Chapter 3: Examining Baxter's Objections to Owen's Arguments

The state of the question in hand being as above laid down, let us now see what Mr. Baxter his judgment is of my success in that undertaking: Concerning which he thus delivers himself;

Yet here Mr. Owen enters the list with Grotius, And,

- 1 He over-looks his greatest arguments. - 2 He slightly answers only two. - 3 And when he has done, he says as Grotius does, and yields the whole cause.

These three things I will make appear in order. Append. pag. 139.

A most unhappy issue as can possibly be imagined, made up of deceit, weakness, and self-contradiction. But how is all this proved?

To make the first thing appear, He produces the argument over-looked.

The chief argument of Grotius and Vossius (says he) is drawn from the tenor of the obligation, and from the event. The obligation charges punishment on the offender himself. It says [In the day you eat you shall die] And [Cursed is every one that continues not in all things, &c.] Now if the same in the obligation be paid, then the law is executed, and not relaxed: and then every sinner must die himself; for that is the idem, and very thing threatened: So that here, dum alias soluit, simul aliud solvitur. The law threatened not Christ, but us: (besides that, Christ suffered not the loss of God's love, nor his image and graces, nor eternity of torment, of which I have spoken in the treatise) What says Mr. Owen to any of this?

Let the reader observe what it is we have in hand. It is not the main of the controversy debated by Grotius wherein I do oppose him: Neither yet all in that particular whereabout the opposition is. Now suppose (as he does) that the punishing of the person offending is in the obligation, yet I cannot but conceive that there be two distinct things here: 1 The constitution of the penalty itself to be undergone. 2 The terminating of this penalty upon the person offending. For this latter, I assert a relaxation of the law, which might be done, and yet the penalty itself in reference to its constitution be established. In those places then (In the day you eat, &c.) there is death and the curse appointed for the penalty, and the person offending appointed for the sufferer. That the law is relaxed, in the latter I grant, that the former was executed on Christ I prove.

Now what says this argument to the contrary?

If the same in the obligation be paid, then the law is executed, not relaxed. Then every sinner must die himself, for that is the idem and very thing threatened. So that here dum alias soluit aliud solvitur.

Answer:

- 1 The matter of the obligation having plainly a double consideration, as before, it may be both executed and relaxed in sundry respects. - 2 The idem and very thing threatened in the constitution of the law, is death; The terminating of that penalty to the person offending, was in the commination, and had it not been released, must have been in the execution: but in the constitution of the obligation which respects purely the kind of penalty, primarily it was not. Death is the reward of sin, is all that is there. - 3 We enquire not about payment, but suffering. To make that suffering a payment supposes another constitution: by virtue whereof Christ suffering the same that was threatened: it became another thing in payment, than it would have been, if the person offending had suffered himself. - 4 That the law threatened not Christ but us, is most true: but the question is, whether Christ underwent not the threatening of the law, not we? A commutation of persons is allowed, Christ undergoing the penalty of the offence, though he were not the person offending, I cannot but still suppose that he paid the idem of the obligation. - 5 For the parenthesis about Christ's not suffering the loss of God's love, &c. and the like objections, they have been answered near a thousand times already, and that by no ordinary divines neither; so that I shall not further trouble any therewith.

How this is the argument, the great chief argument of Grotius and Vossius, which Mr. Baxter affirms I overlooked.

That I did not express it, I easily grant: neither will I so wrong the ingenious reader as to make any long apology for my omission of it, considering the state of the matter in difference as before proposed: When Mr. B. or any man else, shall be able to draw out any conclusion from there, that granting the relaxation of the law as to the person suffering, the Lord Christ did not undergo the penalty constituted therein, or that undergoing the very penalty appointed, he did not pay the idem in the obligation, (supposing a new constitution for the converting of suffering into a satisfactory payment) I shall then give a reason why I considered it not.

In the next place Mr. B. gives in the two arguments wherewith I deal. And for the first, about an acquitment ipso facto upon the payment of the idem in the obligation, with my answer, refers it to be considered in another place: Which though I receive no small injury by, as shall be there declared, yet that I may not transgress the order of discourse set me, I pass it by also until then.

