besides their Publick Confessions they quote Crellius Schlictingius Volkelius Wolzogenius c. And Schlictingius saith The Doctrine of future Punishments was necessary to be preached as being part of the Christian Faith and that God's Veracity is concerned in the Execution of his Threatnings Which is a part of Natural Iustice. And those Learned Men who have been thought most favourable to the Socinian Opinions have declared themselves very frankly as to the Justice of the Punishment of Impenitent Sinners Curcellaeus whom they often mention with respect saith The Justice of God requires that he should inflict the Punishments he hath threatned on Contumacious Sinners And Limborch whom they sometimes appeal to saith That the Justice of God doth not permit the Impunity of Refractory and Impenitent Contemners of his Grace Because saith he God by his declared Will hath tied himself up from the Exercise of his Absolute Power and his Laws would be trampled upon and his Majesty slighted nor would God's hatred of Sin ever be fully discovered And therefore the Day of Wrath is called by St. Paul The Revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God Episcopius saith That although in such Punishments which depend only on the Will of the Law-maker he doth not think that God in Justice is obliged to make good his Threatnings as he is to perform his Promises but that in such Cases God is not bound in Justice to execute all that the Law threatens but when he thinks fit to punish then his Justice requires him not to punish beyond the Commination yet in the Case of obstinate and incurable Offenders he doth not deny that the Justice of God requires the Rigour of the Law to be executed upon them And he adds That the Day of Judgment will fully manifest the Justice of God in the Threatnings he hath made to Impenitent Sinners Even Vorstius who was supposed to be too much inclined to the Socinian Doctrine owns it to be a part of God's Justice to punish wicked and impenitent Persons that his Patience and Goodness may not be always contemned with Impunity And afterwards That although God doth no Injury to the Offender if he doth not execute his Threatnings yet out of regard to the Justice of his Word he doth not recede from what he hath declared But all Threatnings under the Gospel are Conditional and none are damned by it but such as continue in Impenitency and Unbelief And in his Explication he saith That where God hath absolutely declared his Will to punish in such a manner he cannot forgive without Injustice But our Unitarians speak without any Reserve That it is not the Justice of God which prompts him to punish Sinners and so it is not contrary to his Justice to forgive all Offences without Repentance or Amendment And thus the Justice of God is not concerned in the Punishments of the great Day although the Apostle calls it The Revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God And by this the World may see how very far our Modern Unitarians are from handling this Subject more Carefully Judiciously and Exactly than others However one of their own Party hath lately affirmed it with as much Confidence and as little Ground as they have done other things 3. That it is very agreeable to Divine Justice to accept of a Satisfaction on behalf of the Sins of Mankind who do not persist in their evil ways so that their Sins shall be forgiven upon their Repentance and Amendment For since the Exercise of Punitive Iustice is not necessary on the Persons of the Offenders and since God in this Life abates so much of his just Severity against them he thereby shews that he doth not proceed with Mankind here according to the Rigor of his Iustice but yet since God hath given to them very just and righteous Laws since those Laws have been broken and his Authority contemned it is very just for God to require a Sacrifice of Atonement for the Sins of the World that Manâ—ind may see that God was justly displeased at them and that none take Incouragement to go on to commit them but yet that upon their hearty Repentance and sincere Obedience they may be assured of the Remission of Sins and the Promise of Eternal Life All the Difficulty now remaining is about Christ's Suffering in our stead of which the Scripture speaks so fully in the places already mention'd But we must consider what is Answered to them II. To those places of Scripture which speak of Christ's Suffering the Punishment of our Sins all that Socinus saith comes to these two things 1. That Christ suffer'd on the occasion of our Sins and with a Design to take away our Sins 2. That by his Sufferings he came to have a Power to Forgive Sins and that this is the proper Expiation of Sin But by no means that he suffer'd in our stead for he hath these Words Ut nihil aliud sit Christum pro nobis mortuum esse quam vice seu loco nostro mortem subiisse id adeo à veritate abhorret ut nihil magis Which in plain English is that nothing is more false than that Christ suffer'd in our stead The old Editions of the Racovian Catechism follow Socinus and there the Answer to the Places which speak of Christ's Dying for us is that they do not signify in our stead but for our good Which they are very careful to distinguish because they think that the latter implies no more than a Condition in order to the Expiation in Heaven but the other makes him a true Propitiatory Sacrifice for our Sins But if Christ did not suffer in our stead how can they possibly Reconcile his undergoing this Condition with their own Measures of Divine Iustice All they pretend to say is that it was Labour and Suffering but not Punishment Which is to speak against the Common Sense of Mankind and is a ridiculous piece of Stoicism They say it was a meer Act of Dominion as to Christ and not of Justice But if there be such an Essential Attribute as Iustice in God then the Exercise of Dominion must be regulated by it especially where there was nothing but perfect Innocency The Case is very different as to the sinful Race of Mankind who having the Guilt of Sin upon them God may justly exercise his Dominion over them as he sees cause but he always doth it justly although the particular Reasons may not be within our reach But here is no Guilt of Sin consider'd either of his own or others according to their Principles and yet they make him to undergo as great Sufferings as we do who assert that he suffer'd for our sakes in our stead which alone gives a Reasonable Account of it But in the late correct Edition of the Racovian Catechism they say the Sense of Christ's Suffering for our Sins is twofold but both come to one at last 1. That Christ suffered
be clearly expressed therein I. THESE things being thus far cleared concerning the nature and ends of punishments and how far they are of the nature of debts and consequently what kind of satisfaction is due for them the resolution of the grand Question concerning the sufferings of Christ will appear much more easie but that we may proceed with all possible clearness in a debate of this consequence we must yet a little more narrowly examine the difference between our Adversaries and us in this matter for their concessions are in terms sometimes so fair as though the difference were meerly about words without any considerable difference in the thing it self If we charge them with denying satisfaction Crellius answers in the name of them that we do it unjustly for they do acknowledge a satisfaction worthy of God and agreeable to the Scriptures If we charge them with denying that our salvation is obtained by the death of Christ they assert the contrary as appears by the same Author Nay Ruarus attributes merit to the death of Christ too They acknowledge that Christ died for us nay that there was a commutation between Christ and us both of one person for another and of a price for a person and that the death of Christ may be said to move God to redeem us they acknowledge reconciliation and expiation of sins to be by the death of Christ. Nay they assert that Christ's death was by reason of our sins and that God designed by that to shew his severity against sin And what could we desire more if they meant the same thing by these words which we do They assert a satisfaction but it is such a one as is meerly fulfilling the desire of another in which sense all that obey God may be said to satisfie him They attribute our salvation to the death of Christ but only as a condition intervening upon the performance of which the Covenant was confirmed and himself taken into Glory that he might free men from the punishment of their sins They attribute merit to Christ's death but in the same sense that we may merit too when we do what is pleasing to God They acknowledge that Christ died for us but not in our stead but for our advantage that there was a commutation but not such a one as that the Son of God did lay down his blood as a proper price in order to our redemption as the purchase of it when they speak of a moving cause they tell us they mean no more than the performance of any condition may be said to move or as our prayers and repentance do The reconciliation they speak of doth not at all respect God but us they assert an expiation of sins consequent upon the death of Christ but not depending upon it any otherwise than as a condition necessary for his admission to the office of a High Priest in Heaven there to expiate our sins by his power and not by his blood but they utterly deny that the death of Christ is to be considered as a proper expiatory sacrifice for sin or that it hath any further influence upon it than as it is considered as a means of the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and particularly the promise of remission of sins on which and not on the death of Christ they say our remission depends but so far as the death of Christ may be an argument to us to believe his Doctrine and that faith may incline us to obedience and that obedience being the condition in order to pardon at so many removes they make the death of Christ to have influence on the remission of our sins They assert that God took occasion by the sins of men to exercise an act of dominion upon Christ in his sufferings and that the sufferings of Christ were intended for the taking away the sins of men but they utterly deny that the sufferings of Christ were to be considered as a punishment for sin or that Christ did suffer in our place and stead nay they contend with great vehemency that it is wholly inconsistent with the justice of God to make one mans sins the meritorious cause of anothers punishment especially one wholly innocent and so that the guilty shall be freed on the account of his sufferings Thus I have endeavoured to give the true state of the controversie with all clearness and brevity And the substance of it will be reduced to these two debates 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion 2. Whether the death of Christ in particular were a proper expiatory sacrifice for sin or only an antecedent condition to his exercise of the Office of Priesthood in Heaven II. 1. Whether the sufferings of Christ in general are to be considered as a punishment of sin or as a meer act of dominion for that it must be one or the other of these two cannot be denied by our Adversaries for the inflicting those sufferings upon Christ must either proceed from an antecedent meritorious cause or not If they do they are then punishments if not they are meer exercises of power and dominion whatever ends they are intended for and whatever recompence be made for them So Crellius asserts that God as absolute Lord of all had a right of absolute dominion upon the life and body of Christ and therefore might justly deliver him up to death and give his body to the Cross and although Christ by the ordinary force of the Law of Moses had a right to escape so painful and accursed a death yet God by the right of dominion had the power of disposal of him because he intended to compensate his torments with a reward infinitely greater than they were but because he saith for great endâ— the consent of Christ was necessary therefore God did not use his utmost dominion in delivering him up by force as he might have done but he dealt with him by way of command and rewards proposed for obedience and in this sence he did act as a righteous Governour and indulgent Father who encouraged his Son to undergo hard but great things In which we see that he makes the sufferings of Christ an act of meer dominion in God without any antecedent cause as the reason of them only he qualifies this act of dominion with the proposal of a reward for it But we must yet further enquire into their meaning for though here Crellius attributes the sufferings of Christ meerly to God's dominion without any respect to sin yet elsewhere he will allow a respect that was had to sin antecedently to the sufferings of Christ and that the sins of men were the impulsive cause of them And although Socinus in one place utterly denies any lawful antecedent cause of the death of Christ besides the will of God and Christ yet Crellius in his Vindication saith by lawful cause he
we see that the ends of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are very agreeable with the sufferings of Christ considered as a punishment of sin X. We now consider whether as Crellius asserts supposing Christ's death were no punishment it could have these effects upon mens minds or no Yes he saith it might because by his sufferings we might see how severely God would punish wicked and obstinate persons Which being a strange riddle at the first hearing it viz. that by the sufferings of an innocent person without any respect to sin as the cause of them we should discern God's severity against those who are obstinate in sin we ought the more diligently to attend to what is said for the clearing of it First saith he If God spared not his own most innocent and holy and only Son than whom nothing was more dear to him in Heaven or Earth but exposed him to so cruel and ignominious a death how great and severe sufferings may we think God will inflict on wicked men who are at open defiance with him I confess my self not subtle enough to apprehend the force of this argument viz. If God dealt so severely with him who had no sin either of his own or others to answer for therefore he will deal much more severely with those that have For God's severity considered without any respect to sin gives rather encouragement to sinners than any argument to deterr them from it For the natural consequence of it is that God doth act arbitrarily without any regard to the good or evil of mens actions and therefore it is to no purpose to be sollicitous about them For upon the same account that the most innocent person suffers most severely from him for all that we know the more we strive to be innocent the more severely we may be dealt with and let men sin they can be but dealt severely with all the difference then is one shall be called punishments and the other calamities but the severity may be the same in both And who would leave off his sins meerly to change the name of punishments into that of calamities And from hence it will follow that the differences of good and evil and the respects of them to punishment and reward are but airy and empty things but that God really in the dispensation of things to men hath no regard to what men are or do but acts therein according to his own Dominion whereby he may dispose of men how or which way he pleases If a Prince had many of his Subjects in open rebellion against him and he should at that time make his most obedient and beloved Son to be publickly exposed to all manner of indignities and be dishonoured and put to death by the hands of those rebels could any one imagine that this was designed as an exemplary punishment to all rebels to let them see the danger of rebellion No but would it not rather make them think him a cruel Prince one that would punish innocency as much as rebellion and that it was rather better to stand at defiance and become desperate for it was more dangerous to be beloved than hated by him to be his Son than his declared Enemy so that insisting on the death of Christ as it is considered as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for of that we speak now there is no comparison between our Adversaries hypothesis and ours but saith Crellius the consequence is not good on our side if Christ suffered the punishment of our sins therefore they shall suffer much more who continue in sin for Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world but they suffer only for their own and what they have deserved themselves To which I answer that the argument is of very good force upon our hypothesis though it would not be upon theirs For if we suppose him to be a meer man that suffered then there could be no argument drawn from his sufferings to ours but according to the exact proportion of sins and punishments but supposing that he had a divine as well as humane nature there may not be so great a proportion of the sins of the world to the sufferings of Christ as of the sins of a particular person to his own sufferings and therefore the argument from one to the other doth still hold For the measure of punishments must be taken with a proportion to the dignity of the person who suffers them And Crellius himself confesseth elsewhere that the dignity of the person is to be considered in exemplary punishment and that a lesser punishment of one that is very great may do much more to deterr men from sin than a greater punishment of one much less But he yet further urgeth that the severity of God against sinners may be discovered in the sufferings of Christ because God's hatred against sin is discovered therein But if we ask how God's hatred against sin is seen in the sufferings of one perfectly innocent and free from sin and not rather his hatred of innocency if no respect to sin were had therein he answers That God's hatred against sin was manifested in that he would not spare his only Son to draw men off from sin For answer to which we are to consider the sufferings of Christ as an innocent person designed as an exemplary cause to draw men off from sin and let any one tell me what hatred of sin can possibly be discovered in proposing the sufferings of a most innocent person to them without any consideration of sin as the cause of those sufferings If it be said That the Doctrine of Christ was designed to draw men off from sin and that God suffered his Son to die to confirm this Doctrine and thereby shewed his hatred to sin I answer 1. This is carrying the dispute off from the present business for we are not now arguing about the design of Christ's Doctrine nor the death of Christ as a means to confirm that but as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what power that hath without respect to our sins as the cause of them to draw us from sin by discovering God's hatred to it 2. The Doctrine of Christ according to their hypothesis discovers much less of God's hatred to sin than ours doth For if God may pardon sin without any compensation made to his Laws or Honour if repentance be in its own nature a sufficient satisfaction for all the sins past of our Lives if there be no such a Justice in God which requires punishment of sin commiâ—ted if the punishment of sin depend barely upon God's will and the most innocent person may suffer as much from God without respect to sin as the cause of suffering as the most guilty let any rational man judge whether this Doctrine discovers as much God's abhorrency of sin as asserting the necessity of vindicating God's honour to the World upon the breach of his Laws if not by the suffering of the offenders
