Chapter 4: On the Charge of Conceding the Cause

It being supposed not to be sufficient to have shewed the weakness of my endeavor to assert and vindicate from opposition, what I had undertaken.

Mr. Baxter adds, that I give up the cause about which I contend, as having indeed not understood him, whom I undertook to oppose, in these words:

Mr. Owen gives up the cause at last, and says as Grotius: (having not understood Grotius his meaning) as appears, Pag. 141, 142, 143.

Whether I understand Grotius or no, will by and by appear. Whether Mr. B. understands me, or the controversy by me handled, you shall have now a TRYAL.

The assertion which alone I seek to maintain, is this;

That the punishment which our Savior underwent, was the same that the Law required of us: God relaxing his Law as to the person suffering, but not as to the penalty suffered.

Now, if from this I draw back in any of the concessions following collected from pag. 141, 142, 143. I deprecate not the censure of giving up the cause I contended for. If otherwise, there is a great mistake in some body of the whole business.

Of the things then observe according to Mr. B. his order, I shall take a brief account.

1 He acknowledges (says he) that the payment is not made by the party to whom remission is granted, (and so says every man that is a Christian.)

This is a part of the position itself I maintain, and so no going back from it: so that as to this, I may pass as a Christian.

2 He says (adds he) it was a full valuable compensation therefore not of the same.

- 1 This inference would trouble Mr. B. to prove. - 2 Therefore not made by the same, nor by any of the debtors appointment, will follow, (perhaps) but no more. - 3 That by reason of the obligation upon us, we ourselves were bound to undergo the punishment. Therefore Christ's punishment was not in the obligation, but only ours, and so the Law was not fully executed, but relaxed.

1 This is my thesis fully, the Law was executed as to its penalty, relaxed as to the person suffering.

2 The punishment that Christ underwent, was in the obligation, though threatened to us.

4 He says, he means not that Christ bore the same punishment due to us in all accidents of duration and the like: but the same in weight and pressure, therefore not the same in the obligation, because not fully the same act.

The accidents I mention, follow and attend the person suffering, and not the penalty itself. All evils in any suffering as far as they are sinful, attend the condition of the parties that suffer: every thing usually recounted by those who make this and the like exceptions, as far as they are purely penal, were on Christ.

5 He says God had power so far to relax his own LAW, as to have the name of a surety put into the obligation, which before was not there, and then to require the whole debt of that surety.

And what says Grotius more than this? If the same things in the obligation be paid, then the Law is executed: and if executed, then not relaxed. Here he confesses that the surety's name was not in the obligation, and that God relaxed the Law to put it in. Now the main business that Grotius drives at there, is to prove this relaxation of the Law, and the non-execution of it on the offenders threatened. Thus far Mr. Baxter.

1 All this proves not at all the things intended, neither does any concession here mentioned, in the least take off from the main assertion I maintain, as is apparent at first view. 2 Grotius is so far from saying more than I do, that he says not so much. 3 This paralogism — if the Law be executed, then not relaxed; and on the contrary — arises merely from a non-consideration of the nature of contradictories: the opposition fancied here is not [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], as is required of contradictions. 4 The observation, that Grotius's main business is other, discovers the bottom of Mr. B. his mistake. Even a supposal that I should oppose Grotius in his main intendment in the place considered, which was not once in my thoughts. It was merely about the nature of the penalty that Christ underwent, that I discoursed. How the relaxation of the Law, as to the commutation of persons may be established, whether we affirm Christ to have paid the Idem or Tantundem. And that Mr. B. affirms the same with me, I can prove by twenty instances. The reader (if he please) may consult Pag. 18. & 25. 33, 34, 35. 42. 48. and in plain terms Pag. 81. In respect of punishment abstracting from persons, the Law was not dispensed withal as to Christ? And what said I more?

And so much (if not too much) to Mr. Baxter's exceptions, which of what weight and force they are, I leave to others to judge.

That which I maintain as to this point in difference, I have also made apparent; it is wholly comprised under these two heads:

- 1 Christ suffered the same penalty which was in the obligation. - 2 To do so, is to make payment ejusdem, and not tantidem.

