Vengeance on Satan variously expreffed in fcripture. In the forecited Gen. iii. 15. it is called a bruifing of his head, which implies a deadly and destructive wound that he should never again recover. Sometimes it is called a judging of the devil, John xvi. 11. "The prince of this world is judged." Chrift brought him like a condemned pannel to his bar, and paffes fentence upon him for the injury done to his redeemed. Sometimes it is called a defroying of the devil, Heb. ii. 14. "He deftroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." So I John iii. 8. The great deftroyer of mankind is destroyed himself by the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the avenger of, our blood. Sometimes again it is called a spoiling of principa-. lities and powers, Col. ii. 15. That enemy he had made a prey of the redeemed; but Chrift comes as the Captain of falvation, and fpoils him of his prey, "divides a portion with the great, and fhares the fpoil with the strong." Thus you fee how this vengeance of the Redeemer is expreffed. But to clear this matter a little more fully, I will tell you of feveral pieces of vengeance that our Redeemer executes upon Satan in the refentment of our quarrel, or in revenging our blood. 1. Our glorious Redeemer, in refenting of our quarrel, he invades Satan's ufurped kingdom and government, which he had established in this world. Satan is called the god of this world; and he had it fo much under his power, that there is not one of Adam's family but is wholly devoted to his service and obedience; by nature" they are altogether become filthy; there is none of them that doth good, no not one." Now when Satan is, as it were, in the peaceable poffeffion of his kingdom, our glorious leader and commander, Jefus Chrift, he takes an expedition from heaven against him. Had there been a party of Adam's race difaffected unto the devil's empire, and ready to join him when he entered the devil's territories, one would think it might have been fome encouragement, but no fuch thing in the prefent cafe; they were wholly devoted to his fervice and obedience, and therefore, in the verse immediately following my text, he fays, " I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought falvation unto me, and my fury it upheld me." But, notwithstanding of this difcouragement, he invades Satan's kingdom, and doth it alone; and at the very firft inroad which he made upon him, which was in a word of promife, he wrefts the poor woman, whom he had deceived, out of his paw and power; for it is very re markable, that the words of the first promife, in the original, run thus, "I will put enmity between thee and this woman;" VOL. II. 3 N plainly plainly intimating, that he was the first believer, the first that threw off the devil's yoke, and joined herself unto the Son of God, by virtue of that promife. And the whole fcriptures are but a large commentary upon that promife, and a further opening of it; he has ever fince, and is at this day, by the fame engine of the gospel, battering down his kingdom in the world, and will carry it on by the fame means, till he has quite dri ven him out of his poffeffion. 2. Our glorious Redeemer, he outhoots the devil in his own bow, or, to use a scripture phrafe," he takes this wife spirit in his own craftinefs, and turns the counfel of the fro ward fpirit headlong." No doubt Satan, that old ferpent, when he had brought our first parents to break the covenant of works, thought with himself, that now he was fecure of his prey, and that it was impoffible God could fare men, in a confiftency with the honour of his law, juftice, and faithfulness. The law was broken, and therefore juftice was obliged to destroy him; and the faithfulness of God was engaged to exe cute the threatening, "In the day thou eateft thereof, thou fhalt farely die." No doubt, Satan thought his kingdom fafe and fure, when the very juftice, law, and faithfulness of God, yea, his holy fovereignty, and other perfections of God, obliged him to leave poor fallen man under his power. But our glorious Redeemer, he finds a way how to recover the honour of his law, juftice, faithfulnefs, holinefs, and fovereignty, in the falvation of loft man. He fo orders it, that the law, inftead of being a lofer, is magnified and made honourable ; juftice, instead of fuftaining prejudice, receives a full and complete, yea, infinite fatisfaction; the faithfulness of God in his threatening, is fecured by the execution of it upon himself, as our furety, and divine faithfulness pledged for the falvation of the woman and her believing feed; the fovereignty of God is more difplayed than ever, while he makes grace to reign through righteoufnefs to eternal life, by Jefus Chrift our Lord. Thus the main batteries which Satan had reared, and under which he lay intrenched, are overthrown, and turned to his ruin, and the ruin of his kingdom. 3. Our glorious Redeemer, and avenger of our blood, in rẻfenting our quarrel, he condemns fin, the first-born of the devil. What greater vengeance can you execute upon a man than to flay his firft-born before his face? This our glorious Redeemer doth to Satan; he " condemned fin in the flesh, yea, he finished it, and made an end of it." By in the devil had done the greatest mischief in the world; by f he had robbed God of his glory, and caft dirt upon all his perfections; by fin he had difturbed God's government in the world; by fin he had defaced the image of God in man, and ruined his principal principal workmanship. Now, fays Chrift to Satan, I will condemn and destroy thy firft-born before thine eyes. And accordingly he abolishes the guilt of it, that it cannot condemn; he deftroys the power of it, that it may not reign; he washes off the filth of it, that it may not separate or break up communion; and, at laft, takes away the very being of it in all the redeemed. And O what a vengeance is it upon Satan to see his first-born thus ruined and destroyed before his eyes. 4. Qur glorious Redeemer, in avenging of our quarrel, he wrefts the keys of death and hell out of the devil's hand. Immediately upon the entry of fin, juftice, in pursuing the criminal, delivers the keys of death into the hand of the devil, as a jailor and executioner; and, no doubt, he thought himfelf very fure of his dominion over man, when the keys of hell and death were in his own hand; but Chrift having abolifhed fin, and fatisfied juftice for the fin of man, all power in heaven, earth, and hell, naturally falls into his hand but Satan being loath to refign the power of death, Christ through death deftroys him, and fpoils him of his power, even upon the cross, where he seems moft to triumph; and Christ he holds up the keys in his hand, in the view of the redeemed, crying, "Fear not; I was dead, and am alive, and I live for evermore; and have the keys of hell and death :" and it is easy to think, how galling this is to that proud fpirit, to fee the keys of death in the hand of our bleffed Kinsman. 