themselves yet of the Son of God as a sacrifice for the expiation of sin by undergoing the punishment of our iniquities so as upon consideration of his sufferings he is pleased to accept of repentance and sincere obedience as the conditions upon which he will grant remission of sins and eternal life So that if the discovery of God's hatred to sin be the means to reclaim men from it we assert upon the former reasons that much more is done upon our Doctrine concerning the sufferings of Christ than can be upon theirs So much shall suffice to manifest in what sense Christ's death may be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that this doth imply that his sufferings are to be considered as a punishment of sin XI The next Series of places which makes Christ's sufferings to be a punishment for sin are those which assert Christ to be made sin and a curse for us which we now design to make clear ought to be understood in no other sense for as Grotius saith As the Iews sometimes use sin for the punishment of sin as appears besides other places by Zach. 14. â—9 Gen. 4.13 so they call him that suffers the punishment of sin by the name of sin as the Latins use the word Piaculum both for the fault and for him that suffers for it Thence under the Law an expiatory Sacrifice for sin was called sin Lev. 4.3.29 5 6. Psal. 40.7 Which way of speaking Esaias followed speaking of Christ Isai. 53.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he made his soul sin i. e. liable to the punishment of it To the same purpose St. Paul 2 Cor. 5.21 He made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him To which Crellius replies That as there is no necessity that by the name of sin when applied to sufferings any more should be implied than that those sufferings were occasioned by sin no more is there when it is applied to the person nay much less for he saith No more is required to this but that he should be handled as sinners use to be and undergo the matter of punishment without any respect to sin either as the cause or occasion of it So he saith The name Sinner is used 1 King 1.21 and in St. Paul the name of sin in the first clause is to be understood as of righteousness in the latter and as we are said to be righteousness in him when God deals with us as with righteous persons so Christ was said to be sin for us when he was dealt with as a sinner And the Sacrifices for sin under the Law were so called not with a respect to the punishment of sin but because they were offered upon the account of sin and were used for taking away the guilt of it or because men were bound to offer them so that they sinned if they neglected it So that all that is meant by Esaias and St. Paul is That Christ was made an expiatory Sacrifice or that he exposed himself for those afflictions which sinners only by right undergo But let Crellius or any others of them tell me if the Scripture had intended to express that the sufferings of Christ were a punishment of our sins how was it possible to do it more emphatically than it is done by these Expressions the custom of the Hebrew Language being considered not only by saying that Christ did bear our sins but that himself was made sin for us those phrases being so commonly used for the punishment of sin Let them produce any one instance in Scripture where those expressions are applied to any without the consideration of sin that place 1 King 1.21 is very far from it for in all probability the design of Bathsheba in making Solomon King was already discovered which was the reason that Adonijah his elder Brother declaring himself King invited not him with the rest of the King's sons All that she had for Solomon's succession was a secret promise and oath of David and therefore she urgeth him now to declare the succession v. 20. Otherwise she saith when David should die I and my son Solomon shall be accounted offenders i. e. saith Crellius we shall be handled as offenders we shall be destroyed But surely not without the supposition of a fault by them which should inflict that punishment upon them The plain meaning is they should be accused of Treason and then punished accordingly But we are to consider that still with a respect to them who were the inflicters a fault or sin is supposed as the reason of their punishment either of their own or others But of our Saviour it is not said That he should be counted as an offender by the Iews for although that doth not take away his innocency yet it supposeth an accusation of something which in it self deserves punishment But in Esai 53.10 it is said He made his soul sin and 2 Cor. 5.21 That God made him sin for us which must therefore imply not being dealt with by men only as a sinner but that with a respect to him who inflicted the punishment there was a consideration of sin as the reason of it We do not deny but God's suffering him to be dealt with as a sinner by men is implied in it for that was the method of his punishment designed but we say further that the reason of that permission in God doth suppose some antecedent cause of it For God would never have suffered his only Son to be so dealt with by the hands of cruel men unless he had made himself an offering for sin being willing to undergo those sufferings that he might be an expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the world And although Socinus will not yield That by being made sin for us should be understood Christ's being an expiatory Sacrifice for sin yet Crellius is contented it should be so taken in both places Which if he will grant so as by vertue of that Sacrifice the guilt of sin is expiated we shall not contend with him about the reasons why those Sacrifices were called sins although the most proper and genuine must needs be that which is assigned by the Law that the sins of the people were supposed to be laid upon them and therefore they were intended for the expiation of them But it is very unreasonable to say That expiatory Sacrifices were called sins because it would have been a sin to neglect them For on the same account all the other Sacrifices must have been called so too for it was a sin to neglect any where God required them and so there had been no difference between Sacrifices for sin and others To that reason of Crellius from our being made righteous because dealt with as such to Christ's being made sin only because dealt with as a sinner we need no more than what this parallel will afford us For as Crellius would never say that any are dealt with as
Law and Gospel together that St Paul doth not mean as Crellius would have it that Christ by his death did confirm the New Covenant and so take away the obligation of the Law for to what end was the curse mentioned for that What did the accursedness of his death add to the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine and when was ever the curse taken for the continuance of the Law of Moses but that Christ by the efficacy of his death as a punishment for sin hath redeemed all that believe and obey him from the curse deserved by their sins whether inforced by the Law of Moses or the Law written in their hearts which tells the consciences of sinners that such who violate the Laws of God are worthy of death and therefore under the curse of the Law XII We come now to the force of the particles which being joyned with our sins as referring to the death of Christ do imply that his death is to be considered as a punishment of sin Not that we insist on the force of those particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as though of themselves they did imply this for we know they are of various significations according to the nature of the matter they are joyned with but that these being joyned with sins and suffering together do signifie that those sufferings are the punishment of those sins Thus it is said of Christ that he dyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he suffered once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he gave himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he offered a Sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which Crellius replies That if the force of these particles not being joyned with sufferings may be taken for the final and not for the impulsive cause they may retain the same sense when joyned with sufferings if those sufferings may be designed in order to an end but if it should be granted that those phrases being joyned with sufferings do always imply a meritorious cause yet it doth not follow it should be here so understood because the matter will not bear it To this a short answer will at present serve for It is not possible a meritorious cause can be expressed more emphatically than by these words being joyned to sufferings so that we have as clear a testimony from these expressions as words can give and by the same arts by which these may be avoided any other might so that it had not been possible for our Doctrine to have been expressed in such a manner but such kind of answers might have been given as our Adversaries now give If it had been said in the plainest terms that Christ's death was a punishment for our sins they would as easily have avoided the force of them as they do of these they would have told us the Apostles delighted in an Antanaclasis and had expressed things different from the natural use of the words by them and though punishment were sometimes used properly yet here it must be used only metaphorically because the matter would bear no other sense And therefore I commend the ingenuity of Socinus after all the pains he had taken to enervate the force of those places which are brought against his Doctrine he tells us plainly That if our Doctrine were not only once but frequently mentioned in Scripture yet he would not therefore believe the thing to be so as we suppose For saith he seeing the thing it self cannot be I take the least inconvenient interpretation of the words and draw forth such a sense from them as is most consistent with itself and the tenor of the Scripture But for all his talking of the tenor of the Scripture by the same reason he interprets one place upon these terms he will do many and so the tenor of the Scripture shall be never against him and by this we find that the main strength of our Adversaries is not pretended to lie in the Scriptures all the care they have of them is only to reconcile them if possible with their hypothesis for they do not deny but that the natural force of the words doth imply what we contend for but because they say the Doctrine we assert is inconsistent with reason therefore all their design is to find out any other possible meaning which they therefore assert to be true because more agreeable to the common reason of mankind This therefore is enough for our present purpose that if it had been the design of Scripture to have expressed our sense it could not have done it in plainer expressions than it hath done that no expressions could have been used but the same arts of our Adversaries might have been used to take off their force which they have used to those we now urge against them and that setting aside the possibility of the thing the Scripture doth very fairly deliver the Doctrine we contend for or supposing in point of reason there may be arguments enough to make it appear possible there are Scriptures enough to make it appear true CHAP. III. I. The words of Scripture being at last acknowledged by our Adversaries to make for us the only pretence remaining is that our Doctrine is repugnant to reason The debate managed upon point of reason The grand difficulty enquired into and manifested by our Adversaries concessions not to lie in the greatness of Christ's sufferings or that our sins were the impulsive cause of them or that it is impossible that one should be punished for anothers faults or in all cases unjust II. The cases wherein Crellius allows it instanced From whence it is proved that he yields the main cause III. The arguments propounded whereby he attempts to prove it unjust for Christ to be punished for our sins Crellius his principles of the justice of punishments examined Of the relation between desert and punishment IV. That a person by his own consent may be punished beyond the desert of his own actions V. An answer to Crellius his Objections What it is to suffer undeservedly Crellius his mistake in the state of the question VI. The instances of Scripture considered In what sense Children are punished for their Parents sins VII Ezek. 18.20 explained at large VIII Whether the guilty being freed from the sufferings of an innocent person makes that punishment unjust or no Crellius his shifts and evasions in this matter discovered Why among men the offenders are not freed in criminal matters though the sureties be punished The release of the party depends on the terms of the sureties suffering therefore deliverance not ipso facto No necessity of such a translation in criminal as is in pecuniary matters I. HAving gained so considerable concessions from our Adversaries concerning the places of Scripture we come now to debate the matter in point of reason And if there appear to be nothing repugnant in the nature of the thing or
