Chapter 4: The Elect Non-Converted Are Not Under Law-Wrath

Whether the elect unconverted be under wrath is a doubt to many. It is true, they are servants of sin (Romans 6:17), blind, and under the power of Satan as reprobates are (Acts 26:18), by nature children of wrath, even as others (Ephesians 2:3). Answer: Their sins committed before their conversion are, according to the Covenant of Works, such as deserve everlasting condemnation, and they are by right and in relation to that Covenant heirs of wrath, as well as others. 2. But we must distinguish between a state of election and everlasting, though unseen love, that they are under as touching their persons, and a state of a sinful way that they are born in and walk in as others do, until they be converted. As to the former state, it is true which is said (Jeremiah 31:3): "I have loved you with an everlasting love." See also Romans 9:12-13, Ephesians 1:4 — so that God never hates their persons. 3. The punishment of their sins and the wrath they are under is considered in two ways. 1. Materially in the bulk, and so they are under law-strokes and law-wrath, that is law-punishment, as others are (Ephesians 2:3), and so the other places are to be taken. 2. The wrath is to be considered formally, and so it is denied that the punishment of the non-converted elect, because of their sinful way, is any part of the law-vengeance or curse which Christ did bear for their other sins committed by them after conversion. 1. Because when Christ says (John 5:4), "The believer has passed from death" — as it is a curse — "and shall never come to judgment and condemnation," he cannot mean that they have half passed from the curse, and half not. 2. Believers are delivered, in Christ, from the victory, sting, power of sin, curse of the law, and every curse that is in affliction, and from condemnation not in part only, but in whole — else their triumph were but in part, contrary to 1 Corinthians 15:54-56, Hosea 13:14, Isaiah 25:8. Nor should they be washed from all their sins and the spots thereof in his blood, if they might wash themselves from any spot by bearing a part of the law-curse in themselves, contrary to Song of Solomon 4:7, Jeremiah 50:20, John 1:28, 1 John 1:8, Romans 8:1. 3. Whatever Christ was made for the redeemed ones, that he was made fully for them, in part and in whole, for he is their perfect Savior. But (Galatians 3:13) he is made a curse for us, and able to save to the utmost all that come to him (Hebrews 7:25). Therefore the half or a part of satisfactory vengeance cannot be upon us, and the other half on Christ, for this is to make men and martyrs joint satisfiers of justice with Christ by their own blood and sufferings, to prevent the [reconstructed: scaldings] of purgatory. For though we teach against Antinomians that the godly are punished for sins according to justice, yet that is evangelical, not law-justice, for they bear not one dram weight of satisfactory wrath and curse jointly with Christ. Antinomians say that sin, root and branch, is taken away in justification, so that there is no sin nor punishment for sin in the justified man. 4. The believers are blessed through Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:10, 13; Psalm 32:1-2; Romans 4:6; Psalm 2:12; Psalm 119:1). Their afflictions and death are blessed, precious in the eyes of the Lord, not qualified with any law-curse (Job 5:17; Psalm 94:12; Matthew 5:6; Luke 6:22; 1 Peter 1:6; 1 Peter 4:13; Psalm 21:3-6; Psalm 34:17-19; Revelation 14:13; Psalm 116:15; Psalm 72:14; Psalm 37:37), and they are asleep in Christ, they die in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:14, 16). Nor can Antinomians and Socinians say this is under the New Testament, for dying Jacob says (Genesis 49:18), "Lord, I have waited for your salvation." Isaiah 57:1-2: "When the righteous man is taken away, he shall enter into peace." The Lord is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when their bodies are rotten (Exodus 3:6; Matthew 22:32). (5.) This comes too near the opinion of those who make faith a cause of satisfaction for sin, as they must teach who hold that Christ paid a ransom on the cross for the sins of all and every one. For that which, when added, makes satisfaction to be counted and formally reckoned as satisfaction in order to the expiation of the man's sins — so that by no justice he can suffer for them — and which, being removed, makes the paid satisfaction and ransom, though never taken back again by the payer, no more a satisfaction for that man than for devils, is too near to the nature and to being a part of the satisfaction. If one pays a sum that fully exhausts the debt of such a broken man, upon condition the broken man say Amen to the paying thereof — otherwise it shall be as not paid — he must take up the sum again if the broken man refuses to say Amen to it. For if he does not take it up again, but it be paid and fully satisfy for and exhaust the debt, the man's debt is paid, and the creditor in justice cannot exact one farthing from the broken man. Now nothing given to the justice of God by way of satisfaction for the sins of unbelievers was ever repeated or taken back again by Christ. But, say they, the ransom was not paid at all for Judas, but only upon condition that he believe — but he never believed, and therefore it was never