ings is reserved for the life to come. All these are facts of Scrip- ture and of experience, and they are all explained by the nature of the satisfaction rendered. It is not the payment of a debt, but a matter of agreement or covenant. It seemed good to the parties to the covenant of redemption that matters should be so arranged.
Penalty.
The woi'ds penal and penalty are frequently misunderstood. By the penalty of a law is often understood a specific kind or degree of suffering. The penalty of the divine law is said to be eternal death. Therefore if Christ suffered the penalty of the law He must have suffered death eternal ; or, as others say. He must have en- dured the same kind of sufferings as those who are cast off from God and die eternally are called upon to suffer. This difficulty is sometimes met by the older theologians by saying, with Burmun,^ "Tenendum, passionem banc Christi, licet poenarum nostrarum vim omuem quoad intensionem quasi exhauserit, non tam^in asternitatem earum tulisse : temporis enim infinitatem, infinita personas dignitas recompensavit." Turrettin says,'"^ " Si Ghristus mortem seternam non tulit sed temporalem tantum et triduanam, non minus tamen solvit quod a nobis debebatur quoad infinitatem poense. Quia si non fuit infinita quoad durationem, fuit tamen talis sequivalenter quoad valorem, propter personse patientis infinitam dignitatem, quia non fuit passio meri hominis, sed veri Dei, qui suo sanguine Ecclesiam acquisivit. Act. xx. 28, ut quod deest finito tempori, suppleatur per personae divinae conditionem, quae passioni temporali pondus addit infinitum."
Another answer equally common is that Christ suffered what the law denounced on sinners, so far as the essence of the penalty is concerned, but not as to its accidents. These accidents greatly modify all punishments. To a man of culture and refinement, who has near relations of the same class, imprisonment for crime is an unspeakably more severe infliction than it is to a hardened and degraded offender. The essence of the penalty of the divine law is the manifestation of God's displeasure, the withdrawal of the iivine favour. This Christ suffered in our stead. He bore the fvrath of God. In the case of sinful creatures, this induces final and hopeless perdition, because they have no life in themselves. In the case of Christ, it was a transient hiding of his Father's face. With sinners, this being cast off from God is necessarily attended
1 Synopsis TheohgUs, v. xvii. 8, edit. Geneva, 1678, vol. ii. p. 89. ■
a Insdtutio, loc. xiv. qu. xi. 28; Works, edit. Edinburg'h, 1847, vol. ii. p. 384.
474 PART m. Ch. VI. — priestly office.
by remorse, despair, and rebellious resistance and enmity. All these are mere circumstantial accidents, not attending the sufferings of Christ. Thus Turrettin says, " Vere tulit poenas quas damnati tulissemus, non quidam tamdiu, non omnes, non in eo loco, non cum illis effectis; sed tamen sensit justam Dei iram." Again, ^ "Licet desperatio et fremitus conjungantur cum poenis damnatorum ; non sequitur Christum ferendo poenas peccato debitas debuisse illis ex- poni, quia non sunt de essentia poenae, prout a judice infligitur, vel a sponsore sanctissimo fertur ; sed habent rationemadjuncti, quod earn comitatur, propter vitium subjecti patientis."
A third and more satisfactory answer to the objection in question is that the words penal and penalty do not designate any particular kind or degree of suffering, but any kind or any degree which is judicially inflicted in satisfaction of justice. The word death, as used in Scripture to designate the wages or reward of sin, includes all kinds and degrees of suffering inflicted as its punishment. By the words penal and penalty, therefore, we express nothing con- cei'ning the nature of the sufferings endured, but only the design of their infliction. Suffering without any reference to the reason of its occurrence is calamity ; if inflicted for the benefit of the sufferer, it is chastisement ; if for the satisfaction of justice, it is punishment. The very same kind and amount of suffering may in one case be a calamity ; in another a chastisement ; in another a punishment. If a man is killed by accident, it is a calamity. If he is put to death on account of crime and in execution of a judicial sentence, it is punishment. A man may be imprisoned to protect him from unjust violence. His incarceration is then an act of kindness. But if he be imprisoned in execution of a judicial sen- tence, then it is punishment. In both cases the evil suffered may be precisely the same. Luther was imprisoned for years to save him from the fury of the Pope. When, therefore, we say that Christ's sufferings were penal, or that He suffered the penalty of the law, we say nothing as to the nature or the degree of the pains which He endured. We only say, on the one hand, that his suffer- ings were neither mere calamities, nor chastisements designed for his own benefit, nor merely dogmatic, or symbolical, or exemplary, or the necessary attendants of the conflict between good and evil ; and, on the other hand, we affirm that they were designed for the satisfaction of justice. He died in order that God might be just in justifying the ungodly.
It is not to be inferred from this, however, that either the kind 1 Loc. XIV. qu. xi. 29, edit. Edinburgh, 1847, vol. ii. p. 384.