The second argument of Grotius with my answer, he thus expresses:

To the second argument that the payment of the same thing in the obligation leaves no room for pardon, he answers thus:

1 God's pardoning comprises the whole dispensation of grace in Christ; As 1 The laying of our sin on Christ: 2 The imputation of his righteousness to us, which is no less of grace and mercy. However God pardons all to us, but nothing to Christ: So that the freedom of pardon has its foundation.

1 In God's will freely appointing this satisfaction of Christ. 2 In a gracious acceptation of the decreed satisfaction in our stead. 3 In a free application of the death of Christ to us.

To which I answer, &c. So far he.

Though this may appear to be a distinct expression of my answer, yet because it seems to me, that the very strength of it as laid down, is omitted; I shall desire the reader to peruse it as it is there proposed, and it will give him some light into the thing in hand. I apply myself to what is here expressed, and answer:

1 To the objection proposed from Grotius as above, I gave a threefold answer.

1 That gracious condonation of sin, which I conceive to be the sum of the glad tidings of the Gospel, seems to comprise those two acts before recounted; both which I there prove to be free, because the very merit and satisfaction of Christ himself was founded on a free compact and covenant, or constitution.

Now I had three reasons (among others) that prevailed with me to make gracious condonation of so large extent, which I shall express, and leave them to the thoughts of every judicious reader, whether they are enforcing thereunto, or no; being exceedingly indifferent what his determination is: For the weight of my answer depends not on it at all.

And they are these:

1, Because that single act of remission of sins to particular persons, (which is nothing but a dissolution of the obligation of the law, as to them, whereby they are bound over to punishment) as it is commonly restrained, is affirmed by them whom Grotius in that book opposed (into whose tents he was afterwards a renegado) to be inconsistent with any satisfaction at all; yes, that which Grotius maintains per tantundem. But now if you extend that Gospel phrase to the compass I have mentioned, they have not the least color so to do.

2. Whereas the Scripture mentions, that through Christ is preached the forgiveness of sin (Acts 13:38), I do suppose that phrase to be comprehensive of the whole manifestation of God in the Covenant of Grace.

3, God expressly says, that this is his covenant, that he will be merciful to our unrighteousness (Hebrews 8:12).

By the way I cannot close with Mr. B. that this place to the Hebrews, and the other of Jeremiah (31:32-33), do comprise but part of the covenant, not the whole. God saying expressly, THIS IS MY COVENANT: to say it is not, is not to interpret the Word, but to deny it. It is true, it is not said that is the whole covenant; no more is it that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life only. As the want of that term of restriction does not enlarge in that, no more does the want of the note of universality restrain in this. To say thus, because here is no condition expressed, is [illegible]. If you mean such a condition as God requires of us, and yet works in us, it is there punctually expressed, with reference to the nature of the Covenant, whereof it is a condition, which is to effect all the conditions thereof, in the covenanters. This by the way, having resolvedly tied up my self from a debate of those positions which Mr. B. dogmatizes; though a large field, and easy to be walked in, lies open on every hand, for the scattering of many magisterial dictates, which with confidence enough are crudely asserted.

This is (to return) my first answer, to the forementioned objection, with the reasons of it, whereunto Mr. B. excepts, as follows.

1 Pardon implies Christ's death as a cause; but I would he had showed the Scripture that makes pardon so large a thing, as to comprise the whole dispensation of grace; or that makes Christ's death to be a part of it, or comprised in it. 2 If such a word were in the Scripture, will he not confess it to be figurative, and not proper, and so not fit for this dispute. 3 Else when he says, that Christ's death procured our pardon, he means that it procured itself.

So he.

To all which I say,

1 The death of Christ, as it is a cause of pardon, is not once mentioned in any of my answers: there is a wide difference (in consideration) between God's imputation of sin to Christ, and the death of Christ, as the meritorious cause of pardon. So that this is Pura Ignoratio Elenchi.

