he accounting the whole Office of his Priesthood that which did not respicere Deum but Vs not reconciling God to us but us to God for the obtaining our Impunity this seems to these Men not reasonable On the other hand the Antinomian upon this Satisfaction as made to God by Christs sufferings understands our sins to be so laid on Christ as that it was not only our Punishment that he bare but our Guilt our Fault our Desert And whereas we are apt to say this is blasphemous because Christ hereby is made a sinner and the greatest of Sinners they say No for this is to say but what Luther and our Orthodox Divines have said before them and there is no hurt in it understanding it only as they all do by way of Imputation For as in the Imputation of Christs Righteousness to us we are accounted of God righteous as he for our Justification so in the Imputation of our sins he is made as sinful as we for making God Satisfaction This they take up as the Common Doctrine of our former Protestants which Mr. Lobb will do well to turn over and examine whether they who have wrote before Baxter among us do not ordinarily say thus That our sins were imputed to Christ so as to be counted his That he was not made only a Sacrifice for sin but even so sin for us that is by Imputation as we are made his Righteousness For seeing this is the perpetual rule of Gods Justice that the same Soul that sinneth should dye how can it stand with Gods Justice that Christ should suffer for our sins if they were not in some sort annexed to him The Scripture evidently affirms Isa 53.6 11 12 That Christ bare not only the punishment of our sins but our sins also what aileth then the Jesuite so boldly to deny that our sins are imputed to Christ Seeing then again the Scripture so speaks why should we doubt to speak as the Scripture does that Christ was for us counted a Sinner or Transgressâ—r yet in himself remained Holy Just and Righteous still So we in Christ are verily reputed righteous though by nature we are Unjust and Unrighteous This I quote out of Willet's Synopsis being Passages lying near together See Cont. 19. of Justification supposing the like to be common in others In such Passages then as these which we shall find in former Divines we see no such Distinction made between our Merit of the Punishment and the Punishment as we now make with the Bishop to whom Mr. Lobb does subscribe It is essential to Punishment that it be inflicted for sin but not essential that it be inflicted on the party himself that sinned says Grotius and in another place before quoted that sin is the cause of Punishment no otherwise but per modum Meriti Now Christ having himself never sinned if the Merit of our sins was not laid upon him together with the Punishment how was it per modum Meriti that he was punished Mr. Lobb knows whether Crellius does not urge something to this purpose against Grotius and if he can solve the difficulty to defend Grotius that which he must grant to do it will defend Mr. Baxter against him But as for the Antinomian who stands upon this as no less necessary to the Doctrine of Satisfaction than that Christs Righteousness be ours as necessary to the Doctrine of Justification and accounts it to be no other but the Common Opinion of the Protestant it does appear that some bank or bound must be set to this Sea lest the opinion formerly received as Orthodox over-flow into Antinomianism and I must give notice to Mr. Lobb and those that retain and uphold it that if they persist they must come thus far as to say that on one side the Believer is by Imputation as righteous as Christ himself and on the other that Christ by Imputation is a sinner as we which to put in Dr. Crisp's words is that Christ was as compleatly sinful as we and we as compleatly righteous as he wherein as before they conceived no hurt because understood by them only by way of Imputation If Mr. Lobb will recede from the Common Opinion here he must recede from all those Notions that are concatenated together in the Explication of it And what is meant by this Imputation in the Sense of our Common Protestant The Imputation of a thing to a Person is the accounting it his in regard to our dealing with him In Gods imputing our sins to Christ he does account as they say him to be a sinner or them to be his and does so deal with him in laying our Punishment upon him In Gods imputing to us Christs Righteousness he accounts his Righteousness to be ours and so deals with us in justifying us by it So they But how can God account our sins to be Christs and his righteousness Ours when really they are not so and Gods Judgment is according to Truth They must Answer If by really we mean Physically it is indeed impossible that our Qualities should become Christs and his ours there is none that understands it so but if by really we mean only legally in sensu forensi in conspectu fori or in Law-sense as Divines express it it is really so they will say that our sins are laid on Christ and his righteousness made ours or else that neither could Christ have suffered or We be justified But what yet is this Legally or in Law-sense which is to be conceived by a Quatenus as God deals with us according to Law Why our Divines suppose that Christ did take on him our Person and so our Sins and as acting in our Person what he did and suffered in our behalf is accounted of God to be done and suffered by us even as what my Attorney at Law does for me it is in Law or as I am to be dealt with according to Law all one as if it were done by me Here then we must make a stand and consider whether Christ indeed was such a Representative as that in him as our Legal or Civil Person we are accounted of God to have fulfilled the Law both in Obedience to the Precept and bearing the Punishment so as to be perfectly righteous in his Righteousness and accordingly justified We must come thus home or say nothing There is another Explication therefore that is made of this Imputation by Mr. Baxter There is a double sense of it There is an Imputation or accounting a thing to a Person as his either in se or in the Effect Mr. Baxter denies not Imputation but explains it An Imputation of our sins to Christ and his righteousness to us in this Law sense mentioned is the Imputation in se which as the former commonly received Doctrine and unsound Mr. Baxter disowns But an Imputation in regard to the Effects that the Righteousness of Christ being truly the Meritorious Cause of our Remission Justification Adoption is imputed imputatur datur
