The Third Principle Expounded.

Q. If damnation be the reward of sin, then is a man of all creatures most miserable: a dog or a toad when they die, all their misery is ended; but when a man dieth, there is the beginning of his woe.
A. It were so indeed, if there were no means of deliverance; but GOD hath shewed his mercy, in giving a Saviour to mankind.

Q. How is this Saviour called?
A. Jesus Christ. ¹

Q. What is Jesus Christ?
A. The eternal Son of God made man in all things, ² even in his infirmities like other men, save only in sin. ³

Q. How was he made man void of sin?
A. He was conceived in the womb of a Virgin, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost at his conception. ⁴

Q. Why must our Saviour be both God and man?
A. He must be a man, because man had sinned, and therefore a man must die for sin, to appease God's wrath; he must be God, to sustain & uphold the manhood, to overcome and vanquish death. ⁵

Q. What be the offices of Christ to make him an all-sufficient Saviour?
A. He is a Priest, a Prophet, a King. ⁶

Q. Why is he a Priest?
A. To work the means of salvation in the behalf of mankind.

Q. How doth he work the means of salvation?
A. First, by making satisfaction to his Father for the sin of man; secondly, by making intercession. ⁷

Q. How doth he make satisfaction?
A. By two means: and the first is by offering a sacrifice.

Q. What is the sacrifice?
A. Christ himself, as he is a man consisting of body and soul. ⁸

Q. What is the Altar? ⁹
A. Christ as he is God, is the Altar on which he sacrificed himself.

Q. Who was the Priest?
A. None but Christ, and that as he is both God and man. ¹⁰

Q. How oft did he sacrifice himself?
A. Never but once. ¹¹

Q. What death did he suffer when he sacrificed himself?
A. A death upon the cross, peculiar to himself alone: for besides the separation of body and soul, he felt also the pangs of hell, in that the whole wrath of God due to the sin of man was poured forth upon him. ¹²

Q. What profit cometh by his Sacrifice?
A. God's wrath is appeased by it. ¹³

Q. Could the sufferings of Christ, which was but for a short time, countervail everlasting damnation, and so appease God's wrath?
A. Yea; for seeing Christ suffered, God suffered, though not in his Godhead: and that is more then if all men in the world had suffered for ever and ever. ¹⁴

Q. Now tell me the other means of satisfaction.
A. It is the perfect fulfilling of the law.

Q. How did he fulfill the law?
A. By his perfect righteousness: ¹⁵ which consisteth of two parts; the first, the integrity and pureness of his human nature: the other, his obedience in performing all that the law required. ¹⁶

Q. You have shewed how Christ doth make satisfaction; tell me likewise how he doth make intercession?
A. He alone doth continually appear before his Father in heaven, ¹⁷ making the faithful and all their prayers acceptable unto him, by applying of the merits of his own perfect satisfaction to them.

Q. Why is Christ a Prophet?
A. To reveal unto his Church the way and means of salvation, and this he doth outwardly by the ministry of his word, and inwardly by the teaching of his spirit. ¹⁸

Q. Why is he also a King?
A. That he might bountifully bestow upon us and convey unto us all the aforesaid means of salvation. ¹⁹

Q. How doth he shew himself to be King?
A. In that being dead and buried, he rose from the grave, quickened his dead body, ascended into heaven, and now sitteth at the right hand of his Father, with full power and glory in heaven. ²⁰

Q. How else?
A. In that he doth continually inspire and direct his servants, by the divine power of his holy spirit, according to his holy word. ²¹

Q. But to whom will this blessed King communicate all these means of salvation?
A. He offereth them to many, and they are sufficient to save all mankind; but all shall not be saved thereby, because by faith they will not receive them. ²²