be loco nostro as it is the paying the price the making Satisfaction and so the impetrating the Benefits we have by it but it can be onely bono nostro as to any Benefit it self which is all one as bono nostro only in the Application Pray see Pacif. P. 30 31 32. Upon which words Repeated Right of God P. 35 36. I have desired Mr. William's and Mr. Clark's and now beg the Bishop's fuller Consideration The Arminians upon the Point of Satisfaction are cautious in what they grant as Mr. Baxter is in both and they will have Christs sufferings to be a Vice-punishment or Vicarious Punishment rather than a proper and formal Punishment Which Expression ought not to offend Mr. Lobb nor any worthy Person because when the Scripture says Christ died for us and we understand by for us Vice nostri in our room or stead the Death or Punishment it self must be in our stead that is a Vicarious Punishment how can it be otherwise And because there is nothing can be urged more effectually against the Doctrine of Socinus than this that the Justice of God requiring a Punishment to be inflicted according to his Law for our breaking it God was contented or satisfied with a Vicarious Punishment inflicting one though not all that was in the Obligation on his Son The Punishment in this sense being Vicarious the Meritorious Cause our sins are accordingly said Pro-meritorious loco causae meritoriae or an Assumed Meritorious Cause as Mr. Baxter before and the infliction as Personal be Materially not Formally Punishment If this offends any when said by Episcopius Curcellaeus Limborch whom they suspect as favouring Socinianism it oâ—â—ght â—n when said by Mr. Baxter whom none can suspect Nay though there be some Socinians who under such Expressions do shelter themselves and by appearing Orthodox seduce others which may raise some zeal in Mr. Lobb against them not considering their end and ours in such Expressions theirs being as hinted before at last to deny ours to own Satisfaction Yet is not this sufficient to conclude against the same because there is more of Antidote than Danger by them For seeing all proper Punishment is for sin and sin causes Punishment as hath been said by way of Merit and no otherwise the Merit of our sins as well as our sins in the Punishment must be laid on Christ or else it is no proper Punishment and if the Merit of our sins as well as the Punishment be granted to be laid on Christ we are then ingulph'd into Antinomianism according to this excellent Bishop the worthy Dr. Edwards and Mr. Lobb himself assenting to them and what Mr. Lobb hath to say to this he must consider The Case therefore being this that either we must admit that our sins in the Merit were laid on Christ as well as the Punishment or else that Christs sufferings was no proper formal Punishment I suppose Mr. Lobb will rather fall in with Mr. Baxter than Dr. Crisp and yield in some sense at least that it was no proper Punishment which is verily true as proper is opposed to Vicarious for a Vicarious Punishment it was for certain being inflicted on Another and not the Person or Persons that sinned and being also not the same for that should have been Hell to them but an Equivalent that so it might be Satisfaction not Payment which would preclude Remission And seeing it was not the same infliction nor inflicted on the sinner himself the Obligation to undergo it could not arise from the Law which punishes only the Transgressor of it and consequently tho' Materially yet Formally was not Punishment as laid on the innocent Person of Christ All this Mr. Baxter says and it must be said as true plain undeniable and nevertheless there being a Punishment due to us for our sins and our sins the Meritorious Cause of it and the Obligation to the suffering it arising from the Law as broken by us here is consequently a proper formal Punishment to be inflicted Impersonally as Grotius before And it being not against the Justice of God to take this Punishment Impersonally considered and lay it either on Another or the Person or Persons that sinned so long as no dishonour to his Law nor prejudice to his Government comes thereby Severity being shewen against sin as pitty to the sinner and Christ Jesus being willing to take on him the Punishment no wrong being done to the willing it being his Fathers and his Own Appointment that he who was the Second Person in the Trinity should become Man to be a fit Person for the Work it pleased God and him that he did actually take on him this Punishment in such a manner as he was capable of it that is not in regard to the Merit or that he should be held longer than he was under it and suitable to such a Person which made his Temporal suffering an Equivalent so that by enduring the same in our behalf Satisfaction was made and God thereupon relaxes his Law of Works by passing a New Law or remedying Law of Grace whereby Deliverance and Life Pardon and Salvation is to be had on the Terms of the Gospel This is that Doctrine which whosoever imbraces be he Arminian or Calvinist let him be Episcopius or Baxter Mr. Williams or Mr. Lobb it is all one for that Bring us the Test let us see their Books and if we find in them a constant acknowledgment that the sufferings of Christ was a Punishment for our sins and a Propitiatory Sacrifice to God for them let them differ as they will in accuracy we are at Unity in the Point Only let not any one that is more accurate about it despise him that is less accurate nor he that is less accurate be scandalized at him that is more accurate and cautious lest by denying or contradicting what is reasonable to be granted he should harden the Adversary and blunt his own Faith Knowing this that be he as cautious as he can he will hardly be out of danger of one of the Extreams and also that as I humbly think he must however be more accurate than to go the Common way of the ordinary Protestant or by avoiding the extream of Socinianism on one hand he will fall into Antinomianism on the other into which many are already fallen that disclaim it In short The sufferings of Christ may be considered Personally in Relation to himself or Impersonally in relation to us Personally in relation to himself there being no Merit of his own and no Merit of ours imputable to that Holy Person his sufferings could not be formally Penal Impersonally in relation to us the Punishment being in our room was ours and consequently must be a formal proper Punishment and this Commutation only thus construed is enough for the explaining and upholding the Doctrine of Satisfaction And yet again that this Business this difficult Business the reconciling Mr. Baxter and Grotius be dispatched and thoroughly