to the justice of God then all their loud clamours will come to nothing for on that they fix when they talk the most of our Doctrine being contrary to reason This therefore we now come more closely to examine in order to which we must carefully enquire what it is they lay the charge of injustice in God upon according to our belief of Christ's sufferings being a punishment for our sins 1. It is not That the offenders themselves do not undergo the full punishment of their sins For they assert that there is no necessity at all that the offenders should be punished from any punitive justice in God for they eagerly contend that God may freely pardon the sins of men if so then it can be no injustice in God not to punish the offenders according to the full desert of their sins 2. It is not That God upon the sufferings of Christ doth pardon the sins of men for they yield that God may do this without any charge of injustice and with the greatest demonstration of his kindness For they acknowledge that the sufferings of Christ are not to be considered as a bare antecedent condition to pardon but that they were a moving cause as far as the obedience of Christ in suffering was very acceptable to God 3. It is not in the greatness or matter of the sufferings of Christ. For they assert the same which we do And therefore I cannot but wonder to meet sometimes with those strange out-crys of our making God cruel in the punishing of his Son for us for what do we assert that Christ suffered which they do not assert too Nay doth it not look much more like cruelty in God to lay those sufferings upon him without any consideration of sin as upon their hypothesis he doth than to do it supposing he bears the punishment of our iniquities which is the thing we plead for They assert all those sufferings to be lawful on the account of Godâ—s dominion which according to them must cease to be so on the supposition of a meritorious cause But however from this it appears that it was not unjust that Christ should suffer those things which he did for us the question then is whether it were unjust that he should suffer the same things which he might lawfully do on the account of dominion with a respect to our sins as the cause of them 4. As to this they acknowledge that it is not that the sufferings of Christ were occasioned by our sins or that our sins were the bare impulsive cause of those sufferings For they both confess in general that one mans sins may be the occasion of anothers punishment so far that he might have escaped punishment if the others sins had not been the impulsive cause of it And therefore Crellius in the general state of this question would not have it whether it be unjust to punish one for anothers sins for that he acknowledges it is not but whether for any cause whatsoever it be just to punish an innocent person And likewise in particular of Christ they confess that our sins were the impulsive cause and the occasion of his sufferings 5. It is not that there is so necessary a relation between guilt and punishment that it cannot be called a punishment which is inflicted on an innocent person For Crellius after a long discourse of the difference of afflictions and punishments doth acknowledge That it is not of the nature of punishment that the person who is to be punished should really deserve the punishment and afterwards when Grotius urgeth that though it be essential to punishment that it be inflicted for sin yet it is not that it be inflicted upon him who hath himself sinned which he shews by the similitude of rewards which though necessary to be given in consideration of service may yet be given to others besides the person himself upon his account All this Crellius acknowledgeth who saith They do not make it necessary to the nature but to the justice of punishment that it be inflicted upon none but the person who hath offended So by his own Confession it is not against the nature of punishment that no one man suffer for anothers faults From whence it follows that all Socinus his arguments signifie nothing which are drawn from the impossibility of the thing that one man should be punished for anothers faults for Crellius grants the thing to be possible but denies it to be just yet not absolutely neither but with some restrictions and limitations For II. 6. It is not but that there may be sufficient causes assigned in some particular cases wherein it may be just for God to punish some for the sins of others For Crellius himself hath assigned divers When there is such a near conjunction between them that one may be said to be punished in the punishment of another as Parents in their Children and Posterity Kings in their Subjects or the body of a State in its Members either in the most or the most principal though the fewest but we are to consider how far he doth extend this way of punishment of some in others 1. At the greatest distance of time if they have been of the same Nation for he extends it to the utmost degree of God's patience towards a people For saith he God doth not presently punish as soon as they have sinned but spares for a great while and forbears in expectation of their repentance in the mean while a great many guilty persons die and seem to have escaped punishment But at last the time of Godâ—s patience being past he punisheth their Posterity by exacting the full punishment of their sins upon them and by this means punisheth their Ancestors too and punisheth their sins in their punishment for saith he all that people are reckoned for one man of several Ages and that punishment which is taken of the last may be for the sins of the first for the conjunction and succession of them of which we have an example saith he in the destruction of Ierusalem By which we see a very remote conjunction and a mere similitude in comparing a succession of Ages in a people with those in a man may when occasion serves be made use of to justifie God's punishing one Generation of men for the sins of others that have been long before 2. When sins are more secret or less remarkable which God might not punish unless an occasion were given from others sins impelling him to it but because God would punish one very near them he therefore punisheth them that in their punishment he might punish the other Or in case sins spread through a Family or a people or they are committed by divers persons at sundry times which God doth not severely punish but sometimes then when the Head of a People or Family hath done something which remarkably deserves punishment whom he will punish in those he is related to and
use of the Concession of Crellius That God hath prefixed some ends to himself in the Government of mankind which being supposed it is necessary that impenitent sinners should be punished What these ends of God are he before tells us when he enquires into the ends of Divine punishments which he makes to be security for the future by mens avoiding sins and a kind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or pleasure which God takes in the destruction of his implacable enemies and the asserting and vindicating his own right by punishing and shewing men thereby with what care and fear they ought to serve him and so attains the ends of punishment proposed by Lactantius and manifestation of the Divine Honour and Majesty which hath been violated by the sins of men All these we accept of with this caution That the delight which God takes in the punishing his implacable enemies be not understood of any pleasure in their misery as such by way of meer revenge but as it tends to the vindication of his Right and Honour and Majesty which is an end suitable to the Divine Nature but the other cannot in it self have the notion of an end for an end doth suppose something desirable for it self which surely the miseries of others cannot have to us much less to the Divine Nature And that place which Crellius insists on to prove the contrary Deut. 28.63 The Lord will rejoyce over you to destroy you imports no more than the satisfaction God takes in the execution of his Justice when it makes most for his honour as certainly it doth in the punishment of his greatest enemies And this is to be understood in a sense agreeable to those other places where God is said not to delight in the death of sinners which doth not as Crellius would have it meerly express God's benignity and mercy but such an agreeableness of the exercise of those attributes to God's nature that he neither doth nor can delight in the miseries of his creatures in themselves but as they are subservient to the ends of his Government and yet such is his kindness in that respect too that he useth all means agreeable thereto to make them avoid being miserable to advance his own glory And I cannot but wonder that Grotius who had asserted the contrary in his Book of Satisfaction should in his Books De Iure belli ac pacis assert That when God punisheth wicked men he doth it for no other end but that he might punish them For which he makes use of no other arguments than those which Crellius had objected against him viz. The delight God takes in punishing and the judgments of the life to come when no amendment can be expected the former hath been already answered the latter is objected by Crellius against him when he makes the ends of punishment merely to respect the community which cannot be asserted of the punishments of another Life which must chiefly respect the vindication of God's glory in the punishment of unreclaimable sinners And this we do not deny to be a just punishment since our Adversaries themselves as well as we make it necessary But we are not to understand that the end of Divine punishments doth so respect the community as though God himself were to be excluded out of it for we are so to understand it as made up of God as the Governour and mankind as the persons governed whatever then tends to the vindication of the rights of God's Honour and Sovereignty tends to the good of the whole because the manifestation of that end is so great an end of the whole XII But withal though we assert in the life to come the ends of punishment not to be the reclaiming of sinners who had never undergone them unless they had been unreclaimable yet a vast difference must be made between the ends of punishments in that and in this present state For the other is the Reserve when nothing else will do and therefore was not primarily intended but the proper ends of punishment as a part of Government are to be taken from the design of them in this life And here we assert that God's end in punishing is the advancing his Honour not by the meer miseries of his creatures but that men by beholding his severity against sin should break off the practice of it that they may escape the punishments of the future state So that the ends of punishment here are quite of another kind from those of another life for those are inflicted because persons have been unreclaimable by either the mercies or punishments of this life but these are intended that men should so far take notice of this severity of God as to avoid the sins which will expose them to the wrath to come And from hence it follows That whatsoever sufferings do answer all these ends of Divine punishments and are inflicted on the account of sin have the proper notion of punishments in them and God may accept of the undergoing them as a full satisfaction to his Law if they be such as tend to break men off from sin and assert God's right and vindicate his Honour to the world which are the ends assigned by Crellius and will be of great consequence to us in the following Discourse CHAP. II. I. The particular state of the Controversie concerning the sufferings of Christ. The Concessions of our Adversaries II. The debate reduced to two heads The first concerning Christâ—s sufferings being a punishment for sin entred upon In what sense Crellius acknowledgeth the sins of men to have been the impulsive cause of the death of Christ. III. The sufferings of Christ proved to be a punishment from Scripture The importance of the phrase of bearing sins IV. Of the Scape-Goats bearing the sins of the people into the Wilderness V. Grotius his sense of 1 Pet. 2.24 vindicated against Crellius and himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never used for the taking away a thing by the destruction of it VI. Crellius his sense examined VII Isa. 53.11 vindicated The argument from Matt. 8.17 answered Grotius constant to himself in his notes on that place VIII Isa. 53.5 6 7. cleared IX Whether Christ's death be a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether that doth imply that it was a punishment of sin How far the punishments of Children for their Fathers faults are exemplary among men The distinction of calamities and punishments holds not here X. That God's hatred of sin could not be seen in the sufferings of Christ unless they were a punishment of sin proved against Crellius XI Grotius his Arguments from Christ being made sin and a curse for us defended The liberty our Adversaries take in changing the sense of Words XII The particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned to sins and relating to sufferings do imply those sufferings to be a punishment for sin According to their way of interpreting Scripture it had been impossible for our doctrine to
meant meritorious or such upon supposition of which he ought to die for elsewhere he makes Christ to die for the cause or by the occasion of our sins which is the same that Crellius means by an impulsive or procatartick cause Which he thus explains we are now to suppose a decree of God not only to give salvation to Mankind but to give us a firm hope of it in this present state now our sins by deserving eternal punishment do hinder the effect of that decree upon us and therefore they were an impulsive cause of the death of Christ by which it was effected that this decree should obtain notwithstanding our sins But we are not to understand as tho' this were done by any expiation of the guilt of sin by the death of Christ but this effect is hindred by three things by taking away their sins by assuring men that their former sins and present infirmities upon their sincere obedience shall not be imputed to them and that the effect of that decree shall obtain all which saith he is effected morte Christi interveniente the death of Christ intervening but not as the procuring cause So that after all these words he means no more by making our sins an impulsive cause of the death of Christ but that the death of Christ was an argument to confirm to us the truth of his Doctrine which doctrine of his doth give us assurance of these things and that our sins when they are said to be the impulsive cause are not to be considered with a respect to their guilt but to that distrust of God which our sins do raise in us which distrust is in truth according to this sense of Crellius the impulsive cause and not the sins which were the cause or occasion of it For that was it which the doctrine was designed to remove and our sins only as the caâ—â—es of that But if it be said that he speaks not only of the distrust but of the punishment of sin as an impediment which must be removed too and therefore may be called an impulsive cause we are to consider that the removal of this is not attributed to the death of Christ but to the leaving of our sins by the belief of his Doctrine therefore the punishment of our sins cannot unless in a very remote sense be said to be an impulsive cause of that which for all that we can observe by Crellius might as well have been done without it if â—ny other way could be thought suffiâ—â—ent to confirm his Doctrine and Christ without dying might have had power to save all them that obey him But we understand not an impulsive cause in so remote a sense as though our sins were a meer occasion of Christs dying because the death of Christ was one argument among many others to believe his Doctrine the belief of which would make men leave their sins but we contend for a nearer and more proper sense viz. that the death of Christ was primarily intended for the expiation of our sins with a respect to God and not to us and therefore our sins as an impulsive cause are to be considered as they are so displeasing to God that it was necessary for the Vindication of God's Honour and the deterring the world from sin that no less a Sacrifice of Atonement should be offered than the blood of the Son of God So that we understand an impulsive cause here in the sense that the sins of the people were under the Law the cause of the offering up those Sacrifices which were appointed for the expiation of them And as in those Sacrifices there were two things to be considered viz. the mactation and the oblation of them the former as a punishment by a substitution of them in place of the persons who had offended the latter as the proper Sacrifice of Atonement although the mactation it self considered with the design of it was a Sacrificial act too So we consider the sufferings of Christ with a two-fold respect either as to our sins as the impulsive cause of them so they are to be considered as a punishment or as to God with a design to expiate the guilt of them so they are a Sacrifice of Atonement The first consideration is that we are now upon and upon which the present debate depends for if the sufferings of Christ be to be taken under the notion of punishment then our Adversaries grant that our sins must be an impulsive cause of them in another sense than they understand it For the clearing of this I shall prove these two things 1. That no other sense ought to be admitted of the places of Scripture which speak of the sufferings of Christ with a respect to sin but this 2. That this Account of the sufferings of Christ is no ways repugnant to the Iustice of God III. That no other sense ought to be admitted of the places of Scripture which speak of the sufferings of Christ with a respect to our sins but that they are to be considered as a punishment for them Such are those which speak of Christ bearing our sins of our iniquities being laid upon him of his making himself an offering for sin and being made sin and a curse for us and of his dying for our sins All which I shall so far consider as to vindicate them from all the exceptions which Socinus and Crellius have offered against them 1. Those which speak of Christ's bearing our sins As to which we shall consider First The importance of the phrase in general of bearing sin and then the circumstances of the particular places in dispute For the importance of the phrase Socinus acknowledges that it generally signifies bearing the punishment of sin in Scripture but that sometimes it signifies taking away The same is confessed by Crellius but he saith it doth not always signifie bearing proper punishment but it is enough says he that one bears something burdensome on the occasion of others sins and so Christ by undergoing his sufferings by occasion of sins may be said to bear our sins And for this sense he quotes Numb 14.33 And your Children shall wander in the Wilderness forty years and bear your whoredoms until your carcasses be wasted in the Wilderness Whereby saith he it is not meant that God would punish the Children of the Israelites but that by the occasion of their parents sins they should undergo that trouble in wandring in the Wilderness and being deprived of the possession of the promised Land But could Crellius think that any thing else could have been imagined setting aside a total destruction a greater instance of God's severity than that was to the Children of Israel all their circumstances being considered Is it not said that God did swear in his wrath they should not enter into his rest Surely then the debarring them so long of that rest was an instance of God's wrath and so according to his own principles must