be loco nostro as it is the paying the price the making Satisfaction and so the impetrating the Benefits we have by it but it can be onely bono nostro as to any Benefit it self which is all one as bono nostro only in the Application Pray see Pacif. P. 30 31 32. Upon which words Repeated Right of God P. 35 36. I have desired Mr. William's and Mr. Clark's and now beg the Bishop's fuller Consideration The Arminians upon the Point of Satisfaction are cautious in what they grant as Mr. Baxter is in both and they will have Christs sufferings to be a Vice-punishment or Vicarious Punishment rather than a proper and formal Punishment Which Expression ought not to offend Mr. Lobb nor any worthy Person because when the Scripture says Christ died for us and we understand by for us Vice nostri in our room or stead the Death or Punishment it self must be in our stead that is a Vicarious Punishment how can it be otherwise And because there is nothing can be urged more effectually against the Doctrine of Socinus than this that the Justice of God requiring a Punishment to be inflicted according to his Law for our breaking it God was contented or satisfied with a Vicarious Punishment inflicting one though not all that was in the Obligation on his Son The Punishment in this sense being Vicarious the Meritorious Cause our sins are accordingly said Pro-meritorious loco causae meritoriae or an Assumed Meritorious Cause as Mr. Baxter before and the infliction as Personal be Materially not Formally Punishment If this offends any when said by Episcopius Curcellaeus Limborch whom they suspect as favouring Socinianism it oâ—â—ght â—n when said by Mr. Baxter whom none can suspect Nay though there be some Socinians who under such Expressions do shelter themselves and by appearing Orthodox seduce others which may raise some zeal in Mr. Lobb against them not considering their end and ours in such Expressions theirs being as hinted before at last to deny ours to own Satisfaction Yet is not this sufficient to conclude against the same because there is more of Antidote than Danger by them For seeing all proper Punishment is for sin and sin causes Punishment as hath been said by way of Merit and no otherwise the Merit of our sins as well as our sins in the Punishment must be laid on Christ or else it is no proper Punishment and if the Merit of our sins as well as the Punishment be granted to be laid on Christ we are then ingulph'd into Antinomianism according to this excellent Bishop the worthy Dr. Edwards and Mr. Lobb himself assenting to them and what Mr. Lobb hath to say to this he must consider The Case therefore being this that either we must admit that our sins in the Merit were laid on Christ as well as the Punishment or else that Christs sufferings was no proper formal Punishment I suppose Mr. Lobb will rather fall in with Mr. Baxter than Dr. Crisp and yield in some sense at least that it was no proper Punishment which is verily true as proper is opposed to Vicarious for a Vicarious Punishment it was for certain being inflicted on Another and not the Person or Persons that sinned and being also not the same for that should have been Hell to them but an Equivalent that so it might be Satisfaction not Payment which would preclude Remission And seeing it was not the same infliction nor inflicted on the sinner himself the Obligation to undergo it could not arise from the Law which punishes only the Transgressor of it and consequently tho' Materially yet Formally was not Punishment as laid on the innocent Person of Christ All this Mr. Baxter says and it must be said as true plain undeniable and nevertheless there being a Punishment due to us for our sins and our sins the Meritorious Cause of it and the Obligation to the suffering it arising from the Law as broken by us here is consequently a proper formal Punishment to be inflicted Impersonally as Grotius before And it being not against the Justice of God to take this Punishment Impersonally considered and lay it either on Another or the Person or Persons that sinned so long as no dishonour to his Law nor prejudice to his Government comes thereby Severity being shewen against sin as pitty to the sinner and Christ Jesus being willing to take on him the Punishment no wrong being done to the willing it being his Fathers and his Own Appointment that he who was the Second Person in the Trinity should become Man to be a fit Person for the Work it pleased God and him that he did actually take on him this Punishment in such a manner as he was capable of it that is not in regard to the Merit or that he should be held longer than he was under it and suitable to such a Person which made his Temporal suffering an Equivalent so that by enduring the same in our behalf Satisfaction was made and God thereupon relaxes his Law of Works by passing a New Law or remedying Law of Grace whereby Deliverance and Life Pardon and Salvation is to be had on the Terms of the Gospel This is that Doctrine which whosoever imbraces be he Arminian or Calvinist let him be Episcopius or Baxter Mr. Williams or Mr. Lobb it is all one for that Bring us the Test let us see their Books and if we find in them a constant acknowledgment that the sufferings of Christ was a Punishment for our sins and a Propitiatory Sacrifice to God for them let them differ as they will in accuracy we are at Unity in the Point Only let not any one that is more accurate about it despise him that is less accurate nor he that is less accurate be scandalized at him that is more accurate and cautious lest by denying or contradicting what is reasonable to be granted he should harden the Adversary and blunt his own Faith Knowing this that be he as cautious as he can he will hardly be out of danger of one of the Extreams and also that as I humbly think he must however be more accurate than to go the Common way of the ordinary Protestant or by avoiding the extream of Socinianism on one hand he will fall into Antinomianism on the other into which many are already fallen that disclaim it In short The sufferings of Christ may be considered Personally in Relation to himself or Impersonally in relation to us Personally in relation to himself there being no Merit of his own and no Merit of ours imputable to that Holy Person his sufferings could not be formally Penal Impersonally in relation to us the Punishment being in our room was ours and consequently must be a formal proper Punishment and this Commutation only thus construed is enough for the explaining and upholding the Doctrine of Satisfaction And yet again that this Business this difficult Business the reconciling Mr. Baxter and Grotius be dispatched and thoroughly
