The idem is supplicium delinquenti debitum by whomsoever it be undergone, not supplicium ipsius delinqucntis only. He proceeds : —
" The law never threatened a surety, nor gi-anted any liberty of substitution ; that was an act of God above the law : therefore Christ did not undergo the idem."
614 OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST,
I deny the consequence; nor is the least shadow of proof made of it. The question is not whether Christ be the sinner, but whether he underwent that which was due to the sinner. He adds: —
"If, therefore, the thing due was paid, it was we ourselves morally or legally that suffered."
I know not well what is meant by " morally;" but, however, I deny the conse- quence. The thing itself was paid by another for us, and the punishment itself was undergone by another in our stead.
That which follows falls with that which went before, being built thereon: —
"It could not be ourselves legally," saith he, "because it was not ourselves naturally."
Though for the security of the hypothesis opposed there is no need of it, yet I deny this proposition also, if taken universally. A man may be accounted to do a thing legally by a sponsor, though he do it not in his own person. But he says, —
■" If it had been ourselves legally, the strictest justice could not have denied us a present deliverance, ' ipso facto,' seeing no justice can demand any more than the ' idem quod debitur'" (as Mr B.'s printer speaks.)
But, — 1. It is supposed that all legal performance of any thing by any one must be done in his own person.
2. It supposes that there is such an end as deliverance assigned, or assignable, to the offender's own undergoing of the penalty, which is false.
3. The reasons and righteousness of our actual deliverance, at the time and in the manner prescribed by God (and, as to the latter, revealed in the gospel), upon Christ's performance of personal obedience and undergoing the penalty due to us in our stead, which are founded in the economy of the Trinity, voluntarily engaged into for the accomplishing the salvation of the elect, I have elsewhere touched on, and may, if I find it necessary, hereafter handle at large.
That which is feared in this business is, that if the idem be paid, then, ac- cording to the law, the obligation is dissolved and present deliverance follows. But if by "the law" be meant the civil law, whence the.se terms are borrowed, it is most certain that any thing, instead of that which is in the obligation, doth, ac- cording to the rules of the law, dissolve the obligation, and that whether it be paid by the principal debtor or delinquent, or any for him. The beginning of that sec- tion, " Quibus modis tollitur obligatio," lib. iii. Instit., will evince this sufficiently. The title of the section is, —
" Si solvitur id quod debctur, vel axiud loco Ulius, consentiente creditore, omnis tollitur obligatio, turn rei principalis, quam fide-jussoris."
The words of the law itself are more full : —
" Tollitur autem omnis obligatio solutione ejus quod debetur ; vel siquis consenti- ente creditore aliud pro alio solverit ; nee interest quis solvent, utrum ipse qui debet, an ALIUS pro eo : liberatur enim et alio solvente, sive sciente, sive ignorante debitore, vel invito, ea solutio fiat. Si fide-jussor solverit, non enim ipse solus liberatur, sed reus."
So that there is no difference in the law whether " solutio" be '• ejusdem" or " tantidcm ;" and this is the case in the things that are " ex maleficio, aut quasi," as may be seen at large in the commentators on that place.
To caution all men against the poison of Antinomian doctrines, now so strenu- ously opposed by MrB., and to deliver students from the unhappy model of theo- logy which the men of the preceding contests have entangled themselves and others withal, Mr B. seriously advises them to keep in their minds and " carefully to distinguish between the will of God's purpose and his precepts or law," his de- termining and commanding will, in the first place; the ignorance whereof, it seems, confounded the theology of Dr Twisse, Pemble, and others.
Nextly, that " they would carefully distinguish between the covenant between the Father and the Son about the work of his mediation, and the covenant of grace and mercy confirmed to the elect in his blood."
AND OF JUSTIFICATION. 615
Now, if these two distinctions, as carefully heeded and as warily observed as we are able, will prove such an antidote against the infection, for my part in all pro- bability I shall be secure, having owned them ever since I learned my catechism.
Kai Tovra fiiv ^n ravTO,.
And so am I dismissed. This may perhaps be the close of this controversy ; if otherwise, I am indifferent. On the one side it will be so. I delight not in these troubled waters. If I must engage again in the like kind, I shall pray that He from whom are all my supplies would give me a real humble frame of heart, that I may have no need, with many pretences and a multitude of good words, to make a cloak for a spirit breaking frequently through all with sad discoveries of pride and passion, and to keep me from all magisterial insolence, pharisaical, supercilious self-conceitedness, contempt of others, and every thing that is contrary to the rule whereby I ought to walk.