〈◊〉 that will not prove that his death was a proper punishment To which I answer That whatever answers to the ends of an exemplary punishment may properly be called so but supposing that Christ suffered the punishment of our sins those sufferings will answer to all the ends of an exemplary punishment For the ends of such a punishment assigned by Crellius himself are That others observing such a punishment may abstain from those sins which have brought it upon the person who suffers Now the question is whether supposing Christ did suffer on the account of our sins these sufferings of his may deterr us from the practice of sin or no And therefore in opposition to Crellius I shall prove these two things 1. That supposing Christ suffered for our sins there was a sufficient argument to deterr us from the practice of sin 2. Supposing that his sufferings had no respect to our sins they could not have that force to deterr men from the practice of it for he after asserts That Christ's sufferings might be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to us though they were no punishment of sin 1. That the death of Christ considered as a punishment of sin is a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or hath a great force to deterr men from the practice of sin and that because the same reason of punishment is supposed in Christ and in our selves and because the example is much more considerable than if we had suffered our selves 1. The same reason of punishment is supposed For why are men deterred from sin by seeing others punished but because they look upon the sin as the reason of the punishment and therefore where the same reason holds the same ends may be as properly obtained If we said that Christ suffered death meerly as an innocent person out of God's dominion over his life what imaginable force could this have to deterr men from sin which is asserted to have no relation to it as the cause of it But when we say that God laid our iniquities upon him that he suffered not upon his own account but ours that the sins we commit against God were the cause of all those bitter Agonies which the Son of God underwent what argument can be more proper to deterr men from sin than this is For hereby they see the great abhorrency of sin which is in God that he will not pardon the sins of men without a compensation made to his Honour and a demonstration to the world of his hatred of it Hereby they see what a value God hath for his Laws which he will not relax as to the punishment of offenders without so valuable a consideration as the blood of his own Son Hereby they see that the punishment of sin is no meer arbitrary thing depending barely upon the will of God but that there is such a connexion between sin and punishment as to the ends of Government that unless the Honour and Majesty of God as to his Laws and Government maâ— be preserved the violation of his Laws must expect a just recompence of reward Hereby they see what those are to expect who neglect or despise these sufferings of the Son of God for them for nothing can then remain but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the Adversaries So that here all the weighty arguments concur which may be most apt to prevail upon men to deterr them from their sins For if God did thus by the green tree what will he do by the dry If he who was so innocent in himself so perfectly holy suffered so much on the account of our sins what then may those expect to suffer who have no innocency at all to plead and add wilfulness and impenitency to their sins But if it be replied by Crellius that it is otherwise among men I answer that we do not pretend in all things to parallel the sufferings of Christ for us with any sufferings of men for one another But yet we add that even among men the punishments inflicted on those who were themselves innocent as to the cause of them may be as exemplary as any other And the greater appearance of severity there is in them the greater terror they strike into all offenders As Children's losing their estates and honours or being banished for their Parents treasons in which they had no part themselves Which is a proper punishment on them of their Father's faults whether they be guilty or no and if this may be just in men why not in God If any say that the Parents are only punished in the Children he speaks that which is contradictory to the common sense of mankind for punishment doth suppose sense or feeling of it and in this case the Parents are said to be punished who are supposed to be dead and past feeling of it and the Children who undergo the smart of it must not be said to be punished though all things are so like it that no person can imagine himself in that condition but would think himself punished and severely too If it be said that these are calamities indeed but they are no proper punishments it may easily be shewed that distinction will not hold here Because these punishments were within the design of the Law and were intended for all the ends of punishments and therefore must have the nature of them For therefore the Children are involved in the Father's punishment on purpose to deterr others from the like actions There are some things indeed that Children may fall into by occasion of their Father's guilt which may be only calamities to them because they are neâ—essary consequents in the nature of the thing and not purposely design'd as a punishment to them Thus being deprived of the comfort and assistance of their Parents when the Law hath taken them off by the hand of justice this was designed by the Law as a punishment to the Parents and as to the Children it is only a necessary consequent of their punishment For otherwise the Parents would have been punished for the Childrens faults and not the Children only involved in that which unavoidably follows upon the Parents punishment So that Crellius is very much mistaken either in the present case of our Saviour's punishment or in the general reason of exemplary punishments as among men But the case of our Saviour is more exemplary when we consider the excellency of his person though appearing in our nature when no meaner sufferings would satisfie than of so transcendent a nature as he underwent though he were the Eternal Son of God this must make the punishment much more exemplary than if he were considered only as our Adversaries do as a mere man So that the dignity of his person under all his sufferings may justly add a greater consideration to deterr us from the practice of sin which was so severely punished in him when he was pleased to be a Sacrifice for our sins From whence
righteous persons who are not antecedently supposed to be so by his own Argument Christ being dealt with as a sinner must suppose guilt antecedent to it and since the Apostle declares it was not his own in those words Who knew no sin it follows that it must be the consideration of ours which must make him be dealt with as a sinner by him who made him to be sin for us But to suppose that Christ should be said to be made sin without any respect to sin is as much as if the Latins should call any one Scelus and mean thereby a very honest man or a Piaculum without any supposition of his own or others guilt But we are to consider that the sufferings of Christ seeming at first so inconsistent with that relation to God as his only Son which the Apostles assert concerning him they were obliged to vindicate his innocency as to men and yet withal to shew that with a respect to God there was sufficient reason for his permission of his undergoing these sufferings That he knew no sin was enough to clear his innocency as to men but then the question will be asked If he were so innocent why did God suffer all those things to come upon him Did not Abraham plead of old with God That he would not slay the righteous with the wicked because it was repugnant to the righteousness of his nature to do so That be far from thee to do after this manner to slay the righteteous with the wicked and that the righteous should be as the wicked that be far from thee shall not the Iudge of all the Earth do right How then comes God to suffer the most perfect innocency to be dealt with so as the greatest sins could not have deserved worse from men Was not his righteousness the same still And Abraham did not think the distinction of calamities and punishments enough to vindicate God's proceedings if the righteous should have been dealt withal as the wicked And if that would hold for such a measure of righteousness as might be supposed in such who were not guilty of the great abominations of those places that it should be enough not only to deliver themselves but the wicked too how comes it that the most perfect obedience of the Son of God is not sufficient to excuse him from the greatest sufferings of Malefactors But if his sufferings had been meerly from men God had been accountable only for the bare permission but it is said that he fore-ordained and determined these things to be that Christ himself complained that God had forsaken him and here that he made him sin for us and can we imagine all this to be without any respect to the guilt of sin as the cause of it Why should such an expression be used of being made sin might not many others have served sufficiently to declare the indignities and sufferings he underwent without such a phrase as seems to reflect upon Christ's innocency If there had been no more in these expressions than our Adversaries imagine the Apostles were so careful of Christ's honour they would have avoided such ill-sounding expressions as these were and not have affected Hebraisms and uncouth forms of speech to the disparagement of their Religion But this is all which our Adversaries have to say where words are used by them out of their proper sense That the Prophets and Apostles affected tricks of wit playing with words using them sometimes in one sense and presently quite in another So Crellius saith of Isaiah That he affects little elegancies of words and verbal allusions which makes him use words sometimes out of their proper and natural sense thence he tells us The sufferings of Christ are called chastisements though they have nothing of the nature of chastisements in them And from this liberty of interpreting they make words without any other reason than that they serve for their purpose be taken in several senses in the same verse For Socinus in one verse of St. Iohn's Gospel makes the World to be taken in three several senses He was in the World there it is taken saith he for the men of the World in general The world was made by him there it must be understood only of the reformation of things by the Gospel and the world knew him not there it must be taken in neither of the former senses but for the wicked of the world What may not one make of the Scripture by such a way of interpreting it But by this we have the less reason to wonder that Socinus should put such an Interpretation upon Gal. 3.13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree In which he doth acknowledge by the curse in the first clause to be meant the punishment of sin but not in the second And the reason he gives for it is amavit enim Paulus in execrationis verbo argutus esse St. Paul affected playing with the word curse understanding it first in a proper and then a Metaphorical sense But it is plain that the design of S. Paul and Socinus are very different in these words Socinus thinks he speaks only Metaphorically when he saith that Christ was made a curse for us i. e. by a bare allusion of the name without a correspondency in the thing it self and so that the death of Christ might be called a curse but was not so But St. Paul speaks of this not by way of extenuation but to set forth the greatness and weight of the punishment he underwent for us He therefore tells us what it was which Christ did redeem us from The curse of the Law and how he did it by being not only made a curse but a curse for us i. e. not by being hateful to God or undergoing the very same curse which we should have done which are the two things objected by Crellius against our sense but that the death of Christ was to be considered not as a bare separation of soul and body but as properly poenal being such a kind of death which none but Malefactors by the Law were to suffer by the undergoing of which punishment in our stead he redeemed us from that curse which we were liable to by the violation of the Law of God And there can be no reason to appropriate this only to the Iews unless the death of Christ did extend only to the deliverance of them from the punishment of their sins or because the curse of the Law did make that death poenal therefore the intention of the punishment could reach no further than the Law did but the Apostle in the very next words speaks of the farther extension of the great blessing promised to Abraham That it should come upon the Gentiles also and withal those whom the Apostle speaks to were not Iews but such as thought they ought to joyn the
take our Nature upon him than that a man should be rapt up into Heaven that it might be said that he came down from thence For in the foâ—mer Supposition we have many other places of Scripture to support it which speak of his being with God and having Glory with him before the World was whereas there is nothing for the other but only that it is necessary to make some tolerable Sense of those words 4. It is more Reasonable to believe that God should become Man by taking our Nâ—ture upon him than that Man should become God For in the former there is nothing but the Difficulty of conceiving the Maâ—â—â—r of the Union which we all grant to be so between Soul and Body but in the other there is a Repugnancy in the very Conception of a Created God of an Eternal Son of Adam of Omnipotent Infirmity of an Infinite finite Being In the former Case an Infinite is united to a Finite but in the other a Finite becomes Infinite 5. It is more Reasonable to believe that Christ Iesus should suffer as he did for our sakes than for his own We are all agreed that the Sufferings of Christ were far beyond any thing he deserved at God's hands but what Account then is to be given of them We say that he made himself a voluntary Sacrifice for Expiation of the Sins of Mankind and so there was a great and noble End designed and no Injury done to a willing Mind and the Scripture as plainly expresses this as it can do in Words But others deny this and make him to suffer as one wholly Innocent for what Cause To make the most Innocent Persons as apprehensive of Suffering as the most Guilty and the most righteous God to put no difference between them with Respect to Suffering 6. It is more Reasonable to suppose such a Condescension in the Son of God to take upon him the Form of a Servant for our Advantage than that a meer Man should be Exalted to the Honour and Worship which belongs only to God For on the one side there is nothing but what is agreeable to the Divine Nature viz. Infinite Love and Condescension and Pity to Mankind on the other there is the greatest Design of Self-Exaltation that ever was in Humane Nature viz. for a meer Man to have the most Essential Attributes and Incommunicable Honour which belongs to God And whether of these two is more agreeable to the Spirit and Design of the New Testament let any man of understanding judge For as it is evident that the great Intention of it is to magnifie the wonderful Love of God in the sending of his Son so it is as plain that one great End of the Christian Doctrine was to take Mankind off from giving Divine Worship to Creatures and can we then suppose that at the same time it should set up the Worship of a meer Man with all the Honour and Adoration which belongs to God This is to me an incomprehensible Mystery indeed and far beyond all that is implied in the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation For it subverts the very Foundation of the Design of Christianity as to the Reforming Idolatry then in being it lays the Foundation for introducing it into the Woâ—ld again for since the Distance between God and his Creatures is taken away in the matter of Worship there is nothing left but the Declaration of his Will which