of following Truth hereafter wheresoever he finds it but this that God did look on Christ as appearing in our Person and so judged and condemned him for a sinner as one I say being in our Person that deserved his Wrath and Curse and therefore laid it on him whereby our full and proper Punishment was Born the Law Executed and Justice Done and if any will add with Ravensperg farther that the torments of Hell in his Agony and Suffering on the Cross when he cried Eli Eli lamasabacthani were laid on his Soul that nothing of the very Punishment may be abated him who does not see that such a satisfaction is so strait laced as will not fit the Person of Christ and that such Divines do more to drive Men to Socinianism than Socinus himself could while they stand upon such a Satisfaction as no reasonable Man can * Vera satisfactio est plenâ— deliti persolutio Vnusquisque nostram mortem aternam divinae isti justitiae debelat says Socinus De Ser. l. 3. c. 3. receive And whereas Mr. Lobb therefore and other such more considering Persons do see a necessity to come off and allow that it was not and could not be our very Punishment it self it being enough that Christ was surrogated under the Primordial Nature of the Puuishment to use his words though not under the horrid Circumstances we our selves were to suffer and does yield moreover that though the Punishment yet the Desert of our sins could not be laid on Christ because that would run him into Antinomianism which Concessions do draw after them such other suitable Notions as Mr. Baxter offers so that at last we must come to this that the Ends of Gods Law and Government being secured it must be left to the Wisdom of the Father and Son to agree upon what satisfaction pleased them for demonstrating Divine Righteousness against Sin and Mercy toward the Sinner and that be sufficient for us to believe For I must add that so long as we agree in our belief that Christs Death was a Ransom for our Redemption and a Sacrifice for our Sins in the Sense of the Types of old where the sin of the Sacrificer was laid on the Beast and the Blood thereof an Expiation for it to the end he might be forgiven it what matter is it tho' one holds this Death to be Formally another only Materially our Punishment or that one says our sins were the proper Meritorious Cause and the other the Remote Cause or Occasion of it they both hold it Satisfaction and intend the maintaining the Doctrine thereof Proper Punishment is an infliction of a Natural Evil on a Person for Committing a Moral Evil But Christ that endured the Natural Evil never committed any Moral Evil and how can that be proper Punishment The Punishment laid on him was not due to him but to us The Punishment dâ—e to us was Hell but his Sufferings only Temporal Death Is not here then one Punishment in the room of another as one Person suffering in the room of another And what Legerdemain can cover the Eye of any as not to see this a Vicarious Punishment Again when all proper Punishment is for sin as the Meritorious Cause of it and Christ sinned not and our sins cannot according to the Bishop deserve that another should be punished for them so that here is Punishment without Desert how is this proper Formal Punishment The Law by vertue of its Sanction punishes none but the Breakers of the Preceptive Part and how then can these sufferings arise Ex obligatione-Legis If they did arise from the Obligation of the Law then was the Law executed in Christs suffering but Christ suffered that the Law might not be executed but the Penitent Believing Sinner be pardoned I might go on and offer other Positions according to what is said by Mr. Baxter in his Eighteenth Deterininations Math. Theol. Part 3. Cap. 1. before quoted and Mr. Lobb the Dr or Bishop may as well deny that two and three makes five as fundamentally to deny any of them and therefore I shall forbear more being come already to the Composition which Grotius in that one word before hath made for us Impersonaliter these sufferings as due to us may be said to be properly formally Punishment Punishment for sin as the Meritorious Cause of it Punishment arising from the Obligation of the Law upon our breaking it punishment that was the Curse of the Law and which he bare when if we had our selves born it it had been the Execution of the Law the Execution whereof these Divines who are for the Common Doctrine apprehending as Socinus to be proper Satisfaction wherein they are perfectly out for that according to the Schools is contrary to it it makes them so extream as before mentioned in their Doctrine of Satisfaction as no Man unprejudiced can abide it But Personaliter on the other hand as these sufferings are laid upon Christ instead of us that is instead not as in our Person but instead that we might escape them they are Nominally and Materially indeed but they are not they cannot be Formally and Properly Penal They arise not from sin as the Metitorious Cause nor from the Obligation of the Law and are no Execution of it Why should I go on to say the same things over and over I will make bold to conclude with Mr. Baxter against any if there be any that think they have more sagacity herein than he to oppose him and say As the Person that suffered was loco nostri the sufferings were loco paenae our sins loco causae meritoriae his Sponsion loco obligationis ex Lege an Equivalent loco Debiti and loco solutionis here is at last effected proper Satisfaction Let Mr. Baxter's Adversaries be who they will and let them do what they can they shall never make more of it Another thing which Mr. Lobb observes of Mr. Williams that I must also take notice of is this As he does hold that the Obligation which lay on Christ to do as he did arose altogether from the Mediatorial Law so does he hold that the Righteousness which consists in his Performance of that Law is that which is imputed to the Believer for his Justification wherein there does manifestly appear that slip of Mr. Williams which I have before mentioned for seeing that Law and the Righteousness thereof did belong only or was proper to the Mediator it is impossible it should be imputed otherwise to us than in the Effects which when Mr. Baxter saw and asserted and Mr. Williams does follow him in what he says else and yet leaves him in this I cannot but give him again friendly Warning to retract that slip for otherwise the whole Doctrine he is engaged in which he hath knit together out of Mr. Baxter and endeavours to maintain by this one Stitch let fall if it be not amended must unravel and come to nothing The Argument I have used in
had performed it all and of Faith whose Office it is to embrace that Righteousness so imputed there is not one word in the Sacred Letters says the Learned Grotius If the Bishop before praised dare follow that leading Man in the one Point as in the other I will come now therefore to this new Book of Mr. Lobb which he calls An Appeal that is from the Presbyterian Brethren to the Bishop of Worcester as Moderator between them They produce the Bishops Letter in their Vindication and Mr. Lobb sticks to that Letter as vindicating him and both are in the right for when they agree to the Bishop they must agree also with one another In this Appeal Mr. Lobb looking on Mr. Williams as in the Chair of Mr. Baxter to maintain his Doctrine does collect many Pussages out of Mr. Baxter which are approaching to the Socinians and supposes such Doctrine to be inconsistent with the Doctrine of the Bishop that he maintains against Crellius in his Book of the Sufferings of Christ We shall see if the Bishop writer whether he judges as Mr. Lobb or rather shall see cause of Agreement not Difference with Mr. B. in this Point That which I have to say is this There is a vast difference in the account that must be given of two Men speaking the same things about a Doctrine which is in Controversie between them when one does bring them by way of Objection for Confutation of it and the other by way of Explication for the