of following Truth hereafter wheresoever he finds it but this that God did look on Christ as appearing in our Person and so judged and condemned him for a sinner as one I say being in our Person that deserved his Wrath and Curse and therefore laid it on him whereby our full and proper Punishment was Born the Law Executed and Justice Done and if any will add with Ravensperg farther that the torments of Hell in his Agony and Suffering on the Cross when he cried Eli Eli lamasabacthani were laid on his Soul that nothing of the very Punishment may be abated him who does not see that such a satisfaction is so strait laced as will not fit the Person of Christ and that such Divines do more to drive Men to Socinianism than Socinus himself could while they stand upon such a Satisfaction as no reasonable Man can * Vera satisfactio est plenâ— deliti persolutio Vnusquisque nostram mortem aternam divinae isti justitiae debelat says Socinus De Ser. l. 3. c. 3. receive And whereas Mr. Lobb therefore and other such more considering Persons do see a necessity to come off and allow that it was not and could not be our very Punishment it self it being enough that Christ was surrogated under the Primordial Nature of the Puuishment to use his words though not under the horrid Circumstances we our selves were to suffer and does yield moreover that though the Punishment yet the Desert of our sins could not be laid on Christ because that would run him into Antinomianism which Concessions do draw after them such other suitable Notions as Mr. Baxter offers so that at last we must come to this that the Ends of Gods Law and Government being secured it must be left to the Wisdom of the Father and Son to agree upon what satisfaction pleased them for demonstrating Divine Righteousness against Sin and Mercy toward the Sinner and that be sufficient for us to believe For I must add that so long as we agree in our belief that Christs Death was a Ransom for our Redemption and a Sacrifice for our Sins in the Sense of the Types of old where the sin of the Sacrificer was laid on the Beast and the Blood thereof an Expiation for it to the end he might be forgiven it what matter is it tho' one holds this Death to be Formally another only Materially our Punishment or that one says our sins were the proper Meritorious Cause and the other the Remote Cause or Occasion of it they both hold it Satisfaction and intend the maintaining the Doctrine thereof Proper Punishment is an infliction of a Natural Evil on a Person for Committing a Moral Evil But Christ that endured the Natural Evil never committed any Moral Evil and how can that be proper Punishment The Punishment laid on him was not due to him but to us The Punishment dâ—e to us was Hell but his Sufferings only Temporal Death Is not here then one Punishment in the room of another as one Person suffering in the room of another And what Legerdemain can cover the Eye of any as not to see this a Vicarious Punishment Again when all proper Punishment is for sin as the Meritorious Cause of it and Christ sinned not and our sins cannot according to the Bishop deserve that another should be punished for them so that here is Punishment without Desert how is this proper Formal Punishment The Law by vertue of its Sanction punishes none but the Breakers of the Preceptive Part and how then can these sufferings arise Ex obligatione-Legis If they did arise from the Obligation of the Law then was the Law executed in Christs suffering but Christ suffered that the Law might not be executed but the Penitent Believing Sinner be pardoned I might go on and offer other Positions according to what is said by Mr. Baxter in his Eighteenth Deterininations Math. Theol. Part 3. Cap. 1. before quoted and Mr. Lobb the Dr or Bishop may as well deny that two and three makes five as fundamentally to deny any of them and therefore I shall forbear more being come already to the Composition which Grotius in that one word before hath made for us Impersonaliter these sufferings as due to us may be said to be properly formally Punishment Punishment for sin as the Meritorious Cause of it Punishment arising from the Obligation of the Law upon our breaking it punishment that was the Curse of the Law and which he bare when if we had our selves born it it had been the Execution of the Law the Execution whereof these Divines who are for the Common Doctrine apprehending as Socinus to be proper Satisfaction wherein they are perfectly out for that according to the Schools is contrary to it it makes them so extream as before mentioned in their Doctrine of Satisfaction as no Man unprejudiced can abide it But Personaliter on the other hand as these sufferings are laid upon Christ instead of us that is instead not as in our Person but instead that we might escape them they are Nominally and Materially indeed but they are not they cannot be Formally and Properly Penal They arise not from sin as the Metitorious Cause nor from the Obligation of the Law and are no Execution of it Why should I go on to say the same things over and over I will make bold to conclude with Mr. Baxter against any if there be any that think they have more sagacity herein than he to oppose him and say As the Person that suffered was loco nostri the sufferings were loco paenae our sins loco causae meritoriae his Sponsion loco obligationis ex Lege an Equivalent loco Debiti and loco solutionis here is at last effected proper Satisfaction