To the Reader

Christian Reader,

This Small Treatise has no other design but your good, and establishment in the truth. And therefore as laying aside that consideration alone: I could desirously have been excused from the labor of those hours which were spent in its composure, so in the work itself, I admitted of no one thought, but how the things treated of in it, might, and ought to be managed to your spiritual benefit and advantage. Other designs most men have in writing what is to be exposed to public view, and lawfully may have so; in this I have nothing but merely your good. I have neither been particularly provoked, nor opposed by the adversaries of the truth here pleaded for; nor have any need from any self respect, to publish such a small plain discourse as this; love alone to the truth, and the welfare of your soul, have given efficacy to their importunity who pressed me to this small service.

The matters here treated of, are on all hands confessed to be of the greatest moment; such as the eternal welfare of the souls of men, is immediately and directly concerned in. This all those who believe the sacred truths here proposed and explained, do unanimously profess and contend for; nor is it denied by those by whom they are opposed. There is no need therefore to give you any especial reasons to evince your concernment in these things, nor the greatness of that concernment, thereby to induce you to their serious consideration. It were well indeed that these great, sacred, and mysterious truths, might without contention or controversies about them, be left to the faith of believers as proposed in the Scripture, with that explanation of them which in the ordinary ministry and dispensation of the Gospel is necessary and required.

Certainly these tremendous mysteries, are not by us willingly to be exposed, or prostituted to the cavils of every perverse querist, and disputer; those [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]; whose pretended wisdom, indeed ignorance, darkness and folly, God has designed to confound and destroy in them and by them. For my part, I can assure you, Reader, I have no mind to contend and dispute about these things which I humbly adore and believe as they are revealed. It is the importunity of adversaries, in their attempts to draw and seduce the souls of men from the truth and simplicity of the Gospel in these great fundamentals of it, that alone can justify any to debate upon, or eristically to handle these awful mysteries. This renders it our duty, and that indispensably, in as much as we are required to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. But yet also when this necessity is imposed on us, we are by no means discharged from that humble reverence of mind, wherewith we ought always to be conversant about them; nor from that regard to the way and manner of their revelation in the Scripture, which may preserve us from all unnecessary intermixture of litigious or exotic phrases and expressions, in their assertion and declaration. I know our adversaries would upon the matter decry any thing peculiarly mysterious in these things; although they are frequently, and emphatically in the Scriptures affirmed so to be. But while they deny the mysteries of the things themselves, which are such as every may become the glorious being and wisdom of God, they are forced to assign such an enigmatical sense to the words, expressions and propositions wherein they are revealed and declared in the Scripture, as to turn almost the whole Gospel into an allegory, wherein nothing is properly expressed, but in some kind of allusion to what is so elsewhere; which irrational way of proceeding, leaving nothing certain in what is or may be expressed by word or writing, is covered over with a pretence of right reason, which utterly refuses to be so employed. These things the Reader will find afterwards made manifest, so far as the nature of this brief discourse will bear. And I shall only desire these few things of him that intends its perusal. First, That he would not look on the subject here treated of, as the matter of an ordinary controversy in religion. — Neque enim hic levia aut ludicra petuntur Praemia; lectoris de vita animaeque salute Certatur;

They are things which immediately and directly in themselves concern the eternal salvation of the souls of men; and their consideration ought always to be attended with a due sense of their weight and importance. Secondly, Let him bring with him a due reverence of the majesty and infinite, incomprehensible nature of God, as that which is not to be prostituted to the captious and sophistical scanning of men of corrupt minds, but to be humbly adored according to the revelation that he has made of himself. Thirdly, That he be willing to submit his soul and conscience, to the plain and obvious sense of Scripture propositions and testimonies, without seeking out evasions and pretenses for unbelief. These requests I cannot but judge equal, and fear not the success, where they are sincerely complied withal.