better clearing and maintaining it in Answer to those Objections And there is a double Answer to an Objection One is by Negation when the matter is false and the other is by Concession when the matter is true and reasonable but shewing that it affects not that Doctrine which remains firm notwithstanding that Concession This is the Case of Mr. Baxter in regard to the Socinian The Socinians say many things rationally and which are true and Mr. Baxter in such matters spares not to say the like but the one says them for the Enervating the other for the Elucidating the Doctrine of Satisfaction It is most certain that Mr. Baxter holds the same Doctrine which Grotius does and follows him in the Explication shewing the consistency of it with Gods Free Grace in the remission of sin which two things Socinus thinks incompatible To wit in that when it is alius that suffers it is aliud solvitur and also it being not the Idem but the Tantundem which Christ suffered and that it was not therefore the Law it self but the Law-giver he satisfied Upon which accounts the Satisfaction was in it self refusable a Solutio recusabilis as he after Grotius does call it that is such as God in Justice was not bound to accept but in Mercy through Grace he did accept it and what is more found out this way of Satisfaction himself for us which makes it so much more of Grace so that a Free Pardon I say appears notwithstanding this Satisfaction as in the Sacrifices of the Jews for sin there was an Attonement made by their Blood in order to the Remission That Mr. Baxter does maintain this Doctrine of Grotius this Doctrine that is the Marrow of the Old and New Testament to wit the Doctrine of Pardon upon Satisfaction against the Socinian it is apparent I say as that Mr. Lobb does hold Justification upon believing against Dr. Crisp And if it shall farther appear that there is nothing of all that he hath alledged against Mr. Baxter is dissonant to the mind of Grotius and Bishop Stillingfleet he will I hope come off at last To this end let us observe that this Learned Bishop in his Letter speaking of Christs bearing our sins and distinguishing the desert of punishment from the Punishment and affirming rightly that though Christ took on him the Obligation to undergo the Punishment the Desert could not be transferr'd upon him he hath these words No Man can cease to deserve Punishment for his own Faults nor Deserve that another should be punished for them This Saying is so true plain and reasonable that though Socinus Crellius or any of their Followers shall stand upon it never so much it is not to be denied but granted for all that Upon this Foundation it follows If no Man can deserve that another be punished for him then cannot we by our sins deserve Christs sufferings We deserved the Punishment it was a deserved Punishment but we deserved not that he should bear it If our sins then deserved not that Christ should suffer they are not the Meritorious Cause of his Sufferings If not the Meritorious Cause no proper Cause but the Occasion as Mr. Baxter is cited by Mr. Lobb And to go on the reason appears It was not from the Law his Obligation to suffer did arise for the Law punishes only the Transgressor Noxu caput siquitur It was not our Obligation therefore he took on him for our Obligation is an Obligation of desert Obligatio Criminis as it is call'd but his only Ex contractu And seeing it was not Obligatio ex Lege it follows that the Sufferings he bore were Materially not Formally Punishment It was the sins of Mankind says Mr. Baxter that were the Occasion of Christs Sufferings called by some an assumed Meritorious Cause because by his consent they were loco causae Meritoriae End of Contro C. 13. In which Words and all other Passages collected by Mr. Lobb what is there to be found fault with unless an over perspicacity tightness and consonancy of Judgment in all his Pieces alike made good all by the reason of that undeniable Concession that One Man cannot deserve that another should be punished for his Faults as the Bishop has it And now to come from the Bishop to Grotius It must be acknowledged that Grotius hath made it his business to shew that our sins were the Impulsive the Meritorious Impulsive Cause of Christs Sufferings in his dying for us which he hath proved no less substantially than critically by the Prepositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 15.3 Heb. 11.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 3.18 Gal. 1.4 Pro peccatis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum accusativo Rom. 4.25 Propter peccuta and Isa 53.5 Ob peccata nostra which all denote the Impulsive Cause says he and not the Final against Socinus Upon this it is supposed by Mr. Lobb that what is mentioned before as said by Mr. Baxter is contrary to this Doctrine and he hath cited such Passages therefore as Heterodox But Grotius himself must be the Man to Answer and Reconcile what he says with what is said by Mr. Baxter which he does very sufficiently with one word that Mr. Lobb hath not observed at least to make so good an use of it For Socinus in opposition to the Doctrine of Satisfaction denying that Christ could dye for sin as the Meritorious Cause of his Death which he will have to be only the Final Cause
dispatch'd I must say this over Here is Punishment and deserved Punishment deserved by our sins as the Meritorious Cause of it and therefore Punishment not Pain only but proper Punishment and that to be inflicted sed Impersonaliter with Grotius and there is our Point maintained But that this Punishment is inflicted on Christ and not on the sinner there is no Cause besides the fitness of the Person can be rendred but only the will the good will of Father and Son in pitty to Mankind which is said also by Grotius and in effect acknowledged by the Bishop when he says That One Man for his sin cannot deserve anothers Punishment and therefore when Mr. Baxter says our sins were the Occasion of Christs sufferings with those other Expressions the Occasion and Occasion only but of what the Occasion only Of the Punishment No there was Cause of that an Impulsive Cause that is an Efficient Protatarctick or Meritorious Cause to wit our sins but of the laying it on Christ and not us take it so and there is nothing to be found fault with in what Mr. Baxter says unless it be that his deeper Judgment than others I have said be faulty by Mr. Lobb or any other ingenuous Man any more than there was in what Grotius says by Revensperg who falls upon him as Socinianizing against the Orthodox because he did not maintain that Christ underwent the very infernal Pains which we were to suffer seeing Calvin and some others after him did so teach and construe Christs descent into Hell by his enduring such Pains in his Agony as those are there which is a private Opinion and Grotius accounts Christs sufferings not the Idem but Tantundem and thereupon I say did Ravensperg fall upon him as one that did but betray our Cause and agree with Socinus which he hath so substantially defended against him in his