paid for Judas. Answer: This is what we say, that Christ gave no real ransom at all for the sins of Judas by way of satisfaction. But they say that there is as well a ransom paid for all the sins of Judas (final unbelief excepted) to free him, in justice, from eternal strokes, as for all the sins of Peter to free him — only it is not accepted by the creditor, because Judas, by faith, assented not to the bargain. But assenting or not assenting, accepting or not accepting — that are posterior to the payment — are nothing up or down to the completeness and perfection of the satisfaction made for the exhausting of justice. For justice receives not two satisfactions or ransoms for Judas: one upon the cross from Christ, another in Hell from Judas. Indeed it must follow that real payment was made to justice for all the sins of Judas upon the cross, and that he suffers for none of them in Hell, but for only final unbelief — which is no sin against the Covenant of Works and the justice thereof, but only and formally against the Covenant of Grace — so that, as yet, satisfying of divine justice for sins must be halved and parted between Christ and Judas, which the Scripture does not teach. Also, the Father either accepts the ransom of Christ because it is intrinsically and of itself sufficiently satisfactory, or because Judas believes it is so. The latter cannot be said, for believing adds nothing to the intrinsic sufficiency of the satisfaction, as not believing diminishes nothing from the sufficiency thereof. Indeed, the Father's formal reason for accepting the satisfaction of Christ must then be terminated upon our poor act of believing, whereas the formal ground of the acceptance thereof is the intrinsic excellence and worth of the sacrifice, being an offering of a sweet-smelling savor to God (Ephesians 5:2), and because he offered the ransom of the blood of the God-man, of the Prince of life (Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 2:8), and offered himself to God (Ephesians 5:25-26; Hebrews 9:14; Matthew 20:28; 1 Timothy 2:6; Revelation 1:5). Nor is there any sufficiency in his death from the worth of believing. And the reason why he accepts it for Peter, not for another, is the election of grace.

It is true the blood is a price refusable, but it is this way refusable, because the Lord might have followed a Law-way with Adam, and all his sons, and have denied to give his Son a ransom for us, but it is not refusable, because of any insufficiency in the ransom. Now faith is to satisfaction as the approximation of, and the laying on of dry fuel to the fire, which is only a condition of burning, but the fire is the formal cause of burning. Indeed, if we speak properly faith is not so much as a condition without which offended Justice is not satisfied, nor is it a condition, by any Scripture of the world, without which God laid not our iniquities on Christ, for whether we believe or not, God laid our iniquities upon him, and made him sin for us (Isaiah 53:6; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Therefore, by necessity of Justice, he must accept that ransom intrinsically so sufficient, which did restore more glory to God, than the sins of all, for whom Christ died, took from him. Nor is it imaginable to say that any act of obedience or believing, can perfect the satisfaction of Christ, and make it sufficient, indeed, or causatively make it ours. For God, by no necessity of Justice, but of his own free pleasure, requires faith as a condition of our actual reconciliation; for beside, that he might have required any other act of obedience, as love, he might have accepted the ransom without [reconstructed: requiring] any act of obedience, on our part, as the Lord bestowed a calm sea and deliverance from shipwreck, upon the idolatrous seamen, upon the very act of casting Jonah in the sea, without the intervention of any saving faith on their part; as a gracious prince may send a pardon to free a condemned malefactor from death, and may command that it be valid in Law for him, without the man's knowledge, and far more without his acceptance thereof, upon his knees, especially since by a special paction between the Father and the Son, he restored abundantly more glory to God by suffering for all, for whom he died, than they took from God by their sins, and that restitution was made to Justice without the intervening of any act of the creature's obedience. But the truth is, it is much to be doubted whether they, who hold such a satisfaction to be given of God, for the sins of all, Elect and Reprobate, but so as it shall not be valid in Law, nor effectual to quiet Justice, but they must all suffer eternal vengeance, and perform personal satisfaction, in Hell, to Justice, except there intervene an act of obedience of the creature, to make it effectual, do really and sincerely acknowledge, against Socinians, a real satisfaction and compensation made to offended Justice by Christ: For how is it real, and not rather theatrical and formal, which may and should be null and in vain, if the creature make it not real, by believing. And especially, if God out of his grace which is absolutely free, work in us the condition of believing. Can God give his Son as a ransom for us, upon condition that we believe, if he himself absolutely work the condition in us? They will not admit this.