Let Mr. Baxter's Adversaries be who they will and let them do what they can they shall never make more of it Another thing which Mr. Lobb observes of Mr. Williams that I must also take notice of is this As he does hold that the Obligation which lay on Christ to do as he did arose altogether from the Mediatorial Law so does he hold that the Righteousness which consists in his Performance of that Law is that which is imputed to the Believer for his Justification wherein there does manifestly appear that slip of Mr. Williams which I have before mentioned for seeing that Law and the Righteousness thereof did belong only or was proper to the Mediator it is impossible it should be imputed otherwise to us than in the Effects which when Mr. Baxter saw and asserted and Mr. Williams does follow him in what he says else and yet leaves him in this I cannot but give him again friendly Warning to retract that slip for otherwise the whole Doctrine he is engaged in which he hath knit together out of Mr. Baxter and endeavours to maintain by this one Stitch let fall if it be not amended must unravel and come to nothing The Argument I have used in
my Pacification Pag. 40. which Book I expected to have been answered by him or the Truth as to what concerns him acknowledged before this The last thing I will Note in Mr. Lobb is Though a righteousness he says which Answers the Obligation in the plural that is therefore both of the Preceptive and Comminatory Part of the violated Law of Works be necessary to our Justification yet we are not justified by the Law because we did it not our selves as the Law required but by the Gospel he apprehends in that the Gospel provides us such a Righteousness that is Christs Righteousness made ours by Faith as answers the Law that we may be justified Here is that apprehended which is as clearly thought as any one that will maintain the Common Doctrine can speak but I must Answer him That if the Gospel must provide us such a Righteousness as answers the Law that we may be justified by it then must that necessarily presuppose that it is by the Law we are to be judged but when indeed that is not so for if it be by the Gospel and not the Law as himself accounts that we are justified it is by the Gospel we must be judged for to be judged is either to be justified or condemned and accordingly it is not the Righteousness of Christ which answers the Law that the Gospel provides for us but it is the Righteousness of God that is manifested without the Law a Righteousness revealed in the Gospel in opposition to the Works of the Law that it hath provided for the Sinners Justification To be more full and satisfactory as we draw to an End The Law is sometimes taken strictly as it requires perfect Obedience to its Precepts that we may live in them and so it is opposed to the Gospel Or it is taken largly for the whole Doctrine of the Old Testament which contains Promises of Pardon and Life upon Mens Faith and Repentance as well as the Gospel In the first Sense St. Paul says the Righteousness of God is manifest without the Law In the second that yet it hath the witness of the Law and the Prophets For Moses tells us that God is Gracious Merciful forgiving Iniquities Transgression and Sin and the Prophets call on the People to Repent and cast away their Transgressions that they may live and not die which is all one with what the Gospel Teaches It is strange now that when this Doctrine of Faith and Repentance which is so plain in both Testaments The just Man shall live by his faith should be obscured by the Doctrine of Imputation which is a devised Doctrine not in Scripture I mean the Imputation of Christs Righteousness in the sense of per modum formae or formalis causae when in the sense of per modum Meriti it does but explain and confirm the same Insomuch as those Scriptures which are usually brought for such Imputation do effectually prove the contrary to it I mean that it is not Christs Righteousness imputed to us but our Faith or Evangelick Righteousness imputed to us for Righteousness that justifies us This may appear by the Explication of such as these Scriptures following The Jews being ignorant of Gods Righteousness and going about to establish their own have not submitted to the Righteousness of God That is not to that way of becoming Righteous which God hath founded or instituted and so declared in the Gospel which in opposition to their Righteousness is by Faith in Jesus Christ For Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth The Law in general was an Instruction in order to the coming of the Messiah that we should believe in him and obey him when come and thereby be justified and saved So the Apostle otherwhere Wherefore the Law was our School-Master unto Christ that we might be justified by Faith By Christs being the end of the Law then we may understand either The end or design of the Law requiring perfect Obedience which no Man does or can perform is to drive us to Christ But how drive us to him Is it to his Righteousness to be made ours No there is no such thing said any where but to him for Righteousness through believing Or and for Christ is the end of the Law in that he by the Obedience of his Life and Death fulfilling the same in our behalf hath freed us from the Condition thereof requiring only our Faith instead of That and so Righteousness now or Justification is to every one who without the Works of the Law does perform the Terms of the Gospel There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit That is They that are in Christ by Faith and their Faith is sound so as it causes them to walk sincerely before God they are freed from Condemnation For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Jesus Christ hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death That is for the Law of Grace which is the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ doth free such from the Curse of the Law of Works For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the Flesh God sending his Son in the likeness of sinful Flesh and