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A45162 Ultimas manus being letters between Mr. John Humphrey, and Mr. Samuel Clark, in reference to the point of justification : written upon the occasion of Mr. Clark's printing his book upon that subject, after Mr. Humfrey's book entituled The righteousness of God, and published for vindication of that doctrine wherein they agree, as found, by shewing the difference of it from that of the Papist, and the mistakes of our common Protestant : in order to an impartial and more full understanding of that great article, by the improvement of that whereto they have attained, or correction of any thing wherein they err, by better judgments : together with animadversions on some late papers between Presbyterian and Independent, in order to reconcile the difference, and fix the Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction. Humfrey, John, 1621-1719. 1698 (1698) Wing H3715; ESTC R16520 84,030 95

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of following Truth hereafter wheresoever he finds it but this that God did look on Christ as appearing in our Person and so judged and condemned him for a sinner as one I say being in our Person that deserved his Wrath and Curse and therefore laid it on him whereby our full and proper Punishment was Born the Law Executed and Justice Done and if any will add with Ravensperg farther that the torments of Hell in his Agony and Suffering on the Cross when he cried Eli Eli lamasabacthani were laid on his Soul that nothing of the very Punishment may be abated him who does not see that such a satisfaction is so strait laced as will not fit the Person of Christ and that such Divines do more to drive Men to Socinianism than Socinus himself could while they stand upon such a Satisfaction as no reasonable Man can * Vera satisfactio est plen● deliti persolutio Vnusquisque nostram mortem aternam divinae isti justitiae debelat says Socinus De Ser. l. 3. c. 3. receive And whereas Mr. Lobb therefore and other such more considering Persons do see a necessity to come off and allow that it was not and could not be our very Punishment it self it being enough that Christ was surrogated under the Primordial Nature of the Puuishment to use his words though not under the horrid Circumstances we our selves were to suffer and does yield moreover that though the Punishment yet the Desert of our sins could not be laid on Christ because that would run him into Antinomianism which Concessions do draw after them such other suitable Notions as Mr. Baxter offers so that at last we must come to this that the Ends of Gods Law and Government being secured it must be left to the Wisdom of the Father and Son to agree upon what satisfaction pleased them for demonstrating Divine Righteousness against Sin and Mercy toward the Sinner and that be sufficient for us to believe For I must add that so long as we agree in our belief that Christs Death was a Ransom for our Redemption and a Sacrifice for our Sins in the Sense of the Types of old where the sin of the Sacrificer was laid on the Beast and the Blood thereof an Expiation for it to the end he might be forgiven it what matter is it tho' one holds this Death to be Formally another only Materially our Punishment or that one says our sins were the proper Meritorious Cause and the other the Remote Cause or Occasion of it they both hold it Satisfaction and intend the maintaining the Doctrine thereof Proper Punishment is an infliction of a Natural Evil on a Person for Committing a Moral Evil But Christ that endured the Natural Evil never committed any Moral Evil and how can that be proper Punishment The Punishment laid on him was not due to him but to us The Punishment d●e to us was Hell but his Sufferings only Temporal Death Is not here then one Punishment in the room of another as one Person suffering in the room of another And what Legerdemain can cover the Eye of any as not to see this a Vicarious Punishment Again when all proper Punishment is for sin as the Meritorious Cause of it and Christ sinned not and our sins cannot according to the Bishop deserve that another should be punished for them so that here is Punishment without Desert how is this proper Formal Punishment The Law by vertue of its Sanction punishes none but the Breakers of the Preceptive Part and how then can these sufferings arise Ex obligatione-Legis If they did arise from the Obligation of the Law then was the Law executed in Christs suffering but Christ suffered that the Law might not be executed but the Penitent Believing Sinner be pardoned I might go on and offer other Positions according to what is said by Mr. Baxter in his Eighteenth Deterininations Math. Theol. Part 3. Cap. 1. before quoted and Mr. Lobb the Dr or Bishop may as well deny that two and three makes five as fundamentally to deny any of them and therefore I shall forbear more being come already to the Composition which Grotius in that one word before hath made for us Impersonaliter these sufferings as due to us may be said to be properly formally Punishment Punishment for sin as the Meritorious Cause of it Punishment arising from the Obligation of the Law upon our breaking it punishment