Secondly, The second part of my position is to me confirmed by these and the like arguments.
That there is a distinction to be allowed betu-een the penalty and the person suffering is a common apprehension, especially when the nature of the penalty is only inquired after. If a man tliat had but one eye were censured to have an eye put out, and a dear friend, pitying his deplorable condition, knowing that by under- going the punishing 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 satisfy the sentence given, though, by having two eyes, he avoid himself the misery that would have attended the other's 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 personal I shall piu'sue it no farther, lest it should prove a strife of words. And thiis far of the sufferings of Christ in a way of controversy. What follows will be more positive.
CHAPTER V.
The second head ; about justification befo; e Relieving.
The next thing I am called into question about, is concerning actual and ab- solute justification before believing. This Mr Baxter .speaks to, page 140, and so forward; and first answers the arguments of Maccovius for such justification, and then, page 151, applies himself to remove such farther arguments and places of Scripture as are by me produced for the confirmation of that assertion.
Here, perhaps, I could have desired a little more candour. To have an opinion fastened on me which I never once received nor intimated the least thought of in that whole treatise, or any other of mine, and then my arguments answered as to such an end and purpose as I not once intended to promote by them, is a little too harsh dealing. It is a facile thing to render any man's reasonings exceedingly weak and ridiculous, if we may impose upon them such and such thing's to be proved by them, which their author never once intended. For pactional justification, evangeli- cal justification, whereby a sinner is completely justified, that it shotild precede be- heving, I have not only not asserted but positively denied, and disproved by many arguments. To be now traduced as a patron of that opinion, and my reasons for it publicly answered, seems to me something uncouth ; however, I am resolved not to interpose in other men's disputes and differences. Yet, lest I should be again and farther mistaken in this, I shall briefly give in my thoughts to the Avhole diffi- culty, after I have discovered and discussed the ground and occasion of this mistake.
In an answer to an argument of Grotius about the satisfaction of Christ, deny- ing that bv it we are ipso facto delivered from the penalty due to sin. I affirmed
VOL. X. ' ' 29
450 OF THE DEATH OF CHEIST.
that by his death Chi'ist did actually, or ipso facto, delivev us from the curse, by being made a curse for us: and this is that which gave occasion to that imputation before mentioned.
To clear my mind in this, I must desire the reader to consider that my answer is but a denial of Grotius' assertions In what kind and respect Grotius doth there deny that we are ipso facto dehvered by the satisfaction of Christ, in that sense, and that only, do I affirm that we are so ; otherwise, there were no contra- dictions between his assertion and mine, not speaking ad idem and eodcm rcspectu. The truth is, Grotius doth not, in that place whence this argument is taken, fully or clearly manifest what he intends by deliverance which is not actual or ipso facto; and, therefore, I made bold to interpret his mind by the analogy of that opinion wherewith he was thoroughly infected about the death of Christ. Accord- mg to that, Christ delivering us by his satisfaction, not actually nor ipso facto, is so to make satisftiction for us as that we shall have no benefit by his death but upon the performance of a condition, which himself by that death of his did not absolutely procure. This was that which I opposed ; and therefore affirmed that Christ by his death did actually, or ipso facto, deliver us.
Let the reader, then, here observe, —
1. That our deliverance is to be referred to the death of Christ, according to its own causality, — that is, as a cause meritorious. Now, such causes do actually and ipso facto produce all those effects which immediately flow from them; not in an immediation of time but causality. Look, then, what effects do follow, or Avhat things soever are procured by them, without the interposition of any other cause in the same kind, they are said to be procured by them actually, or ipso facto.
2. That I have abundantly proved, in the treatise mentioned, that if the fruits of the death of Christ be to be communicated unto us upon a concUtion, and that condition to be among those fruits, and be itself to be absolutely communicated upon no condition, then all the fruits of the death of Christ are as absolutely pro- cured for them for whom he died as if no condition had been prescribed; for these things come all to one.