be supposed to have done it; For answerably the seat, the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} of it, is a Communion of many Saints met together in one Body. And not otherwise. Thus 1 Cor. 10. 17. For we being many are òne bread and ONE BODY. He had said v. 16. That the Lord's Supper it was the Communion of the body of Christ, &c. that is, a Communion of Christ's Body, as to each, so as of a company united together among themselves; and accordingly the Apostle subjoins this as the reason; For we (whom you see, do ordinarily partake of it,) are many (not one or two apart) and those many, are one bread and one body: One bread as the sign; One Body as the thing signified. And thus we are, then, considered to be, when Christ as dying is communicated by us. For to show forth His Death is the end of this Sacrament. The seat therefore or subject of partaking in this Communion, of Christ's Body and blood; and which is ordained for the public participation of it, is not either single Christians, but a many; nor those meeting as a fluid company like clouds uncertainly, or as men at an ordinary for running Sacraments (as some would have them) but fixed setledly, as incorporated bodies. Which institution, having for its subject such a society, as then, when Christ's Death is to be shown forth, doth suitably and correspondently set forth, how that the whole Church the Image of which whole universal Church, 
Omnes qui eidem mensae sacrae pa●iter accumbimus, & unam facimus & {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, quae {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} totius Ecclesiae gerit imaginem. Grot. 1 Cor. 10. 17.  (these particular Churches do bear, as a late Commentator hath observed upon that plaee) was represented in and by Christ dying for us, under this consideration of being One Body, then in Him.  
And there is this ground for it, that the whole of that Ordinance was intended to represent the whole of his Death, and the imports of it, as far as was possible. So then look as the Death itself and his bitter Passion are represented therein, both of Body in the breaking the Bread, which is the Communion of his Body: of the soul in the Wine, which is called the Communion of his blood, and this is the blood of the New Testament, so expressed in allusion to that of the Old, in which the blood was chosen out, as the nearest visible representer of the invisible soul, that could be. The life lies in the blood (for the spirits which are the animal life do run in it,) so spoke the old Law, and the Poet the same;  
Sanguine quaerendi reditus animâque litandum. 
Virg. 11. Aen.   
He terms the Sacrifice of the blood, the Sacrifice of the soul: and so Wine was chosen as the nearest resemblance of blood, being also the blood of the Grape.  
As thus the death itself in all the parts of it; so the SUBJECT for which he died, His Body, and that under that very consideration He died for them [as one Body,] is in like manner, as visibly and plainly held forth; Every particular Church bearing by institution the image of the whole Church (as therein it hath also all the privileges of it) fitly showing forth, thereby, not only that Christ died for them singly, and a part considered (which yet is therewith held forth here in that each personally doth partake thereof,) That might have been sufficiently evidenced if every person or family apart, had been warranted to have received, and eaten this sacrificial feast alone (as they did the Passeover and the Sacrifices, Lent. 7. 18.) but the institution is for many; which very word Christ mentions in the institution, This is the blood of the new Testament shed for many, which word, I believe the Apostle had any unto when he said, We being many are partakers, &c. Christ indeed principally aimed therein, to show, that his intent in dying, was for a multitude of mankind, the whole body of his Elect: yet because he inserts the mention hereof; at the delivery of those Elements, and that the ordinance itself was suited to hold forth this intent, The Apostle takes the hint of it; and adds this gloss and construction upon it as glanced at in it: that according to the institution and import of this Ordinance, the partakers hereof are to be a many (not one or two alone:) and these united into one Body, to the end that thereby may be held forth this great intendment in His death, That he died for the many of His Church, as one collective body. This however we are sure of, that this way of partaking this Supper as in one Body, was to the Apostle a matter of that moment, That we find him bitterly inveighing in the next Chapter, that the same individual Church of Corinth, when they came together in one for that and other Ordinances, should of all Ordinances else, not receive this Ordinance together in such a community, but perverting that order, should even in that place appointed for the meetings of the whole Church, divide themselves into private several companies, and so make this as a private Supper, which in the nature and intendment of the institution of it, was to be a Communion of the whole Church or body together. Insomuch as he says, This is not to eat the Lord's Supper: for in eating (namely this sacramental Supper,) every one takes before (others perhaps do come:) His own Supper, together with the Lords, & so maketh it as a private collation or as {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}; wherefore my brethren when you come together to eat (that Supper,) tarry one for another, to make a full meeting of the whole body: and as for other Suppers, every man is at liberty to take them at home as he pleaseth, v. 34. The Apostle is thus zealous in it, as he had reason, because hereby is shown forth one principal mystery in Christ's death, for from this, at least upon occasion of this particular as well as any other, doth the Apostle utter this great maxim, yea show forth His death till he comes, v. 26. Of such moment in their import and significancy are things (thus small and mean in the eyes of some) that yet are full of Mystery in Christ's intendment. And thus much for the Second Head.    
FINIS.