In what sense all things are said to be done by God necessarily, though he be a free agent, hath been already explained. By these arguments, then, whereby he endeavours to weigh down our opinion with prejudices, it is evident that our antagonist hath nothing availed himself Let us now see whether he hath been more successful in his replies to Lubbertus than in his system of opposition.
He briefly states five arguments of Lubbertus, each of which he answers in order.
That passage of the apostle to the Romans, chap. i. 82, " Who, knowing the judgment" (that is, the just right or righteous judgment) " of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death,'' is quoted as a proof of this doctrine by Lubbertus. Twisse thus re- plies: "I acknowledge that they who commit such things are worthy of death. But it by no means follows from this that it is necessary that God should punish them; which I shall demonstrate by a twofold argument : For if that followed, it would follow that they who commit such things must necessarily be punished ; but the elect, because of sin, are worthy of death, but they are not punished at all, much less necessarily. Will you say, because they who have committed such things are worthy of death, that therefore it is necessary, from an absolute necessity, that either they or others, — that is, that either they themselves, who are deserving of death, or some one else on their account, though innocent, — should be punished? Who can digest such a consequence as this? Again: If they are worthy of death, then they shall die the death ; either, then, a temporal or eternal one. Beyond all doubt, he will answer an eternal
I Kom. i. 18.
598 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE. [PART II.
death. It is necessary, therefore, that they should exist to all eternity, and by an absolute necessity, to the end that they may be punished to all eternity. And so, then, God cannot annihilate a creature."
But, with this great man's good leave, neither his mode of disput- ing,— namely, by substituting a double argument in the place of one solid and clear answer, — is at all satisfactory, nor are these arguments of any service to his cause, the first of which is captious and not at all solid, the other too nice and curious. For, first, Lubbertus does not contend that God cannot pardon sin without satisfaction, because simply, by some reason or other, sinners are worthy of death ; but for this reason only, because the righteous judgment or just right of God is, that they who commit such things are worthy of death, and that, therefore, it would be unjust in God not to inflict that punish- ment,— namely, because, according to the justice of God, which Twisse himself acknowledges to be natural and essential to him, they are worthy of death, and therefore necessarily to be punished. But the arguments of Twisse do not prove the contrary; for the elect themselves are worthy of death, and therefore necessarily to be punished, — not from an absolute necessity in respect of the mode of acting in God the punisher, but in respect of a condition supposed, and which excludes not the liberty of the agent. That is to say, God may inflict the punishment due to one on another, after, — in conse- quence of his own right and the consent of that other, — he hath laid the sins upon that other on account of which he inflicts the punish- ment. He might punish the elect either in their own persons, or in their surety standing in their room and stead; and when he is punished, they also are punished: for in this point of view the federal head and those represented by him are not considered as distinct, but as one ; for although they are not one in respect of per- sonal unity, they are, however, one, — that is, one body in mystical union, yea, one mystical Glirist;^ — namely, the surety is the head, those represented by him the members; and when the head is punished, the members also are punished. Nor could even he him- self be called a surety absolutely innocent : for although he was properly and personally innocent, he was imputatively and substitu- tively guilty; for " God made him to be sin for us;" He " laid on him the iniquity of us all."^
The second argument which this learned writer uses to confute the conclusion of Lubbertus is of no greater weight. We are not in the counsels of God, so that we can precisely pronounce with regard to his judgments and his ways. That God is able absolutely to reduce to nothing any creature that he hath created out of nothing,
' See 1 Cor. xii. 12, etc., "For as the body is one, and liatli many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ," etc. — Tr. » 2 Cor. V. 21 ; Isa. liii. 6.
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no one can doubt; but it being supposed that that creature is guilty of sin, and that that sin, according to the right and justice of God, deserves eternal death, we with confidence maintain that God, who cannot deny himself, cannot reduce it to nothing. Neither is there any thing absurd that can be inferred from this.