doth not exclude more Mediators of Intercession but upon this Ground that the Mediation of Redemption is the Foundation of that of Intercession And it is far more easie for us to suppose there may be some things too hard for us to understand in the Mystery of our Redemption by Iesus Christ than that at the same time it should be both a Duty and a Sin to worship any but the true God with proper Divine Worship For if it be Idolatry to give it to a Creature then it is a great Sin for so the Scripture still accounts it but if we are bound to give it to Christ who is but a Creature then that which in it self is a Sin is now become a Necessary Duty which overthrows the Natural Differences of Good and Evil and makes Idolatry to be a meer Arbitrary thing And I take it for granted that in Matters of Religion Moral Difficulties are more to be regarded than Intellectual because Religion was far more designed for a Rule of our Actions than for the Satisfaction of our Curiosity And upon due Examination we shall find that there is no such frightfull Appearances of Difficulties in the Mystery of the Incarnation as there is in giving Divine Worship to a Creature And it ought to be observed that those very Places which are supposed to exclude Christ from being the true God must if they have any force exclude him from Divine Worship For they are spoken of God as the Object of our Worship but if he be not excluded from Divine Worship then neither is he from being the true God which they grant he is by Office but not by Nature But a God by Office who is not so by Nature is a new and incomprehensible Mystery A Mystery hidden from Ages and Generations as to the Church of God but not made known by the Gospel of his Son This is such a kind of Mystery as the Heathen Priests had who had Gods many and Lords many as the Apostle saith i. e. many by Office although but one by Nature But if the Christian Religion had owned one God by Nature and only one by Office the Heathens had been to blame chiefly in the Number of their Gods by Office and not in the Divine Worship which they gave to them But S. Paul blames the Heathens for doing Service to them which by Nature are no Gods not for doing it without Divine Authority nor for mistaking the Person who was God by Office but in giving Divine Worship to them who by Nature were no Gods which he would never have said if by the Christian Doctrine Divine Worship were to be given to one who was not God by Nature But these are indeed incomprehensible Mysteries how a Man by Nature can be a God really and truly by Office how the Incommunicable Perfections of the Divine Nature can be communicated to a Creature how God should give his Glory to another and by his own Command require that to be given to a Creature which himself had absolutely forbidden to be given to any besides himself It is said by a famous Iesuit I will not say how agreeably to their own Doctrines and Practices about Divine Worship that the Command of God cannot make him worthy of Divine Worship who without such a Command is not worthy of it And it is very absurd to say that he that is unworthy of it without a Command can become worthy by it for it makes God to command Divine Honour to be given to one who
there would have followed a deliverance ipso facto for the release immediately follows the payment of the same and it had been injustice to have required any thing further in order to the discharge of the Offender when strict and full payment had been made of what was in the obligation But we see that Faith and Repentance and the consequences of those two are made conditions on our parts in order to the enjoying the benefit of what Christ hath procured So that the release is not immediate upon the payment but depends on a new contract made in consideration of what Christ hath done and suffered for us If it be said That by Christ's payment we become his and he requires these conditions of us besides the contrariety of it to the Scriptures which make the conditions to be required by him to whom the payment was made we are to consider that these very persons assert that Christ paid all for us and in our name and stead so that the payment by Christ was by a substitution in our room and if he paid the same which the Law required the benefit must immediately accrue to those in whose name the debt was paid For what was done in the name of another is all one to the Creditor as if it had been done by the Debtor himself But above all things it is impossible to reconcile the freeness of remission with the full payment of the very same which was in the obligation Neither will it serve to say That though it was not free to Christ yet it was to us For the satisfaction and remission must respect the same person for Christ did not pay for himself but for us neither could the remission be to him Christ therefore is not consider'd in his own name but as acting in our stead so that what was free to him must be to us what was exactly paid by him it is all one as if it had been done by us so that it is impossible the same debt should be fully paid and freely forgiven Much less will it avoid the difficulty in this case to say That it was a refusable payment for it being supposed to be the very same it was not in justice refusable and however not in equity if it answer the intention of the Law as much as the suffering of the offenders had done and the more it doth that the less refusable it is And although God himself found out the way that doth not make the pardon free but the designation of the person who was to pay the debt Thus when our Adversaries dispute against this opinion no wonder if they do it successfully but this whole opinion is built upon a mistake that satisfaction must be the payment of the very same which while they contend for they give our Adversaries too great an advantage and make them think they triumph over the Faith of the Church when they do it only over the mistake of some particular persons But the foundation of this mistake lies in the consideration of punishment under the notion of debts and that satisfaction therefore must be by strict payment in rigor of Law but how great that mistake is will appear in the subsequent discourse But it cannot but be wondred at that the very same persons who consider sins as debts which must be strictly satisfied for do withal contend for the absolute necessity of this satisfaction whereas Socinus his Arguments would hold good if sins were only considered as debts and God as the mere Creditor of punishment he might as freely part with his own right without satisfaction as any Creditor may forgive what summ he pleases to a person indebted to him and no reason can be brought to the contrary from that notion of sins why he may not do it But if they be considered with a respect to God's Government of the world and the honour of his Laws then some further account may be given why it may not be consistent with that to pass by the sins of men without satisfaction made to them III. And because the mistake in this matter hath been the foundation of most of the subsequent mistakes on both sides and the discovery of the cause of errors doth far more to the cure of them than any Arguments brought against them and withal the true understanding of the whole Doctrine of satisfaction depends upon it I shall endeavour to make clear the notion under which our sins are considered for upon that depends the nature of the satisfaction which is to be made for them For while our Adversaries suppose that sins are to be looked on under the notion of debts in this debate they assert it to be wholly free for God to remit them without any satisfaction They make the right of punishment merely to depend on God's absolute Dominion and that all satisfaction must be considered under the notion of compensation for the injuries done to him to whom it is to be made But if we can clearly shew a considerable difference between the notion of debts and punishments if the right of punishment doth not depend upon mere Dominion and that satisfaction by way of punishment is not primarily intended for compensation but for other ends we shall make not only the state of the Controversie much clearer but offer something considerable towards the resolution of it The way I shall take for the proof of the difference between debts and punishments shall be using the other for the Arguments for it For besides that those things are just in matter of debts which are not so in the case of punishments as that it is lawfull for a man to forgive all the debts which are owing him by all persons though they never so contumaciously refuse payment but our Adversaries will not say so in the case of sins for although they assert That the justice of God doth never require punishment in case of repentance yet withal they assert That in case of impenitency it is not only agreeable but due to the nature and decrees and therefore to the rectitude and equity of God not to give pardon But if this be true then there is an apparent difference between the notion of debts and punishments for the Impenitency doth but add to the gâ—eatness of the debt And will they say it is only in God's power to remit small debts but he must punish the greatest what becomes then of God's absolute liberty to part with hâ—s own right will not this shew more of his kindness to pardon the greater rather than lesser offenders But if there be something in the nature of the thing which makes it not only just but necessary for impenitent sinners to be punished as Crellius after Socinus frequently acknowledges then it is plain that sins are not to be considered merely as debts for that obstinacy and impenitency is only punished as a greater degree of sin and therefore as a greater debt And withal those things
have something of Vindicta in it and therefore be a proper punishment The truth is our Adversaries allow themselves in speaking things most repugnant to Humane Nature in this matter of punishments that they may justifie their own hypothesis For a whole Nation to be for forty years debarred from the greatest blessings were ever promised them and instead of enjoying them to endure the miseries and hardships of forty years travels in a barren wilderness must not be thought a punishment and only because occasioned by their Parents sins But whatever is inflicted on the account of sin and with a design to shew God's severity against it and thereby to deter others from the practice of it hath the proper notion of punishment in it and all these things did concurr in this instance besides the general sense of mankind in the matter of their punishment which was such that supposing them preserved in their liberty could not have been imagined greater And therefore Vatablus whom Socinus and Crellius highly commend thus renders those words dabunt poenas pro fornicationibus vestris quibus defecistis à Deo vestro they shall suffer the punishment of your fornications And that bearing the sins of Parents doth imply properly bearing the punishment of them methinks they should not so earnestly deny who contend that to be the meaning of the words in Ezekiel The Son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father viz. that he shall not bear the punishment of his Fathers sins Where in bearing iniquity with a respect to their Parents sins by their own confession must be taken for the proper punishment for otherwise they do not deny but Children notwithstanding that sentence may undergo much affliction on the occasion of their Parents sins IV. But Socinus further objects that bearing sins doth not imply the punishment of them because the Scape-Goat under the Law is said to bear upon him the iniquities of the people and yet could not be said to be punished for them To which Grotius answers that Socinus takes it for granted without reason that the Scape-Goat could not be said to be punished for the sins of the people for punishment in general may fall upon beasts for the sins of men Gen. 9.5 Exod. 21.28 Lev. 20.15 Gen. 8.21 and Socinus hath no cause to say that the Scape-Goat was not slain for the Iewish Interpreters do all agree that he was and however the sending him into the Wilderness was intended as a punishment and most probably by an unnatural death To which Crellius replies That in the general he denies not but punishment may fall upon beasts as well as men but that he might shew himself true to his principle that one cannot be punished for anothers faults he falls into a very pleasant discourse That the Beasts are not said to be punished for mens sins but for their own and therefore when it is said before the flood that all flesh had corrupted his way he will by no means have it understood only of men but that the sins of the beasts at that time were greater than ordinary as well as mens But he hath not told us what they were whether by eating some forbidden herbs or entring into conspiracies against mankind their lawful Sovereigns or unlawful mixtures and therefore we have yet reason to believe that when God saith the ground was cursed for man's sake that the beasts were punished for mans sin And if all flesh must comprehend beasts in this place why shall not all flesh seeing the glory of the Lord take in the beasts there too for Vatablus parallels this place with the other But if saith Crellius any shall contend that some beasts at least were innocent then he saith that those though they were destroyed by the flood yet did not suffer punishment but only a calamity by occasion of the sins of men I wonder he did not rather say that the innocent beasts were taken into the Ark for the propagation of a better kind afterwards But by this solemn distinction of calamities and punishments there is nothing so miserable that either men or beasts can undergo but when it serves their turn it shall be only a calamity and no punishment though it be said to be on purpose to shew God's severity against the sins of the world And this excellent notion of the beasts being punished for their own sins is improved by him to the vindication of the Scape-Goat from being punished because then saith he the most wicked and corrupt Goat should have been made choice of As though all the design of that great day of expiation had been only to call the Children of Israel together with great solemnity to let them see how a poor Goat must be punished for breaking the Laws which we do not know were ever made for them I had thought our Adversaries had maintained that the Sacrifices on the day of expiation at least had represented and typified the Sacrifice which was to be offered up by Christ and so Socinus and Crellius elsewhere contend he needed not therefore have troubled himself concerning the sins of the Goat when it is expresly said That the sins of the people were put on the head of the Goat Whatever then the punishment were it was on the account of the sins of the people and not his own But Crellius urgeth against Grotius that if the Scape-Goat had been punished for the expiation of the sins of the people that should have been particularly expressed in Scripiure whereas nothing is said there at all of it and that the throwing down the Scape-Goat from the top of the rock was no part of the Primitive Institution but one of the superstitions taken up by the Iews in after-times because of the Ominousness of the return of it and although we should suppose which is not probable that it should die by famine in the Wilderness yet this was not the death for expiation which was to be by the shedding of blood To this therefore I answer 1. I do not insist on the customs of the later Jews to prove from thence any punishment designed by the primitive institution For I shall easily yield that many superstitions obtained among them aftewards about the Scape-Goat as the stories of the red list turning white upon the head of it the booths and the causey made on purpose and several other things mentioned in the Rabbinical Writers do manifest But yet it seems very probable from the Text it self that the Scape-Goat was not carried into the Wilderness at large but to a steep mountain there For although we have commonly render'd Azazel by the Scape-Goat yet according to the best of the Jewish writers as P. Fagius tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not come from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Goat and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abiit but is the name of a Mountain very steep and rocky near Mount Sinai and therefore
