CHAPTER V: Necessary that a full and complete satisfaction should be made, which we being unabl
And again, are not all his attributes his nature, his justice as well as mercy? his hatred of sin, as well as the love of his creature? And is not that nature of his pure act, and therefore active, and therefore provokes all his will to manifest these his attributes upon all occasions? Doth not justice boil within him against sin, as well as his bowels of mercy yearn towards the sinner? Is not the plot of reconciliation his masterpiece, wherein he means to bring all his attributes upon the stage? And should his justice, and this expressed by a law, keep in and sit down contented, without shewing itself? No; and therefore he resolves to be just, and have his justice and law satisfied, as well as to justify the sinner; Rom. 3:26, 'To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.' And as to run a course of mere rigorous justice pleased him not, so likewise nor to stretch the pure absolute prerogative of mercy. Wherefore some of the fathers have, after the manner of men, brought in mercy and justice here pleading; the project of mercy was his delight, as mercy is, Micah 7:18. And he had resolved above all to shew it. But then justice also is his sceptre, whereby he is to rule, and govern, and judge the world. Wherefore his wisdom, as a middle attribute, steps in, and interposeth as a means of mediation between them both, and undertakes to compound the business, and to accommodate all, so as both shall have their desire and aims, their full demonstration and accomplishment.
CHAPTER V
To the effecting of all the designs, both of justice and mercy, it was necessary that a full and complete satisfaction should be made, which we being unable to pay, divine wisdom thought of another person to undertake and to do it for us.—That God's justice is contented with this commutation of the person, since hereby that attribute is more glorified, and all the ends of the law answered, than if we the offenders had in our own persons suffered the due punishment of sin.
This accomplishment of all the designs, both of justice and mercy, must be by satisfaction, by full and adequate ransom, ἀντίλυτρον; 1
Tim. 2:6, 'Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time;' which is redditio æquivalentis pro æquivalenti, which the sinner of himself would never have been able to perform. There is no thinking of it; Rom. 5:6–8, 'For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.' Ver. 7, 'For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.' Ver. 8, 'But God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' We are said to be without strength, and it is there brought in, as the great demonstration of Christ's love in dying for us, when we were yet without strength. And if nothing we are, much less anything we have or can offer; the blood of bulls and goats is not able; it is not possible to take away sin by it: Heb. 10:4, 'For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.' Add to them all the creatures that are the appurtenances of man, which man hath to give, as gold, silver, precious stones, not the whole world of them would do. For nothing less noble than man can be a sufficient surety for man's life, which sin deprives us of. All such things are not worth a soul, which is to be lost for sin, said he that paid for one; Mat. 16:26,
'For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' And as it is in Micah 6:7, 'Will the Lord be pleased with rivers of oil? nay, with thy firstborn of thy body for the sin of thy soul?' There is no proportion; God would never have turned away so fair a chapman, if his justice could afford so cheap a commutation. And as not rivers of oil, so nor rivers of tears, which (as all other actions that come from us) are defiled, and become but as puddle-water.
His wisdom therefore thought of a commutation, so as that that satisfaction should be performed by a surety in our stead, who might be a mediator and umpire, and who might take our sins upon himself, and upon whom God might lay the iniquity of us all, Isa.
53:6, and exact the punishment, as Junius reads it; that might become a surety: Heb. 7:21, 22, 'For those priests were made without
an oath; but this with an oath, by him that said unto him, The Lord sware, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec;' ver. 22, 'By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament;' that might make satisfaction, being made sin: 2
Cor. 5:21, 'For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' That being
'made of a woman, might be under the law,' Gal. 4:4. 'But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,' and who so might give and expose himself as a ransom and ἀντίλυτρον, a sufficient adequate satisfaction.
And his justice will be content to admit of such a commutation, and that such a satisfaction should be performed by a surety in our stead.
For when all parties are satisfied, and no wrong is done to any, justice may well be satisfied. For if the parties undertaking it be willing, volenti non fit injuria, and the great undertaker having power over that thing which he offers to lay down for satisfaction, being lord of it, no other one is wronged.
Neither is the party to be satisfied wronged, if he that undertakes it be of ability fully to satisfy and to fufil what he desires, and if, being the lawgiver, he be willing to assent to this act of his, and to accept it.
For, being Lord of his own law, he may dispense with the letter of it, if so be those holy ends, which his counsel had in making it, be accomplished and attained; and if the reason of the law and lawgiver be satisfied, then is the law. Now the ends and grounds of giving
God's law were to declare and shew forth his justice, and hatred against sin wherever he found it. Now his justice and hatred of sin is as fully manifested when punishment is executed upon a party assuming our sins on himself, and undertaking to be a surety, as if the sinner himself were punished; if not more, in that he doth but undertake it for another, and yet is not spared. As God is said to hear our prayers, and fulfil his promise, when he answers to the ground of our prayers, though not in the thing; so are the cries of sin, or* justice against the sinner, answered, and God's threatenings fulfilled, when another is punished, because all the ends of the lawgiver are