AN APPENDIX.
The preceding discourse, as hath been declared, was written for the use of ordinary Christians, or such as might be in danger to be seduced, or any way entangled in their minds, by the late attempts against the truths pleaded for: for those to whom the dispensation of the gospel is committed, are " debtors both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians ; both to the wise and to the unwise," Rom. i. 1 4. It was therefore thought meet to insist only on things necessary, and such as their faith is immediately concerned in; and not to immix therewithal any such arguments or considerations as might not, by reason of the terms wherein they are expressed, be obvious to their capacity and understanding. Unto plainness an d perspicuity, hre m ty was also required, by such as judged this work necessary. That de- sign, we hope, is answered, and now discharged in some useful measure. But yet, because many of our arguments on the head of the satisfac- tion of Christ depend upon the genuine signification and notion of the words and terms wherein the doctrine of it is delivered, — which, for the reasons before mentioned, could not conveniently be discussed in the foregoing discourse, — I shall here, in some few instances, give an account of what farther confirmation the truth might receive by a due explanation of them. And I shall mention here but few of them, because a large dissertation concerning them all is intended^ in another way.
First. For the term of satisfaction itself, it is granted that in this matter it is not found in the Scripture, — that is, it is not so pjjrw^, or syllabically, — but it is 7<.ara rh itpa.yij.a, avccvrippriTOii', the thing itself in- tended is asserted in it, beyond all modest contradiction. Neither, indeed, is there in the Hebrew language any word that doth ade- quately answer unto it ; no, nor yet in the Greek. As it is used in this cause, syyvn, which is properly " sponsio," or " fide-jussio,'' in
* The " Vindicia; Evangelicre" of Owen, in reply to Biddle, had appeared fourteen years before tlie publication of this treatise. The probability is, therefore, that our author alludes above to the copious and elaborate refutation of Sociniau errors in his " Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews." — Ed.
442 AN APPENDIX.
its actual discharge, maketli the nearest approach unto it: /xavoi/ <ro/H?y is used to the same purpose. But there are words and phrases, both in the Old Testament and in the New, that are equipollent unto it, and express the matter or thing intended by it: as in the Old are, nns Jina [Ps. xlix. 9], and 123. This last word we render "satisfac- tion," Numb. XXXV. 32, 33, where God denies that any compensation, sacred or civil, shall be received to free a murderer from the punish- ment due unto him ; which properly expresseth what we intend : " Thou shalt admit of no satisfaction for the life of a murderer."
In the New Testament : Aurpov, dvTiXurpov, dToXvrpueig, ri/j,7j, iXag/xog' and the verbs, Xvrpovv, dvoXurpovv, i'i^ayopaQnv, i/.a,ay.iSi)ai, are of the same importance, and some of them accommodated to express the thing intended, beyond that which hath obtained in vulgar use. For that which we intended hereby is, the voluntary obedience unto death, and the passion or suffering, of our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, ivhereby and wherein he offered himself, through the eternal Spirit, for a propitiatory sacrifice, that he viight fulfil the laiu, or answer all its universal postulata ; and as our sponsor, un- dertaking our cause, when lue were under the sentence of condem- nation, undertuent the p)unishment due to us from the justice of God, being transferred on hivi; ivhereby having onade a perfect and absolute propitiation or atooiement for our sins, he 2}rocured for us deliverance from death and the curse, and a right unto life everlasting. Now, this is more properly expressed by some of the words before mentioned than by that of satisfaction; which yet, nevertheless, as usually explained, is comprehensive, and no way un- suited to the matter intended by it.
In general, men by this word understand either " reparationem off'ensce," or " solutionem debiti," — either "reparation made for offence given unto any," or " the payment of a debt." " Debitum" is either " criminale" or " pecuniarium ; " that is, either the obnoxiousness of a man to punishment for crimes or the guilt of them, in answer to that justice and law which he is necessarily liable and subject unto ; or unto a payment or compensation by and of money, or what is valued by it; — which last consideration, neither in itself nor in any reasonings from an analogy unto it, can in this matter have any proper place. Satisfaction is the effect of the doing or suffering what is required for the answering of his charge against faults or sins, who hath right, authority, and power to require, exact, and inflict punish- ment for them. Some of the schoolmen define it by " Voluntai'ia redditio cequivalentis indebiti;" of which more elsewhere. The true meaning of, " to satisfy, or make satisfaction," is " tantum facere aut pati, quantum satis sit justfe irato ad vindictam." This satisfaction is impleaded as inconsistent with free remission of sins, — how causelessly