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 ws . 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, dw/Xurgov ; 1 Tim. ii. 6,
* Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time ; which is
redditio cequivalentis pro <xquivalenti, which the sinner of himself would never have been able to perform. There is no thinking of it ; Rom. v. 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. Yer. 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 ;
* For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Add to them
it is not possible to take away sin by it : Heb. x. 4,
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. xvi. 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
vi. 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 fivers 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 satis
faction should be performed by a surety in our stead, who might be a me
diator and umpire, and who might take our sins upon himself, and upon whom God might lay the iniquity of us all, Isa. liii. 6, and exact the punish ment, as Junius reads it; that might become a surety
: Heb. vii. 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. v. 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. iv. 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 dvr/Xurgov, a sufficient adequate satisfaction.
And his justice will be content to admit of such a commutation, and that VOL. V. B
18 OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. [BOOK I.
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
Jit 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 law
giver, 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 un
dertake 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 fully accomplished. It is true, the tenor and Istter of the law is dispensed with, but not the debt ; that is as fully exacted as ever. It is but a dispensation of the party
obliged, not of the obligation itself, or of the debt, or of the reason why the debt is exacted. It is not wholly secundum legem, nor yet contra, w8s Kara
vofAov tivds Kara VO/JLOU, dXXa vveg v6/&ov xai virio VO/AOV,^ it is a saying no less
solid than elegant, and therefore the more elegant, because it was anciently used in another case. And although the law doth not mention or name a
surety, and the malefactor s single bond be only mentioned therein, and the
threatening directed against him, and his name is only in the project, be cause the law in itself supposeth as yet none else guilty, and can challenge none else, yet if some other, that is lord of his own action, subject himself
to the law willingly, which will of his is a law to him, and the lawgiver himself, that is lord of the law, accepts this, as seeing the same ends shall be satisfied for which he made the law ; in this case the law takes hold of the surety or undertaker, and he may let the malefactor go free.
And now that his wisdom hath found a course and way of mediation between his justice and his mercy, yet who is there in heaven and earth should be a fit mediator, both able and willing to undertake it, and faithful
to perform it ?