to Vossius not long since published and he utterly disowns the charge of Socinianism as a calumny in his discussion the last Book he ever writ VIII But we are no further obliged to vindicate Grotius than he did the truth which we are sure he did in the vindication of the 53 of Isaiah from Socinus his interpretations notwithstanding what Crellius hath objected against him We therefore proceed to other Verses in the same Chapter insisted on by Grotius to prove that Christ did bear the punishments of our sins v. 6 7. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all It is required and he was afflicted as Grotius renders those words Socinus makes a twofold sense of the former clause the first is That God by or with Christ did meet with our iniquities the latter That God did make our iniquities to meet with Christ. The words saith Grotius will not bear the former interpretation for the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being in Hiphil must import a double action and so it must not be That God by him did meet with our sins but that God did make our sins to meet upon him To which Crellius replies That words in Hiphil are sometimes used intransitively but can he produce any instance in Scripture where this word joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is so taken for in the last verse of the Chapter the construction is different And what an uncertain way of interpreting Scripture will this be if every Anomalous signification and rare use of a word shall be made use of to take away such a sense as is most agreeable to the design of the place For that sense we contend for is not only enforced upon the most natural importance of these words but upon the agreeableness of them with so many other expressions of this Chapter that Christ did bear our iniquities and was wounded for our transgressions and that his soul was made an offering for sin to which it is very suitable that as the iniquities of the people were as it were laid upon the head of the Sacrifice so it should be said of Christ who was to offer up himself for the sins of the world And the Iews themselves by this phrase do understand the punishment either for the sins of the people which Iosias underwent or which the people themselves suffered by those who interpret this prophecy of them To which purpose Aben Ezra observes that iniquity is here put for the punishment of it as 1 Sam. 28.10 and Lam. 4.6 But Socinus mistrusting the incongruity of this Interpretation flies to another viz. That God did make our iniquities to meet with Christ And this we are willing to admit of if by that they mean That Christ underwent the punishment of them as that phrase must naturally import for what otherwise can our iniquities meeting with him signifie For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken properly as Socinus acknowledgeth it ought to be when he rejects Pagnin's Interpretation of making Christ to interceed for our iniquities signifies either to meet with one by chance or out of kindness or else for an encounter with an intention to destroy that which it meets with So Iudg. 8.21 Rise thou 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LXX irrue in nos fall upon us i e. run upon us with thy sword and kill us Iudg. 15.12 Swear unto me that ye will not fall upon me your selves where the same word is used and they explain the meaning of it in the next words v. 13. We will not kill thee Amos 5.19 as if a man did flee from a Lyon and a Bear met him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. with a design to kill him Now I suppose they will not say that our sins met with Christ by Chance since it is said that God laid on him c. not out of kindness it must be therefore out of enmity and with a design to destroy him and so our sins cannot be understood as Socinus and Crellius would have them as the meer occasions of Christ's death but as the proper impulsive cause of it Whether the following word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be taken with a respect to sin and so it properly signifies It is required or with a respect to the person and so it may signifie he was oppressed is not a matter of that consequence which we ought to contend about if it be proved that Christ's oppression had only a respect to sin as the punishment of it Which will yet further appear from another expression in the same Chapter v. 5. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed In which Grotius saith the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie any kind of affliction but such as hath the nature of punishment either for example or instruction but since the latter cannot be intended in Christ the former must Crellius thinks to escape from this by acknowledging that the sufferings of Christ have some respect to sin but if it be such a respect to sin which makes what Christ underwent a punishment which is only proper in this case it is as much as we contend for This therefore he is loth to abide by and saith that chastisement imports no more than bare affliction without any respect to sin which he thinks to prove from St. Paul's words 2 Cor. 6.9 We are chastised but not given over to death but how far this is from proving his purpose will easily appear 1. Because those by whom they were said to be chastened did not think they did it without any respect to a fault but they supposed them to be justly punished and this is that we plead for that the chastisement considered with a respect to him that inflicts it doth suppose some fault as the reason of inflicting it 2. This is far from the present purpose for the chastisement there mention'd is opposed to death as chastened but not killed whereas Grotius expresly speaks of such chastisements as include death that these cannot be supposed to be meerly designed for instruction and therefore must be conceived under the notion of punishment The other place Psal. 73.14 is yet more remote from the business for though the Psalmist accounts himself innocent in respect of the great enormities of others yet he could not account himself so innocent with a respect to God as not to deserve chastisement from him IX But Crellius offers further to prove that Christ's death must be considered as a bare affliction and not as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or exemplary punishment because in such a punishment the guilty themselves are to be punished and the benefit comes to those who were not guilty but in Christ's sufferings it was quite contrary for the innocent was punished and the guilty have the benefit of it and yet he saith if we should grant that Christ's sufferings were a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
therefore generally punisheth the whole Family or People 3. That which may be a meer exercise of dominion as to some may be a proper punishment to others as in the case of Infants being taken away for their Parents sins For God as to the Children he saith useth only an act of dominion but the punishment only redounds to the Parents who lose them and though this be done for the very end of punishment yet he denies that it hath the nature of Punishment in any but the Parents 4. That punishment may be intended for those who can have no sense at all of it as Crellius asserts in the case of Saul's sons 2 Sam. 21.8 14. that the punishment was mainly intended for Saul who was already dead From these concessions of Crellius in this case we may take notice 1. That a remote conjunction may be sufficient for a translation of penalty viz. from one Generation to another 2. That sins may be truly said to be punished in others when the offenders themselves may escape punishment thus the sins of Parents in their Children and Princes in their Subjects 3. That an act of dominion in some may be designed as a proper punishment to others 4. That the nature of punishment is not to be measured by the sense of it Now upon these concessions though our Adversaries will not grant that Christ was properly punished for our sins yet they cannot deny but that we may very properly be said to be punished for our sins in Christ and if they will yield us this the other may be a strife about words For surely there may be easily imagined as great a conjunction between Christ and us as between the several Generations of the Iews and that last which was punished in the destruction of Ierusalem and though we escape that punishment which Christ did undergo yet we might have our sins punished in him as well as Princes theirs in their Subjects when they escape themselves or rather as Subjects in an innocent Prince who may suffer for the faults of his people if it be said that these are acts of meer dominion as to such a one that nothing hinders but granting it yet our sins may be said to be punished in him as well as Parents sins are punished properly in meer acts of dominion upon their Children if it be said that can be no punishment where there is no sense at all of it that is fully taken off by Crellius for surely we have as great a sense of the sufferings of Christ as the first Generation of the Iews had of the sufferings of the last before the fatal destruction of the City or as Saul had of the punishment of his Sons after his death So that from Crellius his own concessions we have proved that our sins may very properly be said to be punished in Christ although he will not say that Christ could be properly punished for our sins nay he and the rest of our Adversaries not only deny it but earnestly contend that it is very unjust to suppose it and repugnant to the rectitude of God's nature to do it III. And so we come to consider the mighty arguments that are insisted on for the proof of this which may be reduced to these three viz. 1. That there can be no punishment but what is deserved but no man can deserve that another should be punished 2. That punishment flows from revenge but there can be no revenge where there hath been no fault 3. That the punishment of one cannot any ways be made the punishment of another and in case it be supposed possible then those in whose stead the other is punished must be actually delivered upon the payment of that Debt which was owing to God 1. That one man cannot deserve anothers punishment and therefore one cannot be punished for another for there is no just punishment but what is deserved This being the main Argument insisted on by Crellius must be more carefully considered but before an answer be made to it it is necessary that a clear account be given in what sense it is he understands it which will be best done by laying down his principles as to the justice of punishments in a more distinct method than himself hath done which are these following 1. That no person can be justly punished either for his own or anothers faults but he that hath deserved to be punished by some sin of his own For he still asserts That the justice of punishment ariseth from a mans own fault though the actual punishment may be from anothers But he that is punished without respect to his own guilt is punished undeservedly and he that is punished undeservedly is punished unjustly 2. That personal guilt being supposed one man's sin may be the impulsive cause of another's punishment but they cannot be the meritorious The difference between them he thus explains The cause is that which makes a thing to be the impulsive that which moves one to do a thing without any consideration of right that one hath to do it Merit is that which makes a man worthy of a thing either good or bad and so gives a right to it if it be good to himself if bad to him at whose hands he hath deserved it Now he tells us that it is impossible That one mans sins should make any other deserve punishment but the person who committed them but they may impell one to punish another and that justly if the person hath otherwise deserved to be punished unjustly if he hath not The reason he gives of it is That the vitiosity of the act which is the proper cause of punishment cannot go beyond the person of the offender and therefore can oblige none to punishment but him that hath committed the fault And therefore he asserts That no man can be justly punished beyond the desert of his own sins but there may sometimes be a double impulsive cause of that punishment viz. His own and other mens whereof one made that they might be justly punished the other that they should be actually but the latter he saith always supposeth the former as the foundation of just punishment so that no part of punishment could be executed upon him wherein his own sins were not supposed as the meritorious cause of it These are his two main principles which we must now throughly examine the main force of his Book lying in them But if we can prove that it hath been generally received by the consent of mankind that a person may be punished beyond the desert of his own actions if God hath justly punished some for the sins of others and there be no injustice in one mans suffering by his own consent for another then these principles of Crellius will be found not so firm as he imagines them IV. 1. That it hath been generally received by the consent of mankind that a person may be justly punished beyond the desert of his own
likewise there is necessity in nature and reason that he that hath thus deserved it must unavoidably suffer it And on the other side we say no man by his innocency can deserve to be punished i. e. no man's innocency makes him by vertue of that obnoxious to punishment but yet we add that notwithstanding his innocency the circumstances may be such that he may be justly punished and in that sense deservedly So that the Question is strangely mistaken when it is thus put Whether an innocent person considered as such may be justly punished for no one asserts that or is bound to do it but the true question is whether a person notwithstanding his innocency may not by some act of his own will oblige himself to undergo that punishment which otherwise he did not deserve which punishment in that case is just and agreeable to reason And this is that which we assert and plead for So that innocency here is not considered any other ways than whether that alone makes it an unlawfull punishment which otherwise would be lawfull i. e. whether the Magistrate in such cases where substitution is admittable by the Laws of Nations as in the cases we are now upon be bound to regard any more than that the obligation to punishment now lies upon the person who by his own act hath substituted himself in the others room and if he proceeds upon this his action is justifiable and agreeable to reason If it be said that the substitution is unjust unless the substituted person hath before-hand deserved to be punished it is easily answered that this makes not the matter at all clearer for either the person is punished for the former fault and then there is no substitution or if he be punished by way of substitution then there is no regard at all had to his former fault and so it is all one as if he were perfectly innocent VI. And by this Crellius his answer to the instances both in Scripture and elsewhere concerning Childrens being punished for their Parents faults will appear to be insufficient viz. That God doth never punish them for their Parents faults beyond the desert of their own sins and therefore no argument can be drawn from thence that God may punish an innocent person for the sins of others because he hath punished some for what they were innocent For the force of the argument doth not lie in the supposition of their innocency as to the ground of punishment in general for we do not deny but that they may deserve to be punished for their own faults but the argument lies in this whether their own guilt were then considered as the reason of punishment when God did punish them for their fathers faults And whether they by their own sins did deserve to be punished not only with the punishment due to their own miscarriages but with the punishment due to their fathers too If not then some persons are justly punished who have not deserved that punishment they undergo if they did deserve it then one person may deserve to be punished for anothers sins If it be said as it is by Crellius that his own sins make him capable of punishment and God by occasion of others sins doth execute that punishment which he might not have done for his own I answer we are not enquiring into the bare capacity of punishing but into the reason of it was the reason of punishment his own or his fathers sins If his own then he was punished only for his own sins if his fathers then the punishment may be just which is inflicted without consideration of proper desert of it for no man say they can deserve to be punished but for his own sins But it 's said that the sins of Fathers are only an impulsive cause for God to punish the Children according to the desert of their own sins which he might otherwise have forborn to punish Then the sins of the Fathers are no reason why the Children should be punished but their own sins are the reason and their Fathers the bare occasion of being punished for them But in Scripture the reason of punishment is drawn from the Fathers sins and not from the Childrens For then the words would have run thus if the Children sin and deserve punishment by their own iniquities then I will take occasion from their Fathers sins to visit their own iniquities upon them Whereas the words referr to the Fathers sins as the reason of the Childrens punishment So in the words of the Law wherein the reason of punishment ought to be most expresly assigned it is not I will certainly punish the Children if they continue in the Idolatry of their Fathers but I will visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth Generation of them that hate me If it were only because of imitation of the Fathers sins by the Children there could be no reason for the limitation to the third and fourth Generation for then the reason of punishment would be as long as the imitation continued whether to the fourth or tenth Generation And as Alphonsus à Castro observes If the reason of punishment were the imitation of their Fathers sins then the Children were not punished for their Fathers sins but for their own for that imitation was a sin of their own and not of their Fathers Besides if the proper reason of punishment were the sins of the Children and the Fathers sins only the occasion of it then where it is mentioned that Children are punished for their Parents sins the Childrens sins should have been particularly expressed as the proper cause of the punishment But no other reason is assigned in the Law but the sins of the Fathers no other cause mentioned of Canaan's punishment but his Father's sin nor of the punishment of the people in David's time but his own sin Lo I have sinned and I have done wickedly but these sheep what have they done Which is no hyperbolical expression but the assigning the proper cause of that judgment to have been his own sin as the whole Chapter declares Nor of the hanging up of Saul's sons by the Gibeonites but that Saul their Father had plotted their destruction And in an instance more remarkable than any of those which Crellius answers viz. the punishment of the people of Iudah for the sins of Manasses in the time of Iosias when a through Reformation was designed among them the Prince being very good and all the places of Idolatry destroyed such a Passover kept as had not been kept before in the time of any King in Israel yet it then follows Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Iudah because of all the provocations wherewith Manasses had provoked him withal Who can say here that the sins of Manasseh were only the occasion of God punishing the people in the time of