that was the Curse of the Law and which he bare when if we had our selves born it it had been the Execution of the Law the Execution whereof these Divines who are for the Common Doctrine apprehending as Socinus to be proper Satisfaction wherein they are perfectly out for that according to the Schools is contrary to it it makes them so extream as before mentioned in their Doctrine of Satisfaction as no Man unprejudiced can abide it But Personaliter on the other hand as these sufferings are laid upon Christ instead of us that is instead not as in our Person but instead that we might escape them they are Nominally and Materially indeed but they are not they cannot be Formally and Properly Penal They arise not from sin as the Metitorious Cause nor from the Obligation of the Law and are no Execution of it Why should I go on to say the same things over and over I will make bold to conclude with Mr. Baxter against any if there be any that think they have more sagacity herein than he to oppose him and say As the Person that suffered was loco nostri the sufferings were loco paenae our sins loco causae meritoriae his Sponsion loco obligationis ex Lege an Equivalent loco Debiti and loco solutionis here is at last effected proper Satisfaction Let Mr. Baxter's Adversaries be who they will and let them do what they can they shall never make more of it Another thing which Mr. Lobb observes of Mr. Williams that I must also take notice of is this As he does hold that the Obligation which lay on Christ to do as he did arose altogether from the Mediatorial Law so does he hold that the Righteousness which consists in his Performance of that Law is that which is imputed to the Believer for his Justification wherein there does manifestly appear that slip of Mr. Williams which I have before mentioned for seeing that Law and the Righteousness thereof did belong only or was proper to the Mediator it is impossible it should be imputed otherwise to us than in the Effects which when Mr. Baxter saw and asserted and Mr. Williams does follow him in what he says else and yet leaves him in this I cannot but give him again friendly Warning to retract that slip for otherwise the whole Doctrine he is engaged in which he hath knit together out of Mr. Baxter and endeavours to maintain by this one Stitch let fall if it be not amended must unravel and come to nothing The Argument I have used in
in turning us away from it because this must make him as he argues a sinner and one deserving to die Grotius takes him up and tells us that it was for sin but Impersonaliter This he explains in that our sins did deserve that Punishment should be exacted but such was the goodness of God to spare us and lay it upon his Son who was wounded for our Transgressions and through his stripes are we healed Now that God might do so without Injustice Grotius brings many Instances from David from Ahab from the Gibeonites from the second Commandment What God himself does or allows must be just David sins and his Child dies Ahab is wicked and his Punishment is deferred to his Sons Days Saul is cruel to the Gibeonites and his Grandchildren are put to death The Fathers sin and God visits their sin on the Children to three or four Generations Here is Merit as the Antecedent Cause of the Punishment in all these Instances and yet not the Merit of the Person or Persons that suffer it And what if I shall add here this great thing a thing wherein Divines are put so hard to it in giving their account even the greater Instance of Death passing on all Men with their innocent Babes among them for Adam's Transgression It is said of Grotius and that solidly in another place Peccata paenae causa sunt non aliter quam per modum Meriti which being true Socinus does indeed seem to argue strongly that therefore prater Dei ipsius Christi voluntatem non posse ullam legitimam causam reddi mortis Christi nisi dicamus Christum meritum fuisse ut moriretur This Grotius I say takes up and Answers thus Inest quidem in antecedente causa Meritum sed Impersonaliter From hence then we must distinguish there is a double Merit of Punishment Personal and Impersonal When Grotius tells us that in Christs sufferings there was truly Punishment because that though God laid it on his Son our sins required the infliction and Mr. Baxter says no formal proper Punishment because not only without desert in Christ but which is more because our desert could not be transferr'd on him though the Punishment was they both say true but rightly understood only the one Personaliter the other Impersonaliter as Grotious hath decided it And what is this in good earnest any other but what the Bishop hath in effect determined likewise No Man can deserve that another should be punished for him and yet because the Execution of Punishment depends on the wisdom of God a Change of Persons that is of Christ to bear it in our room Christ being willing and the thing just may intervene says the Bishop in more words and all apposite If Mr. Lobb then can but reconcile the Bishop to himself unto whom he seems heartily to subscribe he must reconcile Mr. Baxter and Grotius and be also reconciled to both And that he may be so the more easily the Bishop hath