I have only to add; that in handling the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ, I have proceeded on that principle, which as it is fully confirmed in the Scripture, so it has constantly been maintained and adhered to by the most of those, who with judgement and success have managed these controversies against the Socinians. And this is that the essential holiness of God, with his justice or righteousness, as the supreme governor of all, did indispensibly require that sin should not absolutely go unpunished; and that it should do so, stands in a repugnancy to those holy properties of his nature. This I say, has been always constantly maintained by far the greatest number of them, who have throughly understood the controversy in this matter, and have successfully engaged in it. And as their arguments for their assertion, are plainly unanswerable, so the neglect of abiding by it, is causelessly to forego one of the most fundamental and invincible principles in our cause. He who first laboured in the defence of the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ, after Socinus had formed his imaginations about the salvation that he wrought, and began to dispute about it, was Covetus, a learned man, who laid the foundation of his whole disputation in the justice of God, necessarily requiring and indispensibly the punishment of sin. And indeed the state of the controversy as it is laid down by Socinus, in his Book De Jesu Christo servatore, which is an answer to this Covetus, is genuine, and that which ought not to be receded from, as having been the direct ground of all the controversial writings on that subject, which have since been published in Europe. And it is in these words laid down by Socinus himself: Communis & Orthodoxa (ut asseris) sententia est, Iesum Christum ideo servatorem nostrum esse, quia divinae Justiciae per quam peccatores damnari merebamur, pro peccatis nostris plene satisfecerit; quae satisfactio Per fidem imputatur Nobis ex dono Dei credentibus. This he ascribes to Covet: The common and orthodox judgement is, that Jesus Christ is therefore our Savior, because he has satisfied the justice of God, by which we being sinners deserved to be condemned, for all our sins. In opposition whereunto he thus expresseth his own opinion: Ego vero censeo & Orthodoxam sententiam esse arbitror, Iesum Christum ideo servatorem nostrum esse, quia salutis aeternae viam nobis annuntiaverit, confirmaverit, & in sua ipsius persona, cum vitae exemplo, tum ex mortuis resurgendo, manifeste ostenderit, vitamque aeternam nobis ei fidem habentibus ipse daturus sit. Divinae autem justitiae, per quam peccatores damnari meremur, pro peccatis nostris neque illum satisfecisse, neque ut satisfaceret, opus fuisse arbitror. I judge and suppose it to be the orthodox opinion, that Jesus Christ is therefore our Savior, because he has declared to us the way of eternal salvation, and confirmed it in his own person; manifestly shewing it, both by the example of his life, and by rising from the dead; and in that he will give eternal life to us believing in him. And I affirm that he neither made satisfaction to the justice of God, whereby we deserved to be damned for our sins, nor was there any need that he should so do. This is the true state of the question; and the principal subtilty of Crellius, the great defender of this part of the doctrine of Socinus, in his Book of the Causes of the Death of Christ, and the Defence of this Book De Iesu Christo servatore, consists in speaking almost the same words with those whom he does oppose, but still intending the same things with Socinus himself. This opinion as was said of Socinus, Covetus opposed and everted on the principle before mentioned.

The same truth was confirmed also by Zarnovitius who first wrote against Socinus his book; as also by Otto Casmannus who engaged in the same work; and by Abraham Salinarius. Upon the same foundation do proceed, Paraeus, Piscator, Lubbertus, Lucius, Camero, Voetius, Amiraldus, Placaeus, Rivetus, Walaeus, Thysius, Altingius, Maresius, Essenius, Arnoldus, Turretinus, Baxter, with many others; the Lutherans, who have managed these controversies, as Tarnovius, Meisnerus, Calovius, Stegmannus, Martinius, Franzius, with all others of their way, have constantly maintained the same great fundamental principle of this doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ; and it has well, and solidly been of late asserted among ourselves on the same foundation. And as many of these authors do expresly blame some of the Schoolmen, as Aquinas, Durandus, Biel, Tataretus, for granting a possibility of pardon without satisfaction, as opening a way to the Socinian error in this matter; so also they fear not to affirm, that the foregoing of this principle of God's vindictive justice indispensibly requiring the punishment of sin, does not only weaken the cause of the truth, but indeed leave it indefensible. However I suppose, men ought to be wary how they censure the authors mentioned, as such who expose the cause they undertook to defend, to contempt; for greater, more able, and learned defenders, this truth has not as yet found, nor does stand in need of.

J. O.