Iosias for their own sins when their sins were much less in the time of Iosias than in any time mentioned before after their lapse into Idolatry Nay it is expresly said That Iosiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the Children of Israel and made all that were present in Israel to serve even to serve the Lord their God And all his days they departed not from following the Lord God of their Fathers To say that thâ—s was done in hypocrisie and bare outward compliance is to speak without book and if the reason of so severe punishments had been their hypocrisie that ought to have been mentioned but not only here but afterwards it is said that the reason of God's destroying Iudah was for the sins of Manasseh viz. his Idolatries and Murther which it is said the Lord will not pardon And if he would not pardon then he did punish for those sins not barely as the occasion but as the meritorious cause of that punishment What shall we say then Did the people in Iosiah's time deserve to be punished for the sins of Manasseh Grandfather to Iosiah Or was God so highly provoked with those sins that although he did not punish Manasseh himself upon his repentance yet he would let the world see how much he abhâ—rred them by punishing those sins upon the people afterwards although according to the usual proportion of sins and punishments the sins of the people in that age did not exceed the sins of other ages as much as the punishments they suffered did exceed the punishments of other ages which is necessary according to Crellius his Doctrine for if God never punisheth by occasion of their Fathers sins the Children beyond the desert of their own sins then it is necessary that where judgments are remarkably greater the sins must be so too the contrary to which is plain in this instance By which we see that it is not contrary to the Justice of God in punishing to make the punishment of some on the account of others sins to exceed the desert of their own measuring that desert not in a way common to all sin but when the desert of some sins is compared with the desert of others For it is of this latter we speak of and of the method which God useth in punishing sin here for the demonstration of his hatred of it according to which the greatest punishments must suppose the greatest sins either of their own or others which they suffer for VII But hath not God declared That he will never punish the Children for the Fathers sins for the soul that sinneth it shall die the son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father c. To which I answer These words are to be considered as an answer to a complaint made by the Iews soon after their going into Captivity which they imputed to God's severity in punishing them for their Fathers sins Now the complaint was either true or false if it were true then though this was looked upon as great severity in God yet it was no injustice in him for though God may act severely he cannot act unjustly If it was false then the answer had been an absolute denial of it as a thing repugnant to the Justice of God Which we do not find here but that God saith unto them v. 3. Ye shall not have occasion any more to use this Proverb in Israel if the thing had been plainly unjust which they complained of he would have told them they never had occasion to use it But we find the Prophets telling them before-hand that they should suffer for their Fathers sins Ier. 15.3 4. where he threatens them with destruction and banishment because of the sins of Manasseh in Ierusalem and in the beginning of the captivity they complain of this Lam. 5.7 Our Fathers have sinned and are not and we have born their iniquities And Ier. 31.28 God saith by the Prophet that he had watched over them to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy and to afflict but that he would watch over them to build and to plant and in those days they shall say no more the Fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge but every one shall die for his own iniquity Which place is exactly parallel with this in Ezekiel and gives us a clear account of it which is that now indeed God had dealt very severely with them by making them suffer beyond what in the ordinary course of his providence their sins had deserved but he punished them not only for their own sins but the sins of their Fathers But lest they should think they should be utterly consumed for their iniquities and be no longer a people enjoying the Land which God had promised them he tells them by the Prophets though they had smarted so much by reason of their Fathers sins this severity should not always continue upon them but that God would visit them with his kindness again and would plant them in their own Land then they should see no reason to continue this Proverb among them for they would then find Though their Fathers had eaten sowre grapes their teeth should not be always set on edge with it And if we observe it the occasion of the Proverb was concerning the Land of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 supra terra Israel as the Chaldee Paraphrast renders it more agreeable to the Hebrew than the other Versions do So that the Land of Israel was the occasion of the Proverb by their being banished out of it for their Fathers sins Now God tells them they should have no more occasion to use this Proverb concerning the Land of Israel for they notwithstanding their Fathers sins should return into their own Land And even during the continuance of their captivity they should not undergo such great severities for the future but they should find their condition much more tolerable than they imagined only if any were guilty of greater sins than others they should themselves suffer for their own faults but he would not punish the whole Nation for them or their own Posterity This I take to be the genuine meaning of this place and I the rather embrace it because I find such insuperable difficulties in other interpretations that are given of it For to say as our Adversaries do That what God saith should not be for the future was repugnant to his nature and justice ever to do is to charge God plainly with injustice in what he had done For the Prophets told them they should suffer for the sins of their Fathers Which sufferings were the ground of their complaint now and the answer here given must relate to the occasion of the complaint for God saith They should not have occasion to use that Proverb Wherein is implyed they should not have the same reason to complain which they had then I demand then
Do not these words imply That God would not do for the future with them what he had done before if not the proper answer had been a plain denial and not a promise for the future he would not if they do then either God properly punished them for the sins of their Fathers and then God must be unjust in doing so or it was just with God to do it and so this place instead of overthrowing will prove that some may be justly punished beyond the desert of their own sins or else God did only take occasion by their Fathers sins to punish them according to the desert of their own iniquities But then they had no cause to complain that they were punished for any more than their own iniquities and withal then God doth oblige himself by his promise here never to punish men for the future by the occasion of others sins which is not only contrary to their own Doctrine but to what is plainly seen afterwards in the punishment of the Iews for their Fathers sins mentioned by our Saviour after this And if this be a certain rule of equity which God here saith that he would never vary from then the punishing of some on the occasion of others sins would be as unjust as our Adversaries suppose the punishing any beyond the desert of their own sins to be But is it not implyed that Gods ways would be unequal if he ever did otherwise than he there said he would do No it is not if by equal he meant just for his ways never were or can be so unequal but here if it be taken with a respect to the main dispute of the Chapter no more is implied in them but that they judged amiss concerning God's actions and that they were just when they thought them not to be so or if at least they thought his ways very severe though just God by remitting of this severity would shew that he was not only just but kind and so they would find his ways equal that is always agreeable to themselves and ending in kindness to them though they hitherto were so severe towards them in their banishment and captivity Or if they be taken with a respect to the immediate occasion of them both Ezek. 18. 33. They do not relate to this dispute about Childrens suffering for their Fathers sins but to another which was concerning a righteous mans sinning and dying in his sins and a wicked mans repenting and living in his righteousness which were directly contrary to the common opinion of the Iews to this day which is that God will judge men according to the greatest number of their actions good or bad as appears by Maimonides and others Now they thought it a very hard case for a man who had been righteous the far greatest part of his time if he did at last commit iniquity that his former righteousness should signifie nothing but he must die in his iniquity To this therefore God answers that it was only the inequality of their own ways which made them think God's ways in doing so unequal This then doth not make it unequal for God either to punish men upon the occasion or by the desert of other mens sins supposing such a conjunction between them as there is in the same body of people to those who went before them And Crellius himself grants That Socinus never intended to prove that one mans suffering for anothers sins was unjust in it self from this place no not though we take it in the strictest sense for one suffering in the stead of another VIII Having thus far declared how far it is agreeable to God's Justice to punish any persons either by reason of his dominion or the conjunction of persons for the sins of others and consequently whether any punishment may be undergone justly beyond the proper desert of their own sins I now return to the consent of Mankind in it on supposition either of a near conjunction or a valid consent which must make up the want of dominion in men without it And the question still proceeds upon the supposition of those things that there be a proper dominion in men over that which they part with for others sakes and that they do it by their free consent and then we justifie it not to be repugnant to the principles of Reason and Justice for any to suffer beyond the desert of their own actions And Crellius his saying that such a punishment is true punishment but not just is no answer at all to the consent of Nations that it is so And therefore finding this answer insufficient he relies upon another viz. That it was never received by the consent of Nations that one man should suffer in the stead of another so as the guilty should be freed by the others suffering For he saith neither Socinus nor he do deny that one man may be punished for anothers sins but that which they deny is that ever the innocent were punished so as the guilty were freed by it and so he answers in the case of Hostages and Sureties their punishment did never excuse the offenders themselves And to this purpose he saith Socinus his argument doth hold good that tho' one mans money may become anothers yet one mans sufferings cannot become anothers For saith he if it could then it would be all one who suffered as it is who pays the money due And then the offender must be presently released as the Debtor is upon payment of the debt This is the substance of what is said by him upon this Argument To which I reply 1. That this gives up the matter in dispute at present between us for the present question is Whether it be unjust for any one to suffer beyond the desert of his own actions Yes saith Crellius it is in case he suffers so as that the guilty be freed by his sufferings But we are not enquiring Whether it be just for another person to be freed for a mans suffering for him but whether it be just for that man to suffer by his own consent more than his own actions without that consent deserved The release of another person by vertue of his sufferings is a matter of another consideration Doth the freeing or not freeing of another by suffering add any thing to the desert of suffering He that being wholly innocent and doth suffer on the account of anothers fault doth he not suffer as undeservedly though another be not freed as if he were As in the case of Hostages or Sureties doth it make them at all the more guilty because the persons they are concerned for will be punished notwithstanding if they come under the power of those who exacted the punishment upon them who suffered for them Nay is not their desert of punishment so much the less in as much as the guilty are still bound to answer for their own offences If we could suppose the guilty to be freed by