for sin condemned sin in the Flesh That is The Law being not able to free us from Condemnation or to justifie us seeing thro' our Frailty we break it which else would do it God sent his Son to take our sins on him and by condemning sin in him or punishing him for them he hath bereft sin of its Damnatory Power over the Believer That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit That is that the Justification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we should have by the Law if we could perform it may be had by our performing only the Conditions of the Law of Grace which is walking not after the Flesh but after the Spirit or not after the Law but after the Gospel Do we then make void the Law by Faith Yea we establish the Law The Law taken largely as before declares Gods Ordination of a Sinners Justification by Faith and Repentance as the Gospel does and thereby is most plainly established or accomplished But to say further The Law is established says St. Augustine by the fulfilling it Now Faith if it be sound does work by Love and Love is fulfilling the Law But how does Faith and Love fulfil it Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in the Rigour of it but the Equity or according to Acceptation thro' Christ When God then for Christs sake does accept of our Faith or our sincere though imperfect Obedience for Righteousness this is that julfilling the Law which is all that can be in this Earth and thereby the establishing of it As by one Mans Disobedience many were made
him the Obligation to suffer for our sins but not Our Obligation He bare the Punishment of our sins let me say yet Personally not Our Punishment When Christ is said to be made under the Law Gal. 4.4 I understand it of the Law of Moses as a Jew born for redeeming the Jews from it Yet as one of Mankind was he also under the Law of Works as to the Precept and fulfilled it for freeing us from that perfect Performance as the Condition of Life and from its being to us the Rule of Judgment but he was not under the Penal Sanction nor could be being innocent He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 3.13 made a Curse but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 3.10 under the Curse which none but the Transgressor is And seeing Mr. Lobb is come already to see he must part with the Common Doctrine somewhere or fall into Antinomianism he is so rational and fair a Man I believe as his own Genius when once he can be cool and consider will suggest to him that it is better not to set out at all than to halt by the way and not to go quite home If he be convinced that the Personal Guilt of our sins could not be translated on Christ so as to make him a Legal Sinner which is all that the Crispian as well as the Common Protestant Doctrine ever meant then will he see that the Personal Righteousness of Christ cannot be translated neither on us so as that we should be Legally Righteous in him and consequently agree with Mr. Baxter and me leaving Mr. VVilliams if he wont come on behind in the Doctrine both of Satisfaction and Justification I must add as a Corollary that the Phrases my Friend does stand so much upon of Christs suffering in our Person or in our stead if they be used as the same and signifie no more but that Christ being a Divine Person did suffer a Temporal Death as an Equivalent to save us from suffering Eternal Damnation they are equally to pass But if either of them be made to bear such a Sense as that Christ did Legally personate us so as we are to be accounted to have done or suffered in him that which he did or suffered or what may seem less that this Commutation of Persons did put Christ under Our Obligation of the violated Law of VVorks so making him to be accounted of God a Sinner and dealt with as a Sinner to the end that his sufferings may be maintained to be a proper Punishment the Phrase or Phrases are stretch'd beyond the Staple become dangerous the Sense Antinomian and to be disallowed And now to dismiss Mr. VVilliams and Mr. Lobb both The summ of Mr. Lobb's Appeal comes to this Syllogism That Person who holds that the sufferings of Christ was not a Proper Punishment but a Vicarious Punishment Not Formally but Materially Punishment That our Sins were not the Proximious Meritorious Cause but the Remote the Pro-meritorious Cause or Occasion of them That they arose not from the Obligation of the Law or from the Sanction of the Law of VVorks which includes with Mr. Lobb that Commutation of Persons as makes Christ Guilty taken judged and executed in our Person but from his voluntary Sponsion or submission to his Fathers Commandment proper to him which implies with Mr. Lobb that the inflicting of Sufferings on Christ could be no act of Gods Rectoral Justice but of Dominion when I take it to be an act of God both as Rector and Supra Leges together and such a Relaxation of his Law as Zaleucus Fact was That consequently the Law in the Threat was not fulfilled by him such a Person is a Socinian and denies the Doctrine or denies that which is necessary to explain the Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction But Mr. VVilliams is such a Person Ergo Mr. VVilliams is one that denies that which is necessary to this Explanation Here Mr. Lobb makes it his business to prove the Minor which he hath effectually done in quoting Mr. Baxter in many places and many more might be added saying these things and then producing Considerations and Passages out of Mr. VVilliams to prove that he must be of the same Opinion Now if Mr. VVilliams denies the Minor and goes to vindicate himself as to that he may be ashamed for Mr. Lobb has done his Work But Mr. VVilliams I suppose as well as I will deny the Major And what hath Mr. Lobb to say for that but all Gratis Why here is a Supposition presumed that the Satisfaction Christ made for our sins was to be such and such as they have fancied or else it must be no satisfaction when the mistake is so great that if all that were necessary thereto which they pretend the Lord Christ was a Person uncapable to make