excellent Book of Satisfaction There remains two or three Notes more I must have upon Mr. Lobb One is that whereas he observes that Mr. Williams does make the Obligation that lay upon Christ to suffer for us or to make Satisfaction by his sufferings to arise from the Mediatorial Law only the Law of Redemption or Commandment of his Father which was proper to him through his voluntary Sponsion or Submission to it and not from the Law of Works which was a Bond that he never was in neither at first as Mr. Lobb grants nor at last in regard to his sufferings because he never brake it he argues from thence both sagaciously as industriously that Mr. Williams must hold therefore with Mr. Baxter that the sufferings of Christ was not properly or formally penal and when this is the only Accusation in these Sheets which he aims at if Mr. Williams denies the Accusation Mr. Lobb hath carried his Cause for the Accusation is true the Consequence being irrefragible But will Mr. Williams deny that he herein agrees with Mr. Baxter I suppose he will not What though Dr. Edwards and Bishop Stillingfleet by whose Letters he is vindicated do say that Christs sufferings were a proper Punishment and stand upon it so much as if the holding thereof was necessary to the maintaining the Doctrine of Satisfaction if Mr. Lobb be not mistaken in his Construction of them will he for all that stand by Mr. Baxter Yes I think he will because he must the Consequence does hold him I must confess Mr. Lobb hath put these three Persons here hard to it He hath put Mr. Williams to it who must either forsake Mr. Baxter and so himself or else disagree here with those two worthy Men his Vindicators He hath put the Bishop to it who must forsake his Reason in what he hath so clearly and truly asserted That one Man cannot deserve that another should be punished for his Faults or else he must consent with Mr. Baxter and consequently acknowledge that seeing Christ himself never sinned and our sins in the Merit of them could not be laid on him his sufferings were Materially but Formally no Punishment And he hath put the worthy Dr. to it who being willing to shew his kindness to Mr. Williams in bringing him off is carried whether he will or no to stand by Mr. Lobb And notwithstanding this there is no hurt done unless the giving occasion of letting out more Light be any hurt for Mr. Williams and Mr. Baxter as well as Mr. Lobb Dr. Edwards and the Bishop and Grotius do all maintain the Doctrine of Satisfaction against Socinus one as well as the other That Mr. Williams does the Doctor the Bishop and his Preabyterian Brethren do quote such Passages as justifies him besides his own constant Profession That Mr. Baxter does I shall quote one Passage only in his Methodus Theol. In his Aphorisms he proposed the Question as I remember What is that which is the first immediate or chief End or Benefit of Christs Death And he speaking then with Hesitancy he does here in his 17th Determination Part 3. Cap. 1. after so long study give this peremptory Resolution Proximum mortis Christi Effectum seu finemesse satisfactionem Deo offenso per Justitiae ejus demonstrationem Remotiorem peccatorum nostrorum remissionem salutis donum sub conditione fideist paenitentiae per foedus Gratiae That Man who understood himself so well as he did that does declare this for his settled and determined Judgment that the chief and most immediate End Effect Fruit or Benefit of Christs Death is the satisfaction of an Offended God through the demonstration of his Justice thereby must be acquitted from Socintanism by all the World that know what Socinus wrote And that Man I will add that does maintain the Doctrine of Election according to Augustine and the Synod of Dort however free and conciliating he be otherwise in the five Points must be acquitted also from Arminianism by all those that know what Arminius Episcopius Curcelleus Limborch and the Antisynodalists have wrote And therefore I do acknowledge here the Honesty that is Truth and Candour of Mr. Lobb in his Epistle where he discharges Mr. Baxter from such Accusations and though he looks in his Sheets like one that read Mr. Baxter only to carp and find fault with him when in my Reading the same things I must confess I did look and do still on all as light and Instruction I do yet for all that apprehend and hope a better end in it to wit that upon his proposing these Expressions to such worthy and ingenuous Persons as the Doctor and the Bishop he may by their return in time have such a moderated and smoothed State of the whole Matter they taking in the light Mr. Baxter offers with them as shall be reconciliatory both to himself and to his Brethren with him If by Christs dying for us and for our sins there is nothing will serve the Common Doctrine which is that Mr. Lobb upholds in the behalf of his Brethren reserving I will suppose the Liberty
him the Obligation to suffer for our sins but not Our Obligation He bare the Punishment of our sins let me say yet Personally not Our Punishment When Christ is said to be made under the Law Gal. 4.4 I understand it of the Law of Moses as a Jew born for redeeming the Jews from it Yet as one of Mankind was he also under the Law of Works as to the Precept and fulfilled it for freeing us from that perfect Performance as the Condition of Life and from its being to us the Rule of Judgment but he was not under the Penal Sanction nor could be being innocent He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 3.13 made a Curse but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 3.10 under the Curse which none but the Transgressor is And seeing Mr. Lobb is come already to see he must part with the Common Doctrine somewhere or fall into Antinomianism he is so rational and fair a Man I believe as his own Genius when once he can be cool and consider will suggest to him that it is better not to set out at all than to halt by the way and not to go quite home If he be convinced that the Personal Guilt of our sins could not be translated on Christ so as to make him a Legal Sinner which is all that the Crispian as well as the Common Protestant Doctrine ever meant then will he see that the Personal Righteousness of Christ cannot be translated neither on us so as that we should be Legally Righteous in him and consequently agree with Mr. Baxter and me leaving Mr. VVilliams if he wont come on behind in the Doctrine both of Satisfaction and Justification I must add as a Corollary that the Phrases my Friend does stand so much upon of Christs suffering in our Person or in our stead if they be used as the same and signifie no more but that Christ being a Divine Person did suffer a Temporal Death as an Equivalent to save us from suffering Eternal Damnation they are equally to pass But if either of them be made to bear such a Sense as that Christ did Legally personate us so as we are to be accounted to have done or suffered in him that which he did or suffered or what may seem less that this Commutation of Persons did put Christ under Our Obligation of the violated