It is not at all in my thoughts to engage myself into the chief controversy there agitated, though I could desire that some, to whom Providence hath given more leisure and opportunities for such employments, would candidly examine those " Aphorisms," for the farther advantage of the truth and light. But whereas the learned author hath, to make straight the work he had in hand, endeavoiu'ed to cast some part of the doctrine of the satisfaction and redemption of Christ, as by me delivered, into a crooked frame, and that with some such passages of censure as might have been omitted without losing the least grace of his book or style, I shall, with the Lord's assistance, endeavour to re-enforce what of truth hath been thereby assaulted in vain; and more especially, take occasion from thence farther to unfold those mysteries which, to our apprehension, are wrapped up in no small darkness, there being in them some things difficult and hard to be understood.
The first thing, then, which that learned divine chose to stand in distance from me in, is concerning the nature of the payment made for sin by the blood of Christ, — whether it he ejusdem or tanddem; and of the sense of these expressions is our first debate : in handling whereof, I hope I shall not only satisfy the reader as to the truth of what I had before written, but also farther clear the whole doc- trine of satisfaction, with special reference to the kind of the payment that Christ made, and punishment which he underwent.
The other head wrapjjeth in itself many particulars concerning the immediate fruit or effects of the death of Christ, the state of the elect redeemed ones before actual believing, the nature of redemption, reconciliation, the differencing of per- sons in God's eternal purposes : to the consideration of all which, and sundry other particulars, I have occasion offered, in defence of the truth impugned.
These now, and the like, being things in themselves weighty, and the difference about them being, for the most part, rather as to the way of the delivery than as to the things themselves, in the handling of them, I could not attend merely to the advantage offered by Mr Baxter's discourse, but chose rather to cast them into another method, which might be distinct, clear, and accommodate to the things themselves ; so that I hope the reader may, with some profit, see the whole dis- pensation of the love of God to his elect through Christ, with the relation of the elect, in several conditions, unto the several actings of God in that dispensation, succinctly laid down. The accommodation, also, of all delivered, to many weighty controversies, I have added.
If the way of handling these things here used be blamed by any, I hope the judicious will see that it is such as the matter itself will bear.
There have not !)een many things, in my whole inquiry after the mind of God in bis word, which have more exercised my thoughts than the right ordering and distinct disposal of those whereof we tieat. If the Lord hath discovered any
NATURE OF THE PAYMENT MADE BY CHRIST. 437
thing unto me, or made out any thing by me, that may be for the benefit of any of his, I shall rejoice; it being always in my desire that all things might fall out to the advantage of the gospel : and to I address myself to the matter before me.
CHAPTER II.
An entrance into the whole— Of the nature of the payment made by Christ, with the right stating of the things in difference.
Mr Baxter having composed his Aphorisms of Justification, with their explica- tions, before the publishing of them in print, he communicated them (as should appear) to some of his near acquaintance. Unto some things in them contained one of his said friends gives in some exceptions. Amongst other things he opposed unto those aphorisms, he also points at my contrary judgment in one or two particulars, with my reasons produced for the confirmation thereof. This pro- voketh their learned author (though imwilling) to turn aside to the consideration of those reasons. Now, the first of those particulars being about the payment made for sin in the blood of Christ, of what sort and kind it is, I shall willingly carry on the inquiry to this farther issue, whereunto I am drawn out.
1. He looks upon the stating of the question as I professedly laid it down at my entrance into that disputation, and declares that it is nothing at all to the question he hath in hand, nor looking that way.
" He distinguisheth," saith Mr Baxter, " betwixt paying the very thing that is in the obligation and paying so much in another kind; now, this is not our question, nor any thing to it," Append, p. 137.
If it be so, I know no reason why I was plucked into the following dispute, nor why Mr Baxter should cast away so many pages of his book upon that which is nothing at all to the business he had in hand. But though there be nothing to this purpose, p. 137 [265]' of my book, the place he was sent to, yet, p. 140 [267j, there is, as also something contrary to what is expressed in the former place, which he intimates in these words: —