given a Test for the discovery of the Orthodox from the Socinian and Mr. Baxter shall thereby be tryed The true Controversie says he between the Socinian and us is Whether the Sufferings of Christ were to be considered as a Punishment for our sins and as a Propitiatory Sacrifice to God for them or only as an Act of Dominion over an innocent Person in order to his Advancement to Glory The same is affirmed after him by our Presbyterian Brethren and who is there can imagine ever Mr. Baxter denied that Christs sufferings was a Punishment for our sins and his death a Propitiatory Sacrifice for them He hath made him sin for us says Paul 2 Cor. 5.21 Upon which God hath made Christ a Sacrifice for sin says Mr. Baxter as others which Socinus denies Who his own self bare our sins in his own Body on the Tree says Peter 1 Pet. 2.24 Upon which It was the punishment of our sins which as a Sacrifice he bare in his sufferings on the Cross says Mr. Baxter But what need I quote any such particular Sayings when there is no Book of his that is great that can be without such a Testimony over and over What then you may ask shall we judge here of Mr. Lobb's great Industry Shall we look on him as the Fly upon the Axle-tree that hath raised all this Dust for nothing I will not say so seeing Dust there is that must be raised if our Wheels do but go and our Chariot drive to its designed end the quiet of the Brethren It is not enough that we are agreed indeed in this Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction though we are unless we also understand and know it Besides that when we are agreed there is need of some Anthority yet to tell us we are so that our selves may believe it The Composing a Controversie by Silence is but covering the Fire as Mr. Lobb observes not extinguishing it If the Matter be such wherein we indeed do agree the Ventilation of it must shew us the seeming Difference to be nothing and so compel a Concord If the Matter be such wherein we really disagree there is still need of beating it out that the Corn may be discovered from the Chaff by the threshing There are two Points we know among us both very great P●●●…ts and the one made difficult through the Intanglement of it with the Other One is of Christs Satisfaction wherein indeed we differ not The other is of our Justification wherein we do differ and there are two ways of Explication Mr. Baxter's and the Common Protestants Upon the Account now of this Difference in the latter Point there are many are stumbled in their Explication of the former As for Mr. Lobb he has verily given occasion for an Accomodation between the Brethren by his Appeal to the Bishop as to the Point of Satisfaction for seeing indeed there is therein no difference he is like to effect it But as for the other of Justification Mr. Lobb is behind and it will be a harder matter for any to moderate in it One thing in his strowing his way hereunto is to be preparatively considered He has read I suppose Socinus de Servatore as well as Grotius upon him and Crellius then against Grotius with other Socinians as also Dr. Crisp and other Antinomians and he is not ignorant where the Water sticks between us and them both The Socinian accounts Christ to be a good Man that taught us Holy Doctrine and dyed to bear Testimony to the Truth of it to the end we might believe it and live according to it and so be saved and upon this account is our Saviour But as for his dying for our sins any otherwise than for turning us away from them by his Doctrine and Example which is making our sins the Final Cause of his Death he understands not when as for the making it the Meritorious Cause of the Sufferings of an innocent Man and thereby satisfactory to the Justice of God
that is to be tender-mouth'd as most I perceive are apt to be I mean not you my worthy Brother when they come over to any such hard saying as they see will make their Disciples draw back and walk no more with them I must add that although an abstracting this great Doctrine from Logical or Metaphisical Terms according to the Bishop of Wrocester and you may be adviseable with the limitation as much as we can in regard to the Vulgar or in our Preaching to the People yet in regard to the Learned and the Versed in this Controversie it is quite otherwise or at least there must be an exception as to this Particular which is not here only necessary in regard to such but is the all in all in the business The point is hereby brought as it were to a word as in the matter of the Trinity it was brought to that of Homoousios no more to be discarded I will yet say that here is the Criterion according to a more shallow or deep imbibing whereof I do reckon for my own part such or so much to be the measure of knowledge that I have attained as to the critical bottom of this Matter With reverence be it spoken to extraordinary Men who being above all mean or colloguing ends do we may suppose very throughly see the same when prudentially they decline to say it and when they yet would be more generous too in a Contribution of their Testimony to it To this end was I born saith our Saviour and for this cause came I into the World that I should bear witness to the Truth 11. I will