606 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE. [PART II.
which are not the objects of free determination. But that no right belongs to God without his divine appointment, to the exercise of which he is bound, is asserted without probabihty, and appears evi- dently false ; for supposing that God willed to create rational crea- tures, does it depend upon his free determination that the right of dominion and the exercise of it should belong to him ? If so, God might be neither the Lord nor God of his creatures, and a rational creature may be neither creature nor rational ; for both its creation and reason suppose a dependence on and subjection to some Lord and Creator. If the right, then, of dominion depended on the free determination of God, then God might freely and justly determine that he would neither have nor exercise such right; for he might determine the contrary of that which he hath freely determined, without any injustice or any incongruity. From himself, then, and not from any one without himself, — that is, from his own nature, — he receives the obligation to exercise his right, both of dominion and of justice. Thus by nature he must speak truly, if he wills to speak.
" But I cannot," says this renowned man, " sufficiently express my astonishment at this very grave divine's assertion,^ — namely, ' That God, without injury to his justice, may will evil antecedently to whom- soever he pleases;' for which I do not find fault with him, but that he does not assert that God, for the same or a better reason, might do good to a creature, notwithstanding its demerit, by pardoning its sin."
If by " willing evil antecedently" be understood his willing to in- flict evil without regard to the demerit of sin, it is a point too intri- cate for me to determine. If the evil refer to the infliction of it, I must differ from this learned doctor. If it refer to the willing, the assertion avails not his cause ; for if we suppose that God, Avithout doing injury to any one, without dishonouring any of his own attri- butes, without regard to sin, hath decreed to punish a creature for the sin that it was to commit, would it not thence follow that God might let sin pass unpunished, in despite both of his own glory, and to the entire destruction of the dependence of rational creatures?^ Nor is the following comment of our celebrated ojDponent of any greater weight, — -namely, " That God would not be omnipotent if he necessarily punished sin, for thence it would follow that God cannot annihilate a sinful creature which he created out of nothing ; which," says he, " is evidently contrary to omnipotence."
But how many things are there which this learned gentleman himself acknowledges that God, with respect to his decree, cannot do, without any disioaragement to his omnipotence! He could not break the bones of Christ; but the person must be dc})rived of reason ' Namely, Piscator's. — Tk. ' Because if he punished a creature for sin
merely because he -willed or detcrmiued so to do, and not because the nature of sin necessarily so required, he might as easily will the contrary; and, consequently, the subordination of the creature would be entirely subverted. — Tk.
RUTHERFORD REVIEWED. 607
who would assert that this is any diminution of tlie divine omnipo- tence. If, then, there be many things which God cannot do, without any the smallest detraction from his omnipotence, because by a free determination he hath decreed not to do them, is he to be thought less omnipotent, so to speak, because he cannot, on account of his justice, let sins committed pass unpunished? Is God not omnipotent because, on account of his nature, he cannot lie? Yea, he would not be omnipo- tent if he could renounce his right and justice; for to permit a sinful creature to shake off his natural dominion is not a mark of omnipotence but of impotence, than which nothing is more remote from God.
After having brought the dispute thus far, and accurately weighed what remains of Dr Twisse's answer to Piscator, there seemed to me nothing that could occur to give any trouble to an intelligent reader. As there is no reason, then, either to give farther trouble to the reader or myself on this point, we here conclude the controversy; and this I do with entertaining the strongest hopes that no person of discretion, or who is unacquainted with the pernicious devices which almost everywhere abound, will impute it to me as a matter of blame, that I, a person of no consideration, and so very full, too, of employment, that I could devote only a few leisure hours to this disputation, should have attacked the theological digression of a man so very illustrious and renowned, not only among our own countrymen, but even in foreisrn nations, as the attack has been made in the cause of truth.
CHAPTER XVII.
Rutherford reviewed — An oversight of that learned man — Ills opinion of punitory justice — He contends that divine justice exists in God freely — The considera- tion of that assertion — This learned writer and Twisse disagree — His first argument — Its answer — The appointment of Christ to death twofold — The appointment of Christ to the mediatorial office an act of supreme dominion — The punishment of Christ an act of punitory justice — An argument of that learned mun, easy to answer — The examination of the same — The learned writer proves tilings not denied — Passes over things to be denied — What kind of necessity we ascribe to God in punishing sins — A necessity upon a condition supposed — What the suppositions are upon which that necessity is founded — A difference between those things which are necessary by a decree and those which are so from the divine nature — The second argument of that learned man — His obscure manner of writing pointed out — Justice and mercy differ- ent in respect of their exercise — What it is to owe the good of punitory justice to the universe — This learned man's thu-d argument— The answer — Whether God could forbid sin, and not under the penalty of eternal death — Concerning the modification of punishment in human courts from the divine appointment