it and so there must be none and we be all Socinians I have therefore two Answers to give Mr. Lobb The First shall be from himself who when Mr. Williams is arguing That if we may very properly be said to be punished in Christ for our sins then must it be granted that we made satisfaction in Christ and are our own Redeemers He answers No because the satisfaction arose not says he from our sufferings in Christ nor indeed from Christs Sufferings considered absolutely and in se but from the Fathers acceptation of the Sons sufferings This is judiciously said The words he adds as they were Ex obligatione Legis and an Equivalent to the demerit of our sins are Petitio Principii for he might put in 〈◊〉 well as our sins were the Proximous Meritorious Cause of them and as they were a proper Punishment I answer him therefore accordingly That seeing the Satisfaction Christ made was not indeed a Satisfaction of the Law it self but of the Law-giver who though Rector is also Supra Leges the Law indeed which requires Supplicium delinquentis being not executed but Satisfaction made that it might not be fulfilled on the Sinner and seeing the Satisfaction lay Fundamentally in the Acceptation of the Father or as perform'd according to the Will of both What if it pleased God to appoint and accept of a Vicarious Punishment instead of a proper Punishment who is there can have any more to say against it I will add in regard to some fresh Sheets of Mr. Lobb come out called A further Defence which in setting forth Mr. Baxters Doctrine as opposite to that which is commonly Received according to Dr. Edwards and others has done Mr. Baxter Right and Honour as I account That for as much as God acts according to him and Truth both as Rector and Lord also Supra Leges and the great Ends of Government in general such as the Demonstration of Gods Righteousness his hatred to sin the deterring the Sinner by exemplary Punishment and even his greater Glory might be attained in the way which God took without fulfilling the direct end of the Law in a proper punishment on the Sinner or on Christ as a Sinner It is such a Satisfaction as Mr. Baxter offers that is a Satisfaction of the Law-giver and not that Mr. Lobb stands upon a Satisfaction of the Law which is to be maintained For this being Socinus fundamental Errour That True Satisfaction lies only in a full payment of the Debt and Eternal Death being due to every Sinner the Doctrine of Satisfaction seems to him apparently False Christ suffering not that Punishment and those Divines now that fall in with him into that Conception have not an Answer to give Socinus whereas Mr. Lobb hath set out Mr. Baxter's Doctrine in the several branches to be so tight and uniform that the light thereof though wrapt in his Clouds of Blame about it does appear most â—onvictive and irresistible and I cannot but think that Mr. Lobb himself when he can be cool and lay by opposition must be ready to embrace it It is Mr. Baxter's Satisfaction which can be justified against Socinus Mr. Baxter's Doctrine is such as does force even the Socinians to yield and acknowledge themselves overcome by it This is such Doctrine as needs no more but the same more friendly display of it See Mr. Baxter's own 18 Determinations together for Mr. Baxter's Vindication and Mr. Lobb's Reduction The Second Answer I have is made already in these Sheets and that is that there is one Word and that taken from Grotius himself which hath done it The word Impersonaliter does reconcile Grotius and Baxter Mr. Williams and Mr. Lobb the Bishop and us all and that word therefore without any thing more is enough to solve the difficulty and consequently to explain and make good this Great Doctrine of Christs Satisfaction FINIS ERRATA PAg. 9. line 27. my read your p. 14. l. 21. r. existimare p. 22. l. 9. Premium r. Praemiant p. 74 in the Margin deliti r. debiti THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER Reader THese Letters and Animadversions put thus together by my Appointment were intended to come out asunder the Animadversions as a second Part of the Friendly Interposer and the Letters as the finishing Work to that Doctrine proposed by Mr. H. in his Middle Way and confirmed in his Righteousness of God unto which Book he would have had them annex'd alone by themselves But in regard that the several Papers of his concerning the late Difference among the Nonconformists in Doctrinals whereof the Point of Justification is the chief will come with these to forty Sheets I have thought best my self and have found good Cause so to do to bind the whole in one handsom Book that any that will so long as each of a sort holds out may have it T. P.
that now acknowledges Repentance necessary to Pardon and Faith to Justfication in some such words which are all manifest Abuse on both sides for neither does Mr. Report believe Mr. Rebuke a Socinian nor Mr. Rebuke believe Mr. Report an Antinomian they may as well say they are two Dears or two Birds as to say that either is a Socinian or Antinomian I must confess there is one Chapter in the Vindication about Christs dying in our stead that is so well so solid so appositely scriptured so brief and convincing against the Socinian that excepting all Application to his Adversary I have been seldom pleased and satisfied with any thing more and I must confess moreover my pleasure in reading the Book that I left not though it be ten Sheets unless for a spirt till I had done Yet does not all his Wit nor his Erudition recompence so ill an Example as the rendring evil for evil that is Abuse for Abuse which is not only a fault as to Men but a sin as to God and I pray God forgive them both and I pray them to forgive me the telling them of it I shall let alone therefore these Books mentioned and take notice only of these two more that is the Answer of our Presbyterian Brethren to Mr. Lobb set out by Mr. Williams and the Appeal of Mr. Lobb to the Bishop of Worcester and shall offer a few Animadversions upon some Passages which others it is like would not at least with that impartiality