yet instance for your Conviction The Scripture in one place is express By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous One may ask here Is not Christs Obedience therefore ours Is not the being made righteous to be justified I Answer Yes Christs Obedience is ours in the Effects and as to this effect in making us righteous upon our Faith and so justifying us But here is the resolution of the point Christs Obedience does make us righteous or justifies us per modum cousae meritoriae but not per modum causae formalis which the Doctrine of Imputation intended at first nostrae justificationis We are to enlarge here by shewing how Adam's sin brought in death which passes upon all Men and so is imputed to all as to that effect Likewise how Christ's obedient suffering or suffering obedience has procured the Grace that we may be justified by Faith without Works and are so upon our believing We are made sinners then by Adam's sin and made righteous by Christs obedience per modum meriti not otherwise This is satisfaction to this Text this the core of the Controversie Again Christ is made sin for us in another place our sins procuring his sufferings and we the righteousness of God in him How is that Per modum meriti I say still Effective in short non Formaliter See what need we have of such Terms See how speedily and compleatly they do our business when a whole Book at once is as good as wrapt up in them 12. As for your Dissertation upon the Question whether Christ's Active as well as Passive Obedience is imputed in our Justification I did think to advise you to be content with what is said in the Book and so leave it My Reasons are two 1. Because this Dispute is a Point not proper for you and I but needless They that hold a Formal Justification by Christ's Righteousness may contend which of the two is imputed But we that say it is not Christ's Righteousness imputed but the Righteousness of God that justifies us may leave them fighting and we be quiet 2. Because as to the Point I think such may with Anth. Burgesse be well at a stand about it You say Christ being a Divine not Human person was under no obligation of duty How then does Christ say His Father was greater than He and that in regard to his Authority How came he down to do his Fathers Commandment and yet be under no Obligation Here you must come off and say He was not bound on his own account but for Vs he was Well then for us he was bound to obey and how then do you say he only suffered for us and not obeyed for us You must come off again and say For us may be taken for our Benefit or in our stead He was indeed bound to obey for our benefit but not in our stead Well! but what if you are out here at last Let me mind you that Christ who redeemed us from the Condemnation of the Law redeemed us also from the Obligation of perfect fulfilling it as the Condition of Life And as by his sufferings he freed us not from all suffering but Eternal so by his Obedience though he freed us not from obeying God according to the Gospel yet he did from obeying him according to the Law as the Condition of Salvation In this sense and to this purpose he obeyed that we might not so obey as well as he suffered that we might not so suffer that is upon this account not all accounts obeyed and suffered both in our stead Before I leave you for the sake of the Reader when this is Printed I must wish you again to take heed that when I say that Christ hath obeyed for us in the sense of in our stead you do not misconstrue me To do a thing in ones stead is to do it so as to free the other from doing it Though Christ's perfect obeying the Law did I apprehend free us from those Terms yet did he not obey the Law for us so as some would have it that no other Obedience is necessary to our Justification or that his Obeying does thereby become ours or is in se imputed to us as formally to justifie us This is that Doctrine you dispute against in your Dissertation and I find in some Notes which I writ for a Memor andum to my self upon reading some Author whether the words be my own or his or mixt thus much which I will set down to confirm your Determination There is a double Debt the Principal perfect Obedience and Nomine poena satisfaction for our failing It is said Christ paid both for us and both imputed But if his Obedience being such as that he omitted no duty and committed no sin be imputed there is no need of his suffering It is replied we must suppose his satisfaction for sin to precede and when we are pardoned and freed from punishment then must his Active Obedience be also imputed to give us right to Heaven It is answered 1. Supposing a Righteousness now required it must not be his Righteousness imputed for then we must be reputed as never lapsed nor once omitted any duty and that is inconsistent with his Satisfaction preceding 2. Punishment is Damni or Sensus Though one might be freed from the poena sensus and yet
