That the Son of God, who did no sin, in whom his soul was always well pleased on the account of his obedience, should suffer and die, and that a death under the sentence and curse of the law, is a great
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and astonishable mystery. All the saints of God admire at it, the angels desire to look into it. What should be the cause and reason hereof, why God should thus “bruise him and put him to grief?” This is worth our inquiry; and various are the conceptions of men about it. The Socinians deny that his sufferings were penal, or that he died to make satisfaction for sin; but only that he did so to confirm the doctrine that he had taught, and to set us an example to suffer for the truth. But his doctrine carried its own evidence with it that it was from God, and was besides uncontrollably confirmed by the miracles that he wrought. So that his sufferings on that account might have been dispensed withal. And surely this great and stupen- dous matter, of the dying of the Son of God, is not to be resolved into areason and cause that might so easily be dispensed with. God would. never have given up his Son to die, but only for such causes and. ends as could no otherwise have been satisfied or accomplished. The like also may be said of the other cause assigned by them, namely, to set us an example. It is true, in his death he did so, and of great and singular use unto us it is that so he did; but yet neither was this, from any precedent law or constitution, nor from the nature of the thing itself, nor from any property of God, indispensably neces- sary. God could by his grace have carried us through sufferings, although he had not set before us the example of his Son: so he doth through other things no less difficult, wherein the Lord Christ could not in his own person go before us; as in our conversion wnto God, and mortification of indwelling sin, neither of which the Lord Christ was capable of. We shall leave them, then, as those who, acknowledging the death of Christ, do not yet acknowledge or own. any sufficient cause or reason why he should die,
Christians generally allow that the suffermgs of Christ were penal, and his death satisfactory for the sins of men; but as to the cause and reagon of his so suffering they differ. Some, following Austin, refer the death of Christ solely unto the wisdom and sovereignty of God. God would have it so, and therein are we to acquiesce, Other ways of saving the elect were possible, but this God chose, because so it seemed epad unto him. Hence arose that saying, “ That one drop of the blood of Christ was sufficient to redeem the whole world ;” only it pleased God that he should suffer unto the utmost. And herein are we to rest, that he hath suffered for us, and that God hath revealed. But this seems not to me any way to answer that which is here affirmed by the apostle, namely, that it became God, as the supreme governor of all the world, so to cause Christ to suffer; nor do I see what demonstration of the glory of justice can arise from the punishing of an innocent person who might have been spared, and yet all the ends of his being so punished have been brought. about, And to say that one drop of Christ’s blood was sufficient
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to redeem the world, is derogatory unto the goodness, wisdom, and righteousness of God, in causing not only the whole to be shed, but also “his soul to be made an offering for sin;” which was altogether needless if that were true. But how far this whole opinion is from truth, which leaves no necessary cause of the death of Christ, will afterwards appear.
Others say, that on supposition that God had appointed the curse of the law, and death to be the penalty of sin, his faithfulness and veracity were engaged so far that no sinner should go free, or be made partaker of glory, but by the intervention of satisfaction. And therefore, on the supposition that God would make some men his sons, and bring them to glory, it was necessary, with respect unto the engagement of the truth of God, that he should suffer, die, and make satisfaction for them. But all this they refer originally unto a free constitution, which might have been otherwise. ‘God might have ordered things so, without any derogation unto the glory of his justice or holiness in the government of all things, as that sin- ners might have been saved without the death of Christ; for if he had not engaged his word, and declared that death should be the penalty of sin, he might have freely remitted it without the inter- vention of any satisfaction.’ And thus all this whole work of death being the punishment of sin, and of the sufferings of Christ for sin- ners, is resolved into a free purpose and decree of God’s will, and not into the exigence of any essential property of his nature; so that it might have been otherwise in all the parts of it, and yet the glory of God preserved every way entire. Whether this be so or