hell ; and doubtless Cain, Judas, Julian, Spira, and others have found it so. That father hit the mark, who said, Judicis^ in mente tua sedes; ibi Deus adest, accusator conscientia, tortor timor, The judge's tribunal-seat is in thy soul, God sitteth there as judge, thy conscience is the accuser, and fear is the tormentor, i Now if there be in the soul a judge, an accuser, and a tormentor, then certainly there is a true taste of the torments of hell on this side hell.
Ans. 3. Thirdly, The place hell is no pari of the payment. The laying down of the price makes the satisfaction. This is all that is spoken and threatened to Adam, ' Thou shalt die the death,' Gen. .ii. 17; and this may be suffered here. The wicked go to hell as their prison, because they can never pay their debts, otherwise the debt may as well be paid in the market as the jail. 2 Npw Christ did dis- charge all his people's debts in the days of his flesh, when he offered up strong cries and tears, Heb. v. 7, and not after death. Look, as a king entering into prison to loose the prisoners' chains, and to pay their debts, is said to have been in prison ; so our Lord Jesus Christ, by his soul's sufferings, which is the hell he entered into, hath released us of our pains and chains, and paid our debts, and in this sense he may be said to have entered into hell, though he never actually entered into the local place of the damned, which is properly^called hell ; for in that place there is neither virtue nor goodness, holiness nor happiness, and therefore the holiness of Christ's person would never suffer him to descend into such a place. In the local place of heaven and hell, it is not possible for any neither to be at once, nor yet at sundry times successively, for there is no passing from heaven to hell, or from hell to heaven, Luke xvi. 26. The place of suffering is but a circumstance in the business. Hell, the place of the damned, is no part of the debt, therefore neither is suffering there locally any part of the payment of it, no more than a prison is any part of an earthly debt, or of the pay- ment of it. The surety may satisfy the creditor in the place appointed for payment, or in the open court, which being done, the debtor and surety both are acquitted, that they need not go to prison. If either of them go to prison, it is because they do not or cannot pay the debt ; for aU that justice requires is to satisfy the debt, to the which the prison is merely extrinsecal. Even so the justice of God cannot be satisfied for the transgression of the law, but by the death of the sinner ; but it doth not require that this should be done in the place of the damned. The wicked go to prison because they do not, they cannot, make satisfaction ; otherwise Christ, having fully discharged the debt, needed not go to prison.
Object. 5. But the pains and torments that are due to man's sins are to be everlasting, and how then can Christ's short sufferings countervail them ?
Ans.l. That Christ's sufferings in his soul and body were equiva- lent to it ; although, to speak properly, eternity is not of the essence
^ Augustine in Ps. Ivii.
» Peter saith, the devils are cast down to hell, and kept in chains of darkness. 2 Pet. ii. 4. And Paul calls the devil the prince that ruleth in the air, Eph. ii. 2. The air then is the devil's hell. "Well, then, seeing this air is the devil's present hell, vre may safely conclude that hell may be in this present world ; and therefore it is neither im- possible nor improbable that the cross was Christ's hell.
THOUGH NOT AFTER A HELLISH MANNER. Ill
of death, which is the reward of sin and threatened by God ; but it is accidental, because man thus dying is never able to satisfy God, there- fore, seeing he cannot pay the last farthing, he is for ever kept in prison, Mat. xviii. 28, 35. Look, as eternal death hath in it eternity and despair necessarily in all those that so die, so Christ could not suffer, but what was wanting in duration was supplied — 1. By the immensity of his sorrows conflicting with the sense of God's wrath, because of our sins imputed to him, so that he suffered more grief than if the sorrows of all men were put together. Christ's hell-sor- rows on the cross were meritorious and fully satisfactory for our ever- lasting punishment, and therefore in greatness were to exceed all other men s sorrows, as being answerable to God's justice. 2. By the dignity and worth of him that did suffer. Therefore the Scripture calls it the blood of God. The damned must bear the wrath of God to all eternity, because they can never satisfy the justice of God for sin. Therefore they must lie by it world without end. But Christ hath made an infinite satisfaction in a finite time, by undergoing that fierce battle with the wrath of God, and getting the victory in a few hours, which is equivalent to the creatures bearing it and grappling with it ever- lastingly. This length or shortness of durance is but a circumstance, not of any necessary consideration in this case. Suppose a man in- debted £100, and likely to lie in prison till he shall pay it, yet utterly unable, if another man comes and lays down the money on two hours' warning, is not this as well or better done ? that which may be done to as good or better purpose in a short time, what need is there to draw it out at length ? The justice of the law did not require that either the sinner or his surety should suffer the eternity of hell's tor- ments, but only their extremity. It doth abundantly counterpoise the eternity of the punishment, that the person which suffered was the eternal God. Besides, it was impossible that he should be detained under the sorrows of death. Acts ii. 24. And if he had been so de- tained, then he had not ' spoiled principalities and powers, nor triumphed over them,' Col. ii. 15, but had been overcome, and so had not attained his end. But,
Ans. 2. Secondly, The pains of hell which Christ suffered, though they were not infinite in time, yet were they of an infinite price and value for the dignity of the person that suffered them. Clirist's tem- poral enduring of hellish sorrows was as effectual and meritorious as if they had been perpetual. The dignity of Christ's person did bear him out in that which was not meet for him to suffer, nor fit in respect of our redemption ; for if he should have suffered eternally, our re- demption could never have been accomplished. But for him to suffer in soul as he did in body, was neither derogatory to his person nor prejudicial to his work. Infinitely in time Christ was not to suffer. As one well observes,! Christ died secundum tempus, in time, or ac- cording to time. Tempora in mundo sunt, &c., Times are in the world where the sun riseth and setteth. Unto this time he died. But where there is no time, there he was found, not only living, but conquering. Christ, God-man, suffered punishment in measure in- finite, and therefore there is no ground why he should endure it