him the Obligation to suffer for our sins but not Our Obligation He bare the Punishment of our sins let me say yet Personally not Our Punishment When Christ is said to be made under the Law Gal. 4.4 I understand it of the Law of Moses as a Jew born for redeeming the Jews from it Yet as one of Mankind was he also under the Law of Works as to the Precept and fulfilled it for freeing us from that perfect Performance as the Condition of Life and from its being to us the Rule of Judgment but he was not under the Penal Sanction nor could be being innocent He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 3.13 made a Curse but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 3.10 under the Curse which none but the Transgressor is And seeing Mr. Lobb is come already to see he must part with the Common Doctrine somewhere or fall into Antinomianism he is so rational and fair a Man I believe as his own Genius when once he can be cool and consider will suggest to him that it is better not to set out at all than to halt by the way and not to go quite home If he be convinced that the Personal Guilt of our sins could not be translated on Christ so as to make him a Legal Sinner which is all that the Crispian as well as the Common Protestant Doctrine ever meant then will he see that the Personal Righteousness of Christ cannot be translated neither on us so as that we should be Legally Righteous in him and consequently agree with Mr. Baxter and me leaving Mr. VVilliams if he wont come on behind in the Doctrine both of Satisfaction and Justification I must add as a Corollary that the Phrases my Friend does stand so much upon of Christs suffering in our Person or in our stead if they be used as the same and signifie no more but that Christ being a Divine Person did suffer a Temporal Death as an Equivalent to save us from suffering Eternal Damnation they are equally to pass But if either of them be made to bear such a Sense as that Christ did Legally personate us so as we are to be accounted to have done or suffered in him that which he did or suffered or what may seem less that this Commutation of Persons did put Christ under Our Obligation of the violated Law of VVorks so making him to be accounted of God a Sinner and dealt with as a Sinner to the end that his sufferings may be maintained to be a proper Punishment the Phrase or Phrases are stretch'd beyond the Staple become dangerous the Sense Antinomian and to be disallowed And now to dismiss Mr. VVilliams and Mr. Lobb both The summ of Mr. Lobb's Appeal comes to this Syllogism That Person who holds that the sufferings of Christ was not a Proper Punishment but a Vicarious Punishment Not Formally but Materially Punishment That our Sins were not the Proximious Meritorious Cause but the Remote the Pro-meritorious Cause or Occasion of them That they arose not from the Obligation of the Law or from the Sanction of the Law of VVorks which includes with Mr. Lobb that Commutation of Persons as makes Christ Guilty taken judged and executed in our Person but from his voluntary Sponsion or submission to his Fathers Commandment proper to him which implies with Mr. Lobb that the inflicting of Sufferings on Christ could be no act of Gods Rectoral Justice but of Dominion when I take it to be an act of God both as Rector and Supra Leges together and such a Relaxation of his Law as Zaleucus Fact was That consequently the Law in the Threat was not fulfilled by him such a Person is a Socinian and denies the Doctrine or denies that which is necessary to explain the Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction But Mr. VVilliams is such a Person Ergo Mr. VVilliams is one that denies that which is necessary to this Explanation Here Mr. Lobb makes it his business to prove the Minor which he hath effectually done in quoting Mr. Baxter in many places and many more might be added saying these things and then producing Considerations and Passages out of Mr. VVilliams to prove that he must be of the same Opinion Now if Mr. VVilliams denies the Minor and goes to vindicate himself as to that he may be ashamed for Mr. Lobb has done his Work But Mr. VVilliams I suppose as well as I will deny the Major And what hath Mr. Lobb to say for that but all Gratis Why here is a Supposition presumed that the Satisfaction Christ made for our sins was to be such and such as they have fancied or else it must be no satisfaction when the mistake is so great that if all that were necessary thereto which they pretend the Lord Christ was a Person uncapable to make it and so there must be none and we be all Socinians I have therefore two Answers to give Mr. Lobb The First shall be from himself who when Mr. Williams is arguing That if we may very properly be said to be punished in Christ for our sins then must it be granted that we made satisfaction in Christ and are our own Redeemers He answers No because the satisfaction arose not says he from our sufferings in Christ nor indeed from Christs Sufferings considered absolutely and in se but from the Fathers acceptation of the Sons sufferings This is judiciously said The words he adds as they were Ex obligatione Legis and an Equivalent to the demerit of our sins are Petitio Principii for he might put in 〈◊〉 well as our sins were the Proximous Meritorious Cause of them and as they were a proper Punishment I answer him therefore accordingly That seeing the Satisfaction Christ made was not indeed a Satisfaction of the Law it self but of the Law-giver who though