Law of VVorks so making him to be accounted of God a Sinner and dealt with as a Sinner to the end that his sufferings may be maintained to be a proper Punishment the Phrase or Phrases are stretch'd beyond the Staple become dangerous the Sense Antinomian and to be disallowed And now to dismiss Mr. VVilliams and Mr. Lobb both The summ of Mr. Lobb's Appeal comes to this Syllogism That Person who holds that the sufferings of Christ was not a Proper Punishment but a Vicarious Punishment Not Formally but Materially Punishment That our Sins were not the Proximious Meritorious Cause but the Remote the Pro-meritorious Cause or Occasion of them That they arose not from the Obligation of the Law or from the Sanction of the Law of VVorks which includes with Mr. Lobb that Commutation of Persons as makes Christ Guilty taken judged and executed in our Person but from his voluntary Sponsion or submission to his Fathers Commandment proper to him which implies with Mr. Lobb that the inflicting of Sufferings on Christ could be no act of Gods Rectoral Justice but of Dominion when I take it to be an act of God both as Rector and Supra Leges together and such a Relaxation of his Law as Zaleucus Fact was That consequently the Law in the Threat was not fulfilled by him such a Person is a Socinian and denies the Doctrine or denies that which is necessary to explain the Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction But Mr. VVilliams is such a Person Ergo Mr. VVilliams is one that denies that which is necessary to this Explanation Here Mr. Lobb makes it his business to prove the Minor which he hath effectually done in quoting Mr. Baxter in many places and many more might be added saying these things and then producing Considerations and Passages out of Mr. VVilliams to prove that he must be of the same Opinion Now if Mr. VVilliams denies the Minor and goes to vindicate himself as to that he may be ashamed for Mr. Lobb has done his Work But Mr. VVilliams I suppose as well as I will deny the Major And what hath Mr. Lobb to say for that but all Gratis Why here is a Supposition presumed that the Satisfaction Christ made for our sins was to be such and such as they have fancied or else it must be no satisfaction when the mistake is so great that if all that were necessary thereto which they pretend the Lord Christ was a Person uncapable to make it and so there must be none and we be all Socinians I have therefore two Answers to give Mr. Lobb The First shall be from himself who when Mr. Williams is arguing That if we may very properly be said to be punished in Christ for our sins then must it be granted that we made satisfaction in Christ and are our own Redeemers He answers No because the satisfaction arose not says he from our sufferings in Christ nor indeed from Christs Sufferings considered absolutely and in se but from the Fathers acceptation of the Sons sufferings This is judiciously said The words he adds as they were Ex obligatione Legis and an Equivalent to the demerit of our sins are Petitio Principii for he might put in 〈◊〉 well as our sins were the Proximous Meritorious Cause of them and as they were a proper Punishment I answer him therefore accordingly That seeing the Satisfaction Christ made was not indeed a Satisfaction of the Law it self but of the Law-giver who though Rector is also Supra Leges the Law indeed which requires Supplicium delinquentis being not executed but Satisfaction made that it might not be fulfilled on the Sinner and seeing the Satisfaction lay Fundamentally in the Acceptation of the Father or as perform'd according to the Will of both What if it pleased God to appoint and accept of a Vicarious Punishment instead of a proper Punishment who is there can have any more to say against it I will add in regard to some fresh Sheets of Mr. Lobb come out called A further Defence which in setting forth Mr. Baxters Doctrine as opposite to that which is commonly Received according to Dr. Edwards and others has done Mr. Baxter Right and Honour as I account That for as much as God acts according to him and Truth both as Rector and Lord also Supra Leges and the great Ends of Government in general such as the Demonstration of Gods Righteousness his hatred to sin the deterring the Sinner by exemplary Punishment and even his greater Glory might be attained in the way which God took without fulfilling the direct end of the Law in a proper punishment on the Sinner or on Christ as a Sinner It is such a Satisfaction as Mr. Baxter offers that is a Satisfaction of the Law-giver and not that Mr. Lobb stands upon a Satisfaction of the Law which is to be maintained For this being Socinus fundamental Errour That True Satisfaction lies only in a full payment of the Debt and Eternal Death being due to every Sinner the Doctrine of Satisfaction seems to him apparently False Christ suffering not that Punishment and those Divines now that fall in with him into that Conception have not an Answer to give Socinus whereas Mr. Lobb hath set out Mr. Baxter's Doctrine in the several branches to be so tight and uniform that the light thereof though wrapt in his Clouds of Blame about it does appear most â—onvictive and irresistible and I cannot but think that Mr. Lobb himself when he can be cool and lay by opposition must be ready to embrace it It is Mr. Baxter's Satisfaction which can be justified against Socinus Mr. Baxter's Doctrine is such as does force even the Socinians to yield and acknowledge themselves overcome by it This is such Doctrine as needs no more but the same more friendly display of it See Mr. Baxter's own 18 Determinations together for Mr. Baxter's Vindication and Mr. Lobb's Reduction The Second Answer I have is made already in these Sheets and that is that there is one Word and that taken from Grotius himself which hath done it The word Impersonaliter does reconcile Grotius and Baxter Mr. Williams and Mr. Lobb the Bishop and us all and that word therefore without any thing more is enough to solve the difficulty and consequently to explain and make good this Great Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction FINIS ERRATA PAg. 9. line 27. my read your p. 14. l. 21. r. existimare p. 22. l. 9. Premium r. Praemiant p. 74 in the Margin deliti r. debiti THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER Reader THese Letters and Animadversions put thus together by my Appointment were intended to come out asunder the Animadversions as a second Part of the Friendly Interposer and the Letters as the finishing Work to that Doctrine proposed by Mr. H. in his Middle Way and confirmed in his Righteousness of God unto which Book he would have had them annex'd alone by themselves But in regard that the several Papers of his concerning the late Difference among the Nonconformists in Doctrinals whereof the Point of Justification is the chief will come with these to forty Sheets I have thought best my self and have found good Cause so to do to bind the whole in one handsom Book that any that will so long as each of a sort holds out may have it T. P.