whether they offend or not as I do A great part I perceive of these Books is about the Phrase Commutation of Persons for Explication whereof the Presbyterian Brethren distinguish of a Natural Moral and Legal Change p. 12. and tell us that there is no change of Christs Natural Person into Ours or Ours into His and that Christs Qualities likewise are not made Ours nor Ours His which is most true without doubt but who ever thought otherwise Who ever questioned any such thing that there is need of such a distinction If any think that Dr. Crisp by Christs taking our Quality and Condition and we his did understand these Brethrens Moral Change as if the Accidents of one Subject could migrate into another they abuse the Doctor supposing him such a Blockhead as no Scholar is to be supposed No when he tells us that Christ was as compleat a sinner as we and we as compleatly righteous as he it must be construed only by way of Imputation We must not wrest any words of his to make him think otherwise It is true now here that in this Imputation of our sins to Christ he understands it not only quod reatum paenae but Culpae also which is his Error but as for this distinction of a Moral Change it does not affect him any more than the Brethren themselves so that they do thereby only beat the Air not him It is no more to the confuting Antinomianism than might be spared And as for the word Legal Change upon which they pitch they do it not without fear of danger as themselves acknowledge and have reason so that indeed in the Explication of this Phrase Change of Persons they should not have distinguish'd upon the word Change but the word Person The word Person is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lyable to a diverse Acceptation the word Change to none Change is Change but Person is not Person There is a Natural Person and a Legal Person which are two of their three Terms but the Term Moral as to Person hath no place here And it is Christ Natural Person tho' there be no Natural Change which comes in the room of our Natural Persons to bear the Punishment of our sins that is the Commutation of Persons as is necessary to the Explication of the Doctrine of Satisfaction If there be any change of Person else in regard to the Term Legal Person let any of the Brethren that can make it our By this Distinction mentioned it is one thing with them for Christ to take on him our Person and another our Quality State or Condition and our Brethren therefore do impugne Mr. Lobb's saying That Christ put himself into our Place State and Condition P. 31. when even these words are and may be used as well as sustaining our Person and suffering in our stead giving them the same Orthodox Construction Such Expressions must be taken not simpliciter but secundum quid not in regard to every thing but to one thing Christ did take on him our State Condition or Quality as we were lyable to Punishment or as obnoxious to the Curse for our sins and so became a Curse and Sacrifice for us But when Mr. Lobb says further that we were Sinners and destitute of Righteousness he must be construed to speak so also in regard to the Punishment due to us thereupon and that Christ took upon him that Condition only whereby he was lyable in our stead But to press him therefore with the consequence that Christ must be a sinner and destitute of Righteousness is to press him too hard for he is one we know that denies the Crispian Sense of Change of Persons as well as the Brethren And tho' they do here but take him on the hip upon a slip of Words they by and by do him plain wrong when upon the right Interpretation they make they say This will not content him for it will and does content him and he means no otherwise than they and as for their making him hold That Christ was changed to be a sinful Person destitute of Righteousness as they go on in the place A lapsus linguae is no Error mentis and the arguing him into what he abhors is not doing as good Men would be done by themselves They are in good earnest here too heavy upon him In these Papers of the Brethren there is a Letter from the Bishop of Worcester and part of some Letters from Dr. Edwards That which is quoted out of the Dr. seems to me open obvious and edifying That which is said by the Bishop is writ with Prudence and Caution with Ability and Authority but not with that openness altogether as I who speak as a Fool could wish The Commutation of Persons between Christ and us according to his Lordship may have a threefold sense One which implies Christ being appointed to Act in our behalf for our benefit which the Socinians will grant Another which implies not only his acting for our benefit but his being substituted in our stead in bearing our Punishment to become an Attonement for us that is to satisfie Gods Justice that so by an Act or New Law of Grace he might grant us Pardon and Life upon the Conditions of the Gospel which is the sound Sense of this Change of Persons according to Grotius this Learned Bishop our Presbyterian Brethren and Mr. Lobb also which he will not gainsay tho' whether he will have more to it let himself tell For
adjudicatur says he to us as the price given to the Victor is imputed to the Captive in his Deliverance is that which he says with Bradshaw and Grotius I 'll add Forbes modestae Questiones he does maintain Meth. The. Part 3. P. 54. The Scholastically Learned and Industrious Mr. Wotton has this Distinction in other words for speaking of Christs being made sin and Christs righteousness ours he tells us it must be understood not Formaliter but Effectivè This is all one as not in se but in the Effects Thus our sins are imputed to Christ in his bearing only the Punishment when by an Imputation in se or formaliter he must bear the merit also And thus shall Christs Righteousness become ours Effectivè though we are but Meritoriously and not Formally justified by it As for Reasons against Imputation in the Common Sense before mentioned to wit that God does not look on us to have obeyed and suffered in Christ as our Legal Person and