reconciled before From whence he would at least have other senses of these words joyned together with the former viz. Either for purging away the filth of sin or for a declaration of a deliverance from guilt and punishment in imitation of the Idiom of the Hebrew in which many words are used in the New Testament From hence it follows that Crellius doth yield the main cause if it appear that Christ did offer up an expiatory Sacrifice to God in his death for then he grants that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being applied to the Sacâ—â—fice of Christ are to be taken for the purging away of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God and the punishment of sin And it is to no purpose to say that it is not a proper Sacrifice for if the effects of a proper Sacrifice do belong to it that proves that it is so for these words being acknowledged to be applied to the Sacrifice of Christ by the Author to the Hebrews what could more evince that Christ's was a proper Sacrifice than that those things are attributed to it which by the consent of all Nations are said to belong to proper Sacrifices and that in the very same sense in which they are used by those who understood them in the most proper sense And what reason could Crellius have to say that it was only the superstition of the Heathens which made them attribute such effects to sacrifices when himself acknowledges that the very same sense doth belong to the Sacrifice of Christ under that notion and as to the Iews we have already proved that the sense of expiation among them was by vertue of the Law to be taken in as proper a sense as among the Heathens for the purging of guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God And why should Crellius deny that effect of the Sacrifice of Christ as to the atonement of God because God's love was seen in giving him who was to offer the Sacrifice since that effect is attributed to those Sacrifices under the Law which God himself appointed to be offered and shewed his great kindness to the people in the Institution of such a way whereby their sins might be expiated and they delivered from the punishment of them But of the consistency of these two I shall speak more afterwards in the effect of the Sacrifices as relating to Persons VI. We now come to consider in what sense the expiation of sins is in Scripture attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ and therein I shall prove these two things 1. That the Expiation is attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ in the same sense that it is attributed to other Sacrifices and as the words in themselves do signifie 2. That what is so attributed doth belong to the Sacrifice of Christ in his death antecedent to his entrance into Heaven 1. That the expiation is to be taken in a proper sense when it is attributed to the Sacrifice of Christ. Crellius tells us The controversie is not about the thing viz. whether expiation in the sense we take it in for purging away guilt and aversion of the wrath of God doth belong to the Sacrifice of Christ for he acknowledges it doth but all the question is about the manner of it which in the next Section he thus explains There are three senses in which Christ may be said to expiate sins either by begetting Faith in us whereby we are drawn off from the practice of sin in which sense he saith it is a remoter antecedent to it or as it relates to the expiation by actual deliverance from punishment so he saith it is an immediate antecedent to it or as he declares that they are expiated but this he saith doth not so properly relate to Christ as a Sacrifice but as a Priest But never a one of these senses comes near to that which Crellius grants to be the proper importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applied to a Sacrifice viz. the purging away guilt and the aversion of the wrath of God and punishment not any way but by the means of the Sacrifice offered For in the Legal Sacrifices nothing can be more plain than that the expiation was to be by the Sacrifice offered for Atonement supposing then that in some other way which could be by no means proper to those Sacrifices Christ may be said to expiate sins what doth this prove that there was an expiation belonging to his Sacrifice agreeable to the Sacrifices of old But as I urged before in the case of Christ's being High Priest that by their assertions the Iews might utterly deny the force of any argument used by the Author to the Hebrews to prove it so I say as to the expiation by Christ's Sacrifice that it hath no analogy or correspondency at all with any Sacrifice that was ever offered for the expiation of sins For by that they always understood something which was immediately offered to God for that end upon which they obtain'd remission of sins but here is nothing answerable to it in their sense of Christ's Sacrifice for here is no Oblation at all made unto God for this end all the efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ in order to expiation doth wholly and immediately respect us so that if it be a proper Sacrifice to any it must be a Sacrifice to us and not to God for a Sacrifice is always said to be made to him whom it doth immediately respect but Christ in the planting Faith in actual deliverance in declaring to us this deliverance doth wholly respect us and therefore his Sacrifice must be made to men and not to God Which is in it self a gross absurdity and repugnant to the nature and design of Sacrifices from the first institution of them which were always esteemed such immediate parts of divine worship that they ought to respect none else but God as the object to which they were directed though for the benefit and advantage of mankind As well then might Christ be said to pray for us and by that no more be meant but that he doth teach us to understand our duty as be made an expiatory Sacrifice for us and all the effect of it only respect us and not God And this is so far from adding to the perfection of Christ's Sacrifice above the Legal which is the thing pleaded by Crellius that it destroys the very nature of a Sacrifice if such a way of expiation be attributed to it which though conceived to be more excellent in it self yet is wholly incongruous to the end and design of a Sacrifice for Expiation And the excellency of the manner of expiation ought to be in the same kind and not quite of another nature for will any one say that a General of an Army hath a more excellent conduct that all that went before him because he can make finer speeches or that the Assomanaean Family
what makes him attribute so much to the death of Christ if all the benefits we enjoy depend upon the consequences of it and no otherwise upon that than meerly as a preparation for it what peculiar emphasis were there in Christ's dying for sinners and for the ungodly unless his death had a particular relation to the expiation of their sins Why are men said to be justified by his blood and not much rather by his glorious Resurrection if the blood of Christ be only considered as antecedent to the other And that would have been the great demonstration of the love of God which had the most immediate influence upon our advantage which could not have been the death in this sense but the life and glory of Christ. But nothing can be more absurd than what Crellius would have to be the meaning of this place viz. that the Apostle doth not speak of the proper force of the death of Christ distinct from his life but that two things are opposed to each other for the effecting of one of which the death of Christ did intervene but it should not intervene for the other viz. it did intervene for our reconciliation but it should not for our life For did not the death of Christ equally intervene for our life as for our reconciliation was not our eternal deliverance the great thing designed by Christ and our reconciliation in order to that end what opposition then can be imagined that it should be necessary for the death of Christ to intervene in order to the one than in order to the other But he means that the death of Christ should not intervene any more what need that when it is acknowledged by themselves that Christ died only for this end before that he might have power to bestow eternal life on them that obey him But the main force of the Apostles argument lies in the comparison between the death of Christ having respect to us as enemies in order to reconciliation and the life of Christ to us considered as reconciled so that if he had so much kindness for enemies to die for their reconciliation we may much more presume that he now living in Heaven will accomplish the end of that reconciliation in the eternal salvation of them that obey him By which it is apparent that he speaks of the death of Christ in a notion proper to it self having influence upon our reconciliation and doth not consider it Metonymically as comprehending in it the consequents of it IX 2. Because the expiation of sins is attributed to Christ antecedently to the great consequents of his death viz. his sitting at the right hand of God Heb. 1.3 When he had by himself purged our sins sate down on the right hand of his Majesty on high Heb. 9.12 But by his own blood he entred in once into the Holy Place having obtained eternal redemption for us To these places Crellius gives a double answer 1. That indefinite particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being joyned with Verbs of the preterperfect tense do not always require that the action expressed by them should precede that which is designed in the Verbs to which they are joyned but they have sometimes the force of particles of the present or imperfect tense which sometimes happens in particles of the preterperfect tense as Matth. 10.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and several other instances produced by him according to which manner of interpretation the sense he puts upon those words Heb. 9.12 is Christ by the shedding of his blood entred into the Holy of Holies and in so doing he found eternal redemption or the expiation of sins But not to dispute with Crellius concerning the importance of the Aorist being joyned with a Verb of the preterperfect tense which in all reason and common acceptation doth imply the action past by him who writes the words antecedent to his writing of it as is plain in the instances produced by Crellius but according to his sense of Christ's expiation of sin it was yet to come after Christ's entrance into Heaven and so it should have been more properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not I say to insist upon that the Apostle manifests that he had a respect to the death of Christ in the obtaining this eternal redemption by his following discourse for v. 14. he compares the blood of Christ in point of efficacy for expiation of sin with the blood of the Legal Sacrifices whereas if the expiation meant by him had been found by Christ's Oblation of himself in Heaven he would have compared Christ's entrance into Heaven in order to it with the entrance of the High-Priest into the Holy of Holies and his argument had run thus For if the High-Priest under the Law did expiate sins by entring into the Holy of Holies How much more shall the Son of God entring into Heaven expiate the sins of Mankind but we see the Apostle had no sooner mention'd the redemption obtained for us but he presently speaks of the efficacy of the blood of Christ in order to it and as plainly asserts the same v. 15. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which were called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Why doth the Apostle here speak of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the expiation of sins by the means of death if he had so lately asserted before that the redemption or expiation was found not by his death but by his entrance into Heaven and withal the Apostle here doth not speak of such a kind of expiation as wholly respects the future but of sins that were under the first Testament not barely such as could not be expiated by vertue of it but such as were committed during the time of it although the Levitical Law allowed no expiation for them And to confirm this sense the Apostle doth not go on to prove the necessity of Christ's entrance into Heaven but of his dying v. 16 17 18. But granting that he doth allude to the High Priest's entring into the Holy of Holies yet that was but the representation of a Sacrifice already offer'd and he could not be said to find expiation by his entrance but that was already found by the blood of the Sacrifice and his entrance was only to accomplish the end for which the blood was offer'd up in Sacrifice And the benefit which came to men is attributed to the Sacrifice and not to the sprinkling of blood before the Mercy-seat and whatever effect was consequent upon his entrance into the Sanctuary was by vertue of the blood which he carried in with him and was before shed at the Altar Neither can it with any reason be said that if the redemption were obtained by the blood of Christ there
their pretences to Reason are have asserted a Corporeal God with Shape and Figure It was indeed well thought of by those who would make a Man to be God to bring God down as near to Man as might be But how to Reconcile the Notion of a Body with Infinite Perfections is a Mystery to me and far above my Comprehension But if it be no Mystery to such Men they must either deny God's Infinite Perfections or shew how a bodily Shape can be capable of them But some men can confound Finite and Infinite Body and Spirit God and Man and yet are for no Mysteries whereas these things are farther from our Reach and Comprehension than any o◠those Doctrines which they find fault with But to proceed If we believe Prophecy we must believe God's fore-knowledge of future events For how could they be fore-told if he did not fore-know them And if he did fore-know those which he did fore-tell then it was either because those only were revealed to him which is inconsistent with the Divine Perfections or that he doth fore-know all other Events and only thought fitting to Reveal these But how can they solve the Difficulties about Divine Prescience Is there no Mystery in this Nothing above their Comprehension What then made their great Master deny it as a thing above his Comprehension Because nothing can be fore-known but what hath a certain Cause and therefore if evil Actions be fore-told God must be the Cause of them and Men will not be free Agents in them And yet it is most certain that the Sufferings of Christ by the Wickedness of Men were fore-told What then Must we make God the Author of Sin God forbid Will the righteous Judge of all the Earth punish Mankind for his own Acts which they could not avoid Then we must yield that there is something in the manner of the Divine Prescience which is above our Comprehension And the most Searching and Inquisitive Men have been forc'd to yield it at last as to the Connection between the Certainty of Prescience and the Liberty of humane Actions Is it not then much better to sit down quietly at first Adoring the Infiniteness of God's incomprehensible Perfections than after all the huffings and disputings of Men to say In Ignorantiâ solà quietem invenio as the great Schoolman did Surely then here is something plainly revealed and yet the manner of it is still a Mystery to us I shall not now insist on any more of the particular Attributes of God but only in general I desire to know whether they believe them to be finite or infinite If to be finite then they must have certain bounds and limits which they cannot exceed and that must either be from the imperfection of Nature or from a Superiour Cause both which are repugnant to the very Being of God If they believe them to be infinite how can they comprehend them We are strangely puzled in plain ordinary finite things but it is madness to pretend to comprehend what is Infinite and yet if the Perfections of God be not Infinite they cannot belong to Him I shall only add in Consequence to this Assertion That if nothing is to be believed but what may be comprehended the very Being of God must be rejected too And therefore I desire all such who talk so warmly against any Mysteries in Religion to consider whose work it is they are doing even theirs who under this pretence go about to overthrow all Religion For say they Religion is a Mystery in its own Nature not this or that or the other Religion but they are all alike all is Mystery and that is but another Name for Fraud and Imposture What were the Heathen Mysteries but tricks of Priest-craft and such are maintained and kept up in all kinds of Religion If therefore these men who talk against Mysteries understand themselves they must in pursuance of their Principles reject one God as well as three Persons For as long as they believe an Infinite and Incomprehensible Being it is Nonsense to reject any other Doctrine which relates to an Infinite Being because it is Incomprehensible But yet these very Men who seem to pursue the Consequence of this Principle to the utmost must assert something more incomprehensible than the Being of God For I appeal to any man of common Understanding whether it be not more agreeable to Reason to suppose Works of Skill Beauty and Order to be the Effects of a Wise and Intelligent Being than of Blind Chance and Unaccountable Necessity whether it be not more agreeable to the Sense of Mankind to suppose an Infinite and Eternal Mind endued with all possible Perfections to be the Maker of this visible World than that it should start out from it self without Contrivance without Order without Cause Certainly such men have no Reason to find fault with the Mysteries of Religion because they are incomprehensible since there is nothing so Absurd and Incomprehensible as their darling Hypothesis And there is nothing which can make it prevail but to suppose Mankind to be as Dull and Insensible as the first Chaos Thus I have shewn that it is not unreasonable for God to require from us the Belief of something which we cannot comprehend 2. I now come to consider whether those who are so afraid of incomprehensible Mysteries in our Faith have made it so much more easie in the Way they have taken And notwithstanding all the Hectoring talk against Mysteries and things incomprehensible in Religion I find more insuperable Difficulties in point of Reason in their Way than in ours As for instance 1. It is a more Reasonable thing to suppose something Mysterious in the Eternal Son of Gods being with the Father before the World was made by him as S. Iohn expresses it in the beginning of his Gospel than in supposing that although Iohn the Baptist were born six Months before Iesus Christ that yet Christ was in Dignity before him What a wonderful Mystery is this Can Men have the Face to cry down Mysteries in deep Speculations and matters of a high and abstruse Nature when they make such Mysteries of plain and easie things and suppose the Evangelist in profound Language and lofty Expressions to prove a thing which was never disputed viz. although Christ Iesus were born six Months after Iohn yet he was in Dignity before him 2. It is a more Reasonable thing to suppose that a Divine Person should assume humane Nature and so the Word to be made Flesh than to say that an Attribute of God his Wisdom or Power is made Flesh which is a Mystery beyond all Comprehension There may be some Difficulties in our Conception of the other but this is a thing beyond all Conception or Imagination For an Accident to be made a Substance is as absurd as to imagine it to subsist without one 3. It is more Reasonable to suppose that the Son of God should come down from Heaven and