2 Take pardon in the large sense I intimated, and so the death of Christ is not the meritorious cause of the whole, but only of that particular in it, wherein it is commonly supposed solely to consist, of which before: But,

In what sense, and upon what grounds, I extended gracious condonation of sin, to that compass here mentioned, I have now expressed. Let it stand or fall, as it suits the judgment of the reader: the weight of my answer depends not on it, at all.

My second answer to that objection I gave in these words.

That remission, grace, and pardon which is in God for sinners, is not opposed to Christ's merits and satisfaction, but ours: He pardons all to us, but he spared not his only Son, he abated him not one farthing.

To this Mr. B, thus expressing it, (But it is of grace to us, though not to Christ) answers: Does not that clearly intimate, that Christ was not in the obligation? That the law does threaten every man personally, or else it had been no favor to accept it of another.

It is marvelous to me, that a learned man should voluntarily choose an adversary to himself, and yet consider the very leaves which he undertakes to confute, with so much contempt or oscitancy, as to labor to prove against him, what he positively asserts terminis terminantibus. That Christ was not in the obligation, that he was put in as a surety by his own consent, God by his sovereignty dispensing with the law as to that, yet as a creditor exacting of him the due debt of the law, is the main intendment of the place Mr. Baxter here considers.

2 Grant all that here is said, how does it prove that Christ underwent not the very penalty of the law? Is it because he was not primarily in the obligation? He was put in as a surety to be the object of its execution. Is it because the law does threaten every man personally? Christ underwent really, what was threatened to others: as shall be proved: but, it is not then of favor to accept it: but this is the [illegible]. And thus to set it down, is but a petition [illegible].

3 How does this elude the force of my answer? I see it not at all.

After this, I give a third answer to the former objection, manifesting how the freedom of pardon, may consist with Christ's satisfaction, in these words:

The freedom then of pardon has not its foundation in any defect of the merit or satisfaction of Christ; but in three other things: 1 The will of God freely appointing the satisfaction of Christ (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:9). 2 In a gracious acceptation of that decreed satisfaction in our steads, so many, no more. 3 In a free application of the death of Christ to us. Remission then excludes not a full satisfaction by the solution of the very thing in the obligation, but only the solution or satisfaction of him to whom pardon and remission is granted.

It being the freedom of pardon that is denied, upon the supposals of such a satisfaction as I assert, I demonstrate from where that freedom does accrue to it, notwithstanding a supposal of such a satisfaction: not that pardon consists in the three things there recounted, but that it has its freedom from them: that is, supposing those three things, notwithstanding the intervention of payment made by Christ, it cannot be, but remission of sin to us must be a free and gracious act.

To all this Mr B. opposes divers things.

- 1 Imputation of righteousness (says he) is not any part of pardon, but a necessary antecedent. - 2 The same may be said of God's acceptation. - 3 Its application is a large phrase, and may be meant of several acts; but of which here I know not.

In a word this mistake is very great. I affirm the freedom of pardon to depend on those things; he answers, that pardon does not consist in these things. It is the freedom of pardon, from where it is; not the nature of pardon, wherein it is, that we have under consideration.

But (says he) how can he call it a gracious acceptation, a gracious imputation, a free application, if it were the same thing the law requires that was paid?

To pay all according to the full exaction of the obligation needs no favor to procure acceptance, imputation, or application. Can justice refuse to accept of such a payment? Or can it require any more?

Though I know not directly what it is he means by saying (I call it) yet I pass it over.

2 If all this were done by the persons themselves, or any one in their stead, procured and appointed by themselves, then were there some difficulty in these questions; but this being otherwise, there is none at all, as has been declared.

3 How the payment made by Christ was of grace, yet in respect of the obligation of the law needed no favor, nor was refusable by justice, supposing its free constitution, shall be afterwards declared. To me the author seems not to have his wonted clearness in this whole section, which might administer occasion of further enquiry and exceptions, but I forbear.

And thus much be spoken, for the clearing and vindicating my answer to the arguments of Grotius against Christ's paying the Idem of the obligation: the next shall further confirm the truth.