Rector is also Supra Leges the Law indeed which requires Supplicium delinquentis being not executed but Satisfaction made that it might not be fulfilled on the Sinner and seeing the Satisfaction lay Fundamentally in the Acceptation of the Father or as perform'd according to the Will of both What if it pleased God to appoint and accept of a Vicarious Punishment instead of a proper Punishment who is there can have any more to say against it I will add in regard to some fresh Sheets of Mr. Lobb come out called A further Defence which in setting forth Mr. Baxters Doctrine as opposite to that which is commonly Received according to Dr. Edwards and others has done Mr. Baxter Right and Honour as I account That for as much as God acts according to him and Truth both as Rector and Lord also Supra Leges and the great Ends of Government in general such as the Demonstration of Gods Righteousness his hatred to sin the deterring the Sinner by exemplary Punishment and even his greater Glory might be attained in the way which God took without fulfilling the direct end of the Law in a proper punishment on the Sinner or on Christ as a Sinner It is such a Satisfaction as Mr. Baxter offers that is a Satisfaction of the Law-giver and not that Mr. Lobb stands upon a Satisfaction of the Law which is to be maintained For this being Socinus fundamental Errour That True Satisfaction lies only in a full payment of the Debt and Eternal Death being due to every Sinner the Doctrine of Satisfaction seems to him apparently False Christ suffering not that Punishment and those Divines now that fall in with him into that Conception have not an Answer to give Socinus whereas Mr. Lobb hath set out Mr. Baxter's Doctrine in the several branches to be so tight and uniform that the light thereof though wrapt in his Clouds of Blame about it does appear most ●onvictive and irresistible and I cannot but think that Mr. Lobb himself when he can be cool and lay by opposition must be ready to embrace it It is Mr. Baxter's Satisfaction which can be justified against Socinus Mr. Baxter's Doctrine is such as does force even the Socinians to yield and acknowledge themselves overcome by it This is such Doctrine as needs no more but the same more friendly display of it See Mr. Baxter's own 18 Determinations together for Mr. Baxter's Vindication and Mr. Lobb's Reduction The Second Answer I have is made already in these Sheets and that is that there is one Word and that taken from Grotius himself which hath done it The word Impersonaliter does reconcile Grotius and Baxter Mr. Williams and Mr. Lobb the Bishop and us all and that word therefore without any thing more is enough to solve the difficulty and consequently to explain and make good this Great Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction FINIS ERRATA PAg. 9. line 27. my read your p. 14. l. 21. r. existimare p. 22. l. 9. Premium r. Praemiant p. 74 in the Margin deliti r. debiti THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER Reader THese Letters and Animadversions put thus together by my Appointment were intended to come out asunder the Animadversions as a second Part of the Friendly Interposer and the Letters as the finishing Work to that Doctrine proposed by Mr. H. in his Middle Way and confirmed in his Righteousness of God unto which Book he would have had them annex'd alone by themselves But in regard that the several Papers of his concerning the late Difference among the Nonconformists in Doctrinals whereof the Point of Justification is the chief will come with these to forty Sheets I have thought best my self and have found good Cause so to do to bind the whole in one handsom Book that any that will so long as each of a sort holds out may have it T. P.
had performed it all and of Faith whose Office it is to embrace that Righteousness so imputed there is not one word in the Sacred Letters says the Learned Grotius If the Bishop before praised dare follow that leading Man in the one Point as in the other I will come now therefore to this new Book of Mr. Lobb which he calls An Appeal that is from the Presbyterian Brethren to the Bishop of Worcester as Moderator between them They produce the Bishops Letter in their Vindication and Mr. Lobb sticks to that Letter as vindicating him and both are in the right for when they agree to the Bishop they must agree also with one another In this Appeal Mr. Lobb looking on Mr. Williams as in the Chair of Mr. Baxter to maintain his Doctrine does collect many Pussages out of Mr. Baxter which are approaching to the Socinians and supposes such Doctrine to be inconsistent with the Doctrine of the Bishop that he maintains against Crellius in his Book of the Sufferings of Christ We shall see if the Bishop writer whether he judges as Mr. Lobb or rather shall see cause of Agreement not Difference with Mr. B. in this Point That which I have to say is this There is a vast difference in the account that must be given of two Men speaking the same things about a Doctrine which is in Controversie between them when one does bring them by way of Objection for Confutation of it and the other by way of Explication for the better clearing and maintaining it in Answer to those