The REASONS of both, I shall briefly subjoin.

And as to the FIRST, they are these following:

1 The Scripture has expressly revealed the translation of punishment in respect of the subjects suffering it: but has not spoken one word of the change of the kind of punishment, but rather the contrary is affirmed (Romans 8:32): He spared not his own SON, but delivered him up for us all.

2 All the punishment due to us, was contained in the curse and sanction of the Law: that is the penalty of the obligation whereof we spoke; but this was undergone by the Lord Christ. For he has REDEEMED us from the curse of the LAW, being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13).

3 Where God condemns sin, there he condemns it, in that very punishment which is due to it in the sinner, or rather to the sinner for it. He has revealed but one rule of his proceeding in this case. How he condemned sin in the flesh of Christ: or in him, sent in the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:30): God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. The condemning of sin, is the infliction of punishment due to sin.

The whole penalty of sin is death (Genesis 2:11). This Christ underwent for us (Hebrews 2:14). He tasted death. And to die for another, is to undergo that death which that other should have undergone (2 Samuel 18:33). It is true, this death may be considered either in respect of its essence, (if I may be allowed so to speak) which is called the pains of Hell which Christ underwent (Psalm 18:6 and 22:1, Luke 22:44), or of its attendencies, as duration and the like, which he could not undergo (Psalm 16:20, Acts 2). So that whereas eternal death may be considered two ways, either as such in potentia, and in its own nature, or as actually: so, our Savior underwent it not in the latter, but first sense (Hebrews 2:9, 14), which by the dignity of his Person (1 Peter 3:18, Hebrews 9:26, 28, Romans 5:9), which raises the estimation of punishment, is aequipotent to the other. There is a sameness in Christ's sufferings with that in the obligation in respect of essence, and equivalency in respect of attendencies.

The meeting of our iniquities upon Christ (Isaiah 53:6), and his being thereby made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21), lay the very punishment of our sin, as to us threatened, upon him.

Consider the scriptural descriptions you have of his perpessions, and see if they do not plainly hold out the utmost that ever was threatened to sin. There is the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] (Isaiah 53:5), Peter's [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] (1 Peter 2:24), the liver, nibex, wound, stripe, that in our stead was so on him, that thereby we are healed. Those expressions of the condition of his soul in his sufferings, whereby he is said [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] (Matthew 26:34, Mark 14:33), [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] (Luke 22:44), sadness to death (Matthew 26:38), that dreadful cry, Why have you forsaken me? Those cries out of the deep, and mighty supplications under his fear (Hebrews 5:7), that were upon him do all make out, that the bitterness of the death due to sin was fully upon his soul. Sum all his outward appearing pressures, mocks, scoffs, scorns, cross, wounds, death, &c. And what do some of their afflictions, who have suffered for his name, come short of it? And yet how far were they above those dreadful expressions of anguish, which we find upon the fellow of the Lord of Hosts, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, who received not the Spirit by measure, but was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows? Certainly his unconceivable sufferings were in another kind, and such as set no example to any of his, to suffer in after him. It was no less than the weight of the wrath of God, and the whole punishment due to sin, that he wrestled under.

The second part of my position is to me confirmed by these, and the like arguments: that there is a distinction to be allowed between the penalty and the person suffering, is a common apprehension: especially when the nature of the penalty is only enquired after. If a man that had but one eye were censured to have an eye put out, and a dear friend pitying his deplorable condition, knowing, that by undergoing the punishment decreed, he must be left to utter blindness, should upon the allowance of commutation (as in Zaleucus case) submit to have one of his own eyes put out, and so satisfie the sentence given, though by having two eyes, he avoid himself the misery that would have attended the others suffering, who had but one. If (I say) in this case, any should ask, whether he underwent the idem the other should have done, or tantundem, I suppose the answer would be easy. In things real it is unquestionable; and in things personally, I shall pursue it no further, lest it should prove a strife of words. And thus far of the suffering of Christ in a way of controversie: what follows will be more positive.