say thus but not others Our Divines say Faith is the Condition or the Instrument but not the Form or formal Cause of our Justification This I acknowledge and Answer that the Reason is apparent because our former Divines did apprehend that it is by the Law of Works that we are to be justified and there being no Righteousness but Christs which Answers that Law it must be his alone that can justifie us But this being a mistake the fundamental mistake of our Divines formerly Protestant and Papist and it being not by the Law or according to the Law of Works but by the Law of Grace or according to the Gospel that we are to be judged and justified it is impossible that Christ's Righteousness which is a Righteousness according to the Law should be that Righteousness that justifies us according to the Gospel It is impossible that Christs Righteousness should be that Righteousness of God which in opposition to Works does justifie us according to the Apostle or that Righteousness of God which without the Law is manifested seeing this is a Righteousness with the Law being perfectly conformable to it And it is impossible Logically impossible but Faith which is that which the Gospel requires as the Condition of Life instead of the perfect Obedience of the Law when performed and imputed for Righteousness should be and must be that Righteousness which is the Form or formal Cause of our Evangelical Justification I will now speak to a Passage that put me to many Thoughts in another Letter in regard to our speaking of Justification as passively taken You seem say you to make Justification Active and Passive two things The former Gods imputing the latter Faith imputed for Righteousness If they are different you make two Justifications which you condemn in me If they are one they must both have the same Form or formal Cause But Justification is Gods Act and it is impossible Faith or any thing should be the formal Cause of Gods Act it may be the Condition not formal Cause As for this Passage I did wonder to see you so much in earnest which may be objected against Christs being the meritorius Cause as well against our Faith being the formal Cause and against its being the Condition of our Justification What Because I am not for making a double Justification which are of two kinds one by the Law another by the Gospel do you think I may not therefore distinguish Justification into Active and Passive when we mean nothing else by it but that Justification may be Actively and Passively taken And as for the Metaphysical Point you are concern'd alike with me It is the Will of God by giving us his Law of Grace that when a Man believes he shall by that Law be Made Accounted and Used as a righteous Person and so be free from Punishment and Saved Of this Will of God now ex parte Agentis we must know there is nothing without him can be Cause or Condition God is Actus purus God acts only by his Essence and his Essence is immutable yet does that Will which is one and the same cause all Diversity and he that is immutable cause Mutations And as that Act of his Will or Will which is all one is terminated on the Object and recipitur in passo it causeth its effects and is extrinsecally denominated by them In these Effects there is an Order and one thing the cause of another according to that of Aquinas Deus vult hoc propter hoc tho' propter hoc he does not velle hoc Now when in our Justification which is Gods Act the Will of God by his Law of Grace does make that Change of State in a Believer or of his Relation toward God so as to have thereby a Right conferred to Pardon and Life there are Causes of that Change and Right which being new in the Object Ex connotatione Objecti Effectus denominate Gods Act. It is impossible say you that Faith or anything should be the formal Cause of Gods Act. Very good that were absurd indeed But what is Gods Act here His Act here is exprest in the word Imputing and who thinks Faith the Form of that Nothing in us can be the cause of Gods Act it 's true but something in us may be the Object upon which Gods Act is terminated and that here is our Faith as he imputes it for Righteousness and this being the Effect of that Act in passo this Faith so imputed is the formal Cause of our Justification so effected As for the Question Whether Justification Active and Passive Justificare and Justificari be one or two Justifications it is a nicer Matter I thought than need be answered but seeing it falls in and must I say There is no distinction without a difference and where things differ and are diverse their Form and Definition must be diverse Justification Active and Passive therefore must have two Forms but the Matter is the same Faith in the Imputation of it and in its being imputed to us for Righteousness is the same So that formally they are two materially they are one and the same Justification Well Justification to proceed upon what hath been said tho' Gods Act yet passively taken as other things in the sense shewn must have its Causes Sanctification is an Act of Gods Grace as well as Justification and you will not deny our inherent Grace to be the formal Cause of Sanctification for all that But how Not as Actively but Passively taken As for the Causes then of Passive Justification Of the Efficient the Final the Meritorious there is no dispute but of the Material and Formal there is and it is fit to be considered Mr. Baxter hath taught that Christs Righteousness is not only the Meritorious but Material Cause of our Justification And you have cited Mr. Anthony Burgesse holding Christs Active Obedience as well as Passive to be the Matter but denying that we are formally justified by it Where he speaks after Amesius I suppose seeing it is upon the same Reason that if it were so we must be as righteous as Christ which I have mentioned before as Bellarmine's Objection against that Doctrine and which by Ames his waving it he acknowledges unanswerable when yet we know that Doctrine to have been the Common Protestants formerly as Davenant before tells us and some more weighty Divines than Mr. Burgesse tells us yet thus much further Mirum hic videri non debet Christi justitiam non Meritoriae solum sed Materialis immo formalis causae rationem habere cum id fiat diversimodè nempe qua illa est propter quod in quo sive ex quo per quod justificamur So the Leiden Divines For my own part I have in my Book taken up with Mr. Baxter upon trusting to his profounder Judgment but I will now shew also my Opinion The Meritorius Cause comes under the Efficient and is the