Objections And there is a double Answer to an Objection One is by Negation when the matter is false and the other is by Concession when the matter is true and reasonable but shewing that it affects not that Doctrine which remains firm notwithstanding that Concession This is the Case of Mr. Baxter in regard to the Socinian The Socinians say many things rationally and which are true and Mr. Baxter in such matters spares not to say the like but the one says them for the Enervating the other for the Elucidating the Doctrine of Satisfaction It is most certain that Mr. Baxter holds the same Doctrine which Grotius does and follows him in the Explication shewing the consistency of it with Gods Free Grace in the remission of sin which two things Socinus thinks incompatible To wit in that when it is alius that suffers it is aliud solvitur and also it being not the Idem but the Tantundem which Christ suffered and that it was not therefore the Law it self but the Law-giver he satisfied Upon which accounts the Satisfaction was in it self refusable a Solutio recusabilis as he after Grotius does call it that is such as God in Justice was not bound to accept but in Mercy through Grace he did accept it and what is more found out this way of Satisfaction himself for us which makes it so much more of Grace so that a Free Pardon I say appears notwithstanding this Satisfaction as in the Sacrifices of the Jews for sin there was an Attonement made by their Blood in order to the Remission That Mr. Baxter does maintain this Doctrine of Grotius this Doctrine that is the Marrow of the Old and New Testament to wit the Doctrine of Pardon upon Satisfaction against the Socinian it is apparent I say as that Mr. Lobb does hold Justification upon believing against Dr. Crisp And if it shall farther appear that there is nothing of all that he hath alledged against Mr. Baxter is dissonant to the mind of Grotius and Bishop Stillingfleet he will I hope come off at last To this end let us observe that this Learned Bishop in his Letter speaking of Christs bearing our sins and distinguishing the desert of punishment from the Punishment and affirming rightly that though Christ took on him the Obligation to undergo the Punishment the Desert could not be transferr'd upon him he hath these words No Man can cease to deserve Punishment for his own Faults nor Deserve that another should be punished for them This Saying is so true plain and reasonable that though Socinus Crellius or any of their Followers shall stand upon it never so much it is not to be denied but granted for all that Upon this Foundation it follows If no Man can deserve that another be punished for him then cannot we by our sins deserve Christs sufferings We deserved the Punishment it was a deserved Punishment but we deserved not that he should bear it If our sins then deserved not that Christ should suffer they are not the Meritorious Cause of his Sufferings If not the Meritorious Cause no proper Cause but the Occasion as Mr. Baxter is cited by Mr. Lobb And to go on the reason appears It was not from the Law his Obligation to suffer did arise for the Law punishes only the Transgressor Noxu caput siquitur It was not our Obligation therefore he took on him for our Obligation is an Obligation of desert Obligatio Criminis as it is call'd but his only Ex contractu And seeing it was not Obligatio ex Lege it follows that the Sufferings he bore were Materially not Formally Punishment It was the sins of Mankind says Mr. Baxter that were the Occasion of Christs Sufferings called by some an assumed Meritorious Cause because by his consent they were loco causae Meritoriae End of Contro C. 13. In which Words and all other Passages collected by Mr. Lobb what is there to be found fault with unless an over perspicacity tightness and consonancy of Judgment in all his Pieces alike made good all by the reason of that undeniable Concession that One Man cannot deserve that another should be punished for his Faults as the Bishop has it And now to come from the Bishop to Grotius It must be acknowledged that Grotius hath made it his business to shew that our sins were the Impulsive the Meritorious Impulsive Cause of Christs Sufferings in his dying for us which he hath proved no less substantially than critically by the Prepositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 15.3 Heb. 11.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 3.18 Gal. 1.4 Pro peccatis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum accusativo Rom. 4.25 Propter peccuta and Isa 53.5 Ob peccata nostra which all denote the Impulsive Cause says he and not the Final against Socinus Upon this it is supposed by Mr. Lobb that what is mentioned before as said by Mr. Baxter is contrary to this Doctrine and he hath cited such Passages therefore as Heterodox But Grotius himself must be the Man to Answer and Reconcile what he says with what is said by Mr. Baxter which he does very sufficiently with one word that Mr. Lobb hath not observed at least to make so good an use of it For Socinus in opposition to the Doctrine of Satisfaction denying that Christ could dye for sin as the Meritorious Cause of his Death which he will have to be only the Final Cause