5. This is not all, but our glorious Redeemer, in avenging our quarrel, he lays a heavy chain upon the roaring enemy, that he has not power to go one hair-breadth, but as his chain is lengthened or fhortened by the controlling and invincible hand of our Redeemer. We are told, Jude 6. that he has them, viz. the fallen angels, "referved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgement of the great day." The devil is under a threefold chain: a chain of fin, under the bonds of iniquity; and the bond of his own fin, which he has put on, he never can or will put off: a chain of guilt in his confcience, which he can no more shake off, than he can ceafe to be; and under this chain he shakes and trembles, carrying hell about with him wherever he goes: and then there is the chain of infinite power exerted by the Son, as our Redeemer, the man of God's right hand; he binds the strong man, and fpoils him of his goods. We are told in the book of the Revelation, that Chrift takes him and binds him a thousand years, lays him under a reftraint, that he cannot do the mischief he would be at. He could not harm Job till he was allowed; he could not enter into the Gadarene fwine without his allow ange ance. And with what eafe did Chrift, even when in a ftate of humiliation, by a word speaking, caft him out of the fouls and bodies of men? 6. Chrift, in executing vengeance upon Satan, he not only by the power of his word brings his ftrong-holds in the heart to ruin; but he takes these who were his flaves and vaffals from under his power, and arms them with his truth, as a fhield and buckler, whereby they make war against him under Chrift's conduct, as their leader and commander. And O what a galling vengeance is it unto that proud fpirit, to have thefe who were his bond-flaves fighting against him, refifting him, quenching his fiery darts, and putting him to the flight! Refift the devil," fays Chrift, "and he will flee from you." 7. Chrift, in avenging of our quarrel, not only conquers him, and binds him, and wrests the prey out of his hand; but he makes a spectacle of him, and of all his legions. Colof. ii. 15. it is faid, that he made a fhew of principalities and powers." Some think that in the expreffion there is an allufion unto the Roman conquerors, who, in their triumph, led their enemies along in chains, as trophies of their victory; fo Chrift, in his very cross, he made a fhew or spectacle of principalities and powers to the whole world of spirits, the good angels looking on Satan as foiled by their great Lord in the nature of man. O what a vengeance was this unto Satan! how galling unto the proud Lucifer! 8. Chrift, the avenger of our quarrel, makes as it were a lane and road between heaven and earth, by his own afcenfion, through the very territories of the devil, who is called "the prince of the power of the air." When Chrift afcended in our nature, he went through the air, where the devil hath his principal power, and twenty thoufand chariots of angels attending him; and through that fame road all the redeemed do follow him at death, under a guard of angels. And O how galling is it unto that proud fpirit, to fee poor believers paffing fafely through his territories, to take poffeffion of these thrones, that were vacated by his fall, and the fall of these legions which he drew with him! 9. Our glorious Redeemer, in further refentment of our quarrel upon Satan, he will at the last day make the poor believer, who was once under his power, and whom he many times haraffed with his fiery darts, to judge and condemn him: "Know ye not that the faints fhall judge angels?" O how galling will it be to that proud fpirit to ftand at the bar, and fee the believer upon the bench, especially when the God of peace fhall call them to come and tread him under their feet, for for the many injuries that he did to God and them! then "fhall the righteous rejoice when he feeth the vengeance.". And then, to conclude this head, Chrift, in a way of vengeance, will shut up the devil and all his adherents, in that everlasting fire, that he hath prepared for them. "Tophet is ordained of old: for him (the king of the bottomless pit) it is prepared the pile whereof is fire and much wood, and the breath of the Lord, like a ftream of brimstone, doth kindle it." 10. He burns his galleries, where he has walked up and down; "The earth and the works thereof shall be burnt up," &c. And this much for the third thing. IV. The fourth thing was, to speak a little of the day of vengeance, or of the flated time of the Redeemer's avenging of the quarrel of the redeemed But this question is much prevented by what has been already faid: only for clearing this, know that there is a time of Chrift's being avenged upon him in his own perfon, and a time of his taking vengeance upon him in his members. First, I fay, there are fome feafons of his taking vengeance upon him in his own perfon. As, 1. Upon the back of his first fin, when that proud fpirit, fwelled with ambition, attempted the throne of heaven, the Son of God, armed with his Father's power turned him and his apoftate legions down from heaven to hell: 2 Pet. ii. 4, "He fpared not the angels that finned, but did cait them down to hell." 2. The day of Christ's incarnation and manifestation in the Alesh. Ever fince the fall of Adam to the birth of Chrift not one had entered this world without the devil's livery of a depraved nature upon him, being enmity against God; but when Chrift appeared, the prince of this world had nothing in him; he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and feparate from finners." He entered the field of this world wearing the white livery of original righteoufnefs; and, no doubt, by this very badge the devil would know him to be the promised feed of the woman, that was to bruise his head, which could not fail to ftrike him and his infernal legions with fear and terror, that now their kingdom was to fall, and their ufurped empire was to be overturned. 3. Another day of vengeance was at the death of Christ, when through death he was destroyed; death was his own engine, his own contrivance, and he is deftroyed by his own weapon. 4. Another day is the day of the last judgement; for which day |