what follows there are so many in Mr. Baxter's Books that I need not bring any Only one among the other Antinomian Consequences I will mention as what is most obvious and convincing which is that if this were so then should the Elect be immediately freed from Punishment and immediately justified before they believed or repented or without Faith and Repentance for no terms could be imposed on them in order to their Justification and Glory if they be accounted already to have fulfilled the Law in Christ This being a Doctrine therefore so directly as dangerously contrary to the Gospel it is to be discarded And yet for once I will thus argue and call Mr. Lobb to hearken to me There is nothing can be imputed to us but either that which we have not and then it is imputed that we may have it that is to have it made ours or reputed as ours Or else if we have it it must be imputed to some other end than to have it or for some other thing than that it self which is imputed Now if Christ did obey and suffer in our Persons or as our Legal Person so as in Law-sense we have and are accounted to have obeyed and suffered in him then can his Righteousness consisting of his Obedience and Sufferings be neither imputed to us that we may have it or to be made ours or reckoned to us as ours seeing we have it already It is ours it is reckoned as ours in that it was performed in our Persons Nor can it be imputed to us to any other end or for any other thing but Ad Justitiam for Righteousness justifying Righteousnes which is to the same end and for the same thing and can be no other Mr. Lobb here is a Man of Sense and can see Reason and of Ingenuity if any other be so as if it convince him to acknowledge it If he keep to the Common Opinion he cann't Answer to Socinus There can be no Imputation upon this account of Christs Righteousness to any But if he come off and say Christ suffered not for us in the Sense of in our Person so as in Law-sense we must be reckoned to have suffered and satisfied in him but suffered for us in our stead in the sense only as to save us from suffering then is there room for an Imputation of his Satisfaction to us that it may be made ours or accounted to us as ours which otherwise is Christs only But how then ours or accounted ours Not ours in se for that brings us back to having satisfied in his Person but ours in the Effects This as I take it is a matter of deep Consideration I appeal to Mr. Lobb's as well as to Mr. W's own impartial Judgment One thing remains as yet not suggested by any other I have intimated that the entanglement of the two Points Satisfaction and Justification in our discoursing of them one with another does give occasion of clouding them and that it will be an edifying matter to endeavour to sever them so by putting a right difference between them in relation to the Controversie as we may bring some light that will clear our Understandings in the Doctrine of them both To this end then let us know that when the Scripture rells us of Christs dying for us and bearing our sins with the like Expressions and we are agreed against the Socinians that what Christ did and suffered for us was not only bono nostro but loco nostro in our stead our room our place Here is the thing I offer to Consideration that what is done by Christ loco nostro must be applied to his making God Satisfaction for us not to the Point of our Justification For explaining this let us farther know as signified before that to do or suffer any thing in anothers stead or room is to do or suffer it to save the other from doing or suffering Now in the Point of Satisfaction there is nothing that we do or is required of us to do in order to make it or procure it to be made so that what was done or suffered in order thereunto must certainly be in our room or stead we being perfectly free from doing or suffering our selves any thing towards it But as for the Point of Justification it is as certain that there is our Duty required our Faith and Repentance and sincere Walking in order to it and there is nothing done or suffered by Christ that frees us from it It is true that the perfect Obedience of Christ to the Law of Works is to be accounted in my apprehension I have said to be perform'd in our place stead or room and not only in regard to his own Person as Justitia personae because we are freed we know from that Obligation as the Condition of Life which we were by nature under and that therefore his Obedience as well as Sufferings I do account does go into his Satisfaction But as for that Evangelical Obedience that is required of us our believing our repenting in order to our Pardon and Justification there is nothing done by Christ in the room of it The fulfilling the Law by Christ which he did both in regard to the Precept and Sanction was in our room place or stead in order to his Satisfaction but his fulfilling the Law was not in our place stead or room in order to our Justification It was in order to it for obtaining Pardon and Justification upon the Gospel Conditions but it was not in our room place or stead in order to it Whether in saying this I say something to the purpose or no I appeal to the Judicious Bishop Only I must add thus much that this is that which in effect I have said in former Books speaking to that Commutation of Persons which Dr. Owen hath stood so much upon and now Mr. Lobb that it is to be acknowledged as to the Impetration but not to go into the Application of our Redemption The Death of Christ must
