1. That it is universally acknowledged; nay, it is not unknown even to the most abandoned of mankind, and to those schools of every kind of wickedness which the apostle is there describing. Whence they derive this knowledge of the divine law and justice shall be made to appear hereafter.
2. That it is the cause, source, and rule of all punishments to be inflicted ; for this is the right of God, " that those who commit sin are worthy of death." From this right of God it foUows that " the wages of" every " sin is death."
3. That it is natural and essential to God: for although, in re- spect of its exercise, it may have a handle or occasion from some things external to the Deity, and in respect of its effects may have a meritorious cause, yet in respect of its source and root, it respects
1 " Compensaiio" is the word in the original, and as " retaliation" is frequently used in a particular sense as connected with evil feeling, perhaps " reti-ibution " would better express the meaning of Owen. — Ed.
516 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE. [PART I.
himself as its subject, if God be absolutely perfect. If belongiug to any other being, it cannot agree to him.^
You will say that this right of God is free; but I deny that any right of God which respects his creatures can, as a habit inherent in his nature, be free, though in the exercise of every right God be ab- solutely free. Neither can any free act of the divine will towards creatures be called any right of Deity; it is only the exercise of some right. But an act is distinguished from its habit or root.
And now it appears evident that this right is not that supreme right or absolute dominion of God, which, under the primary notion of a Creator, must be necessarily ascribed to him ; for it belongs not to the supreme Lord, as such, to inflict punishment, but as ruler or judge.
The supreme dominion and right of God over his creatures, no doubt, so far as it supposes dependence and obedience, necessarily requires that a vicarious punishment should be appointed in case of transgression or disobedience: but the very appointment of punish- ment, as well as the infliction of it, flows from his right as the governor; which right, considered with respect to transgressors, is nothing else than vindicatory justice. The apostle, therefore, signifies that that is the justice always resident in God, as a legislator, ruler, and judge of all things ; which, by common presumption, even the most abandoned of mankind acknowledge.
To these may be added two other passages which occur in the writings of the same apostle : 2 Thess. i. 6, " Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you." A recompense of tribulation is a real peculiar act of vindicatory jus- tice ; but that belongs to God as he is just. Thence the punishment of sin is called in Heb. ii. 2, " A just recompense of reward;" and by Jude, verse 7, " The vengeance," or justice, " of eternal fire;" because, namely, it follows from that justice of God that such crimes are justly recompensed by such a punishment.
But we will not be farther troublesome in reciting particular proofs; from those already mentioned, and from others equally strong, we thus briefly argue : — That to that Being whose property it is to "render unto every man according to his deeds," not to clear the guilty, to con- demn sinners as worthy of death and to inflict the same upon them, to hate sin, and who will in no wise let sin pass unpunished, and all this because he is just, and because his justice so requires, sin-punish- ing justice naturally belongs, and that he cannot act contrary to that justice ; but the passages of Scripture just now mentioned, with many others, assert that all these properties above recounted belong to
' Here it is necessary to sujiply another translation : " Yet in respect of its source an<l root, so far as pertains to its subject, if Uod be absolutely perfect, it cannot be ticrivcd to him from any other source." — Ed.
ARGUMENTS FOR VINDICATORY JUSTICE — CONSENT OF MANKIND. 517
and are proper to God, because he is just: therefore, this justice be- longs to God, and is natural to him.
It matters not what we affirm of vindicatory justice, whether that it be meant of God essentially, and not only denominatively, that it has an absolute name (for it is called "holiness" and "purity"), that we have it expressed both in the abstract and concrete; for, what is more than that, it is affirmed expressly, directly, and particularly, ofttimes, in the passages above mentioned, that it requires the punishment of sinners, that it implies a constant and immutable will of punishing every sin according to the rule of divine wisdom and right.^ Im- pudent to a high degree indeed, then, must Socinus have been, who hath maintained that tliat perfection of Deity by which he punisheth sin is not called justice, but always anger or fury. Anger, indeed, and fury, analogically and effectively, belong to justice.
So much for our first argument.