Father is communicable with the Believer That is Whether Christs Right to have a Seed and such as shall believe on him can possibly be the Believers Or whether the Promise that Christ shall have some to believe in him and so be saved be of the same import with that which says He that believes shall be saved Again Whether there be any Imputation by God of Christs Performance to the Believer as there is or may be an Application of it by the Believer for his security in regard to the Benefits And Whether such an Imputation if there be such of Christs Performance for the Believers Security be of the same import as the Imputation of it for his Justification These and the like are Questions which require the second thoughts of Mr. Williams In fine there is one Consideration especially the Consideration of what confusion it must make in the minds of most to understand by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness another Righteousness than that our Divines hither to have understood and to draw their Words to a Sense they never thought which is to make them all equivocate or lie is a matter of such dangerous Consequence that I must come to a Resolution and Answer to my Reverend Brother which is that omitting the Reply that this Right of Christ he insists on is it self one Effect of his Performance and if that become Ours the Righteousness of his performance here is imputed or made ours still in regard to the Effects only And omitting the questionableness of this Right being ours already mentioned I must say plainly that this Talk of his in his Answer to the Report that there is a Judicial Imputation of this Right of Christ which is one Effect immediately intervening between the Imputation of his Performance which is Mediate in order to the Effect of our Justification and Pardon which he must intend or all is nothing to the Point I say is to me a Figmentum a Fiction an Imaginary and Operose something which indeed is nothing even according to himself who tells us that The effects are not imputed Alas when it is so hard to take in what our Divines say of the Imputation of Christs Performance for our Justification for how much easier is it of understanding to say that for the sake of what Christ hath done God does forgive and save us on the Terms of the Gospel or does accept of Faith instead of perfect Obedience than to talk of Imputation which is a Phrase as applyed to Christs Righteousness invented by Man though as applyed to Faith express Scripture to come to the multiplying and doubling these Imputations of Christs Right as well as of his Performance is a matter of so troublesom a Notion so cluttersom an invention Eutia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate so turning and over-turning what hath been said by our Divines as it were topsie turvy and indeed so presumptuous as well as untrue according to his own Axiom upon that account that if it were not that by this means he gets a Liberty of Compliance to use the Phrase with the Brethren who the most of them never concern'd themselves as to his Explanation it would not be endured Be it therefore known to all Men by these presents that I J. Humfrey do acquit Mr. Williams of the Inconsistency I supposed in his Doctrine which concerns me and Mr. Baxter upon this Notion or Invention if this invention of his be good but if it be found not good but upon further Consideration a piece of humane Wisdom only and a Shift I do yet conjure him to retract it But to offer something before I have done moreover for satisfaction to my Friend Mr. Lobb There is a Compact it is conceived by him of Christ with the Father that he will come under the Law both in regard to the Precept and Sanction and that the Sanction thereupon takes hold on him his voluntary Sponsion Anteceding not Intereeding the laying the Penalty on him This now cannot be That Christ entred not our Bond at first with us Mr. Lobb sees and says The Bond ran not that if we or our Surety performed it the Obligation should be void for then upon Christs keeping the Law there could be no Punishment due to him or us but he entred our Bond when we had broken it he entred into the Obligations of the violated Law of Works he says and so the Law taking him as under that Violation and Consequently as under its Sanction it laid the Punishment immediately on him as the Person to be punished and in that regard even in regard to the Sanction it was he acconnts a proper Punishment This I take to be the Error of the Common Protestant and so Mr. Lobbs upon that account It is true that Christ voluntarily undertook or compacted to come under the Precept of the Law unto which yet it self as a Divine Person Actiones being Suppositorum he could not have been obliged otherwise say Divines and to undergo the Curse or Punishment due to us but not to come under the Sanction that being impossible because the Sanction as to the Comminatory Part we understand does punish only him that breaks the Precept which Christ never did but we do so that it is the Punishment not the Fault or Merit thereof that he took on him which consequently arose not from the Sanction but his Undertaking and that Undertaking being to suffer in our room it could not be a proper Punishment in Mr. Lobb's Sense of Proper which is Arising from the Sanction but a Vicarious Punishment as Mr. Baxter over and over does tell us If Christ came under the Sanction of the Law so as the Punishment was due to him Ex obligatione Legis which Mr. Lobb holds but as pleading only the Common Protestants Cause I will suppose then must he be accounted of God as a Sinner nay as the greatest of Sinners and be punished as such which hath indeed been formerly affirmed by great Divines and so taken up by the Antinomian accounting that our sins was laid on him in the Merit as well as in the Punishment which my Friend seeing that here indeed is the Gulph he makes his stand and comes off in an Approbation of the Bishop for his opposing Antinomianism and particularly in this Point that there is such a Change of Persons which implies a Translation of the Personal Guilt or Merit of their sins which is all one of the Believer on Christ which he confutes as the Doctrine of the Antinomian and which Mr. Lobb disclaims as heartily as any O thou my Friend therefore Mr. Common Protestant be it known to all that Christ suffered not as a Sinner but as an Interceder and not from the Obligation of the violated Law of Works which he violated not but of his Fathers Commandment which was proper to him or of the Law of Redemption as Mr. Williams after Mr. Baxter does stedfastly teach Christ indeed took on