Father is communicable with the Believer That is Whether Christs Right to have a Seed and such as shall believe on him can possibly be the Believers Or whether the Promise that Christ shall have some to believe in him and so be saved be of the same import with that which says He that believes shall be saved Again Whether there be any Imputation by God of Christs Performance to the Believer as there is or may be an Application of it by the Believer for his security in regard to the Benefits And Whether such an Imputation if there be such of Christs Performance for the Believers Security be of the same import as the Imputation of it for his Justification These and the like are Questions which require the second thoughts of Mr. Williams In fine there is one Consideration especially the Consideration of what confusion it must make in the minds of most to understand by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness another Righteousness than that our Divines hither to have understood and to draw their Words to a Sense they never thought which is to make them all equivocate or lie is a matter of such dangerous Consequence that I must come to a Resolution and Answer to my Reverend Brother which is that omitting the Reply that this Right of Christ he insists on is it self one Effect of his Performance and if that become Ours the Righteousness of his performance here is imputed or made ours still in regard to the Effects only And omitting the questionableness of this Right being ours already mentioned I must say plainly that this Talk of his in his Answer to the Report that there is a Judicial Imputation of this Right of Christ which is one Effect immediately intervening between the Imputation of his Performance which is Mediate in order to the Effect of our Justification and Pardon which he must intend or all is nothing to the Point I say is to me a Figmentum a Fiction an Imaginary and Operose something which indeed is nothing even according to himself who tells us that The effects are not imputed Alas when it is so hard to take in what our Divines say of the Imputation of Christs Performance for our Justification for how much easier is it of understanding to say that for the sake of what Christ hath done God does forgive and save us on the Terms of the Gospel or does accept of Faith instead of perfect Obedience than to talk of Imputation which is a Phrase as applyed to Christs Righteousness invented by Man though as applyed to Faith express Scripture to come to the multiplying and doubling these Imputations of Christs Right as well as of his Performance is a matter of so troublesom a Notion so cluttersom an invention Eutia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate so turning and over-turning what hath been said by our Divines as it were topsie turvy and indeed so presumptuous as well as untrue according to his own Axiom upon that account that if it were not that by this means he gets a Liberty of Compliance to use the Phrase with the Brethren who the most of them never concern'd themselves as to his Explanation it would not be endured Be it therefore known to all Men by these presents that I J. Humfrey do acquit Mr. Williams of the Inconsistency I supposed in his Doctrine which concerns me and Mr. Baxter upon this Notion or Invention if this invention of his be good but if it be found not good but upon further Consideration a piece of humane Wisdom only and a Shift I do yet conjure him to retract it But to offer something before I have done moreover for satisfaction to my Friend Mr. Lobb There is a Compact it is conceived by him of Christ with the Father that he will come under the Law both in regard to the Precept and Sanction and that the Sanction thereupon takes hold on him his voluntary Sponsion Anteceding not Intereeding the laying the Penalty on him This now cannot be That Christ entred not our Bond at first with us Mr. Lobb sees and says The Bond ran not that if we or our Surety performed it the Obligation should be void for then upon Christs keeping the Law there could be no Punishment due to him or us but he entred our Bond when we had broken it he entred into the Obligations of the violated Law of Works he says and so the Law taking him as under that Violation and Consequently as under its Sanction it laid the Punishment immediately on him as the Person to be punished and in that regard even in regard to the Sanction it was he acconnts a proper Punishment This I take to be the Error of the Common Protestant and so Mr. Lobbs upon that account It is true that Christ voluntarily undertook or compacted to come under the Precept of the Law unto which yet it self as a Divine Person Actiones being Suppositorum he could not have been obliged otherwise say Divines and to undergo the Curse or Punishment due to us but not to come under the Sanction that being impossible because the Sanction as to the Comminatory Part we understand does punish only him that breaks the Precept which Christ never did but we do so that it is the Punishment not the Fault or Merit thereof that he took on him which consequently arose not from the Sanction but his Undertaking and that Undertaking being to suffer in our room it could not be a proper Punishment in Mr. Lobb's Sense of Proper which is Arising from the Sanction but a Vicarious Punishment as Mr. Baxter over and over does tell us If Christ came under the Sanction of the Law so as the Punishment was due to him Ex obligatione Legis which Mr. Lobb holds but as pleading only the Common Protestants Cause I will suppose then must he be accounted of God as a Sinner nay as the greatest of Sinners and be punished as such which hath indeed been formerly affirmed by great Divines and so taken up by the Antinomian accounting that our sins was laid on him in the Merit as well as in the Punishment which my Friend seeing that here indeed is the Gulph he makes his stand and comes off in an Approbation of the Bishop for his opposing Antinomianism and particularly in this Point that there is such a Change of Persons which implies a Translation of the Personal Guilt or Merit of their sins which is all one of the Believer on Christ which he confutes as the Doctrine of the Antinomian and which Mr. Lobb disclaims as heartily as any O thou my Friend therefore Mr. Common Protestant be it known to all that Christ suffered not as a Sinner but as an Interceder and not from the Obligation of the violated Law of Works which he violated not but of his Fathers Commandment which was proper to him or of the Law of Redemption as Mr. Williams after Mr. Baxter does stedfastly teach Christ indeed took on