Chapter XXI.
Of the death of Christ, the causes, ends, and fruits thereof, with an entrance into the doctrine of his satisfaction thereby.
Mr Biddle’s twelfth chapter is concerning the death of Christ, the causes, and fruits, and ends thereof; the error and mistake whereabout is the second great head of the Socinian religion. Next to his person, there is not any thing they set themselves so industriously to oppose as his death, in the sense wherein it hath constantly hitherto been embraced by all Christians, — as the great foundation of their faith and confidence.
That the Lord Jesus, our mediator, did not, by his death and sufferings, undergo the penalty of the law as the punishment due to our sins; that he did not make satisfaction to God, or make reconciliation for transgressors; that he did not thereby properly redeem us by the payment of a ransom, nor so suffer for us as that our sins should, in the justice of God, be a meritorious cause of his suffering, — is the second great article of the creed which they labour to assert and maintain.1
There is not any thing about which they have laid out so much of their strength as about this, namely, that Jesus Christ is called our Saviour in respect of the way of salvation which he hath revealed to us, and the power committed to him to deliver us and save us, in and by obedience required at our hands, not on the account of any satisfaction he hath made for us, or atonement by the sacrifice of himself.
How Faustus Socinus first broached this opinion, with what difficulty he got it to be entertained with the men of his own profession as to the doctrine of the Trinity, has been before declared. What weight he laid upon this opinion about the death of Christ, and the opposition he had engaged in against his satisfaction, with the diligence he used and the pains he took about the one and the other, is evident from his writings to this purpose which are yet extant. His book, “De Jesu Christo Servatore,” is wholly taken up with this argument; so is the greatest part of his “Prelections;” his “Lectiones Sacræ” are some of them on the same subject; and his “Parænesis” against Volanus, many of his epistles, especially those to Smalcius, and Volkelius, and Niemojevius, as also his treatises about justification, have the same design. Smalcius is no less industrious in the same cause, both in his Racovian Catechism and in his answers and replies with Franzius and Smiglecius. It is the main design of Schlichtingius’ comment on the Hebrews, Crellius, “De Causis Mortis Christi,” and in his defence of Socinus against Grotius, dwells on this doctrine. Volkelius hath his share in the same work, etc.
What those at large contend for, Mr B. endeavours slily to insinuate into his catechumens in this chapter. Having, therefore, briefly spoken of salvation by Christ, and of his mediation in general, in consideration of his sixth and seventh chapters, I shall now, God assisting, take up the whole matter, and, after a brief discovery of his intendment in his queries concerning the death of Christ, give an account of our whole doctrine of his satisfaction, confirming it from the Scriptures, and vindicating it from the exceptions of his masters.
For the order of procedure, I shall first consider Mr B.’s questions; then state the point in difference by expressing what is the judgment of our adversaries concerning the death of Christ, and what we ascribe thereto; and then demonstrate from the Scripture the truth contended for.
Mr B.’s first question is, —
Q. Was it the will and purpose of God that Christ should suffer the death of the cross? What saith the apostle Peter to the Jews concerning this?
A. Acts ii. 22, 23.
To which he subjoins, —
Q. What say the disciples in general concerning the same?
A. Acts iv. 24–28.
It is not unknown what difference we have both with the Socinians and Arminians about the purposes and efficacious decrees, and the infallibility of the prescience of God. Something already hath been spoken to this purpose, in our discourse concerning the prescience of God, as formerly in that of perseverance. How unable Mr B.’s companions are to disentangle themselves from the evidence of that testimony which is given to the truth we contend for by these texts which here he with so much confidence recites, hath been abundantly by others demonstrated. I shall not here enter into the merits of that cause, nor shall I impose on Mr B. the opinion of any other man which he doth not expressly own; only I shall desire him to reconcile what he here speaks in his query with what he before delivered concerning “God’s not foreseeing our free actions that are for to come.” What God purposes shall be and come to pass, he certainly foresees that that will come to pass. That Christ should die the death of the cross was to be brought about by the free actions of men, if any thing in the world was ever so, and accomplished in the same manner; yet that this should be done, yea, so done, God purposed: and therefore, without doubt, he foresaw that it should be accomplished, and so foresaw all the free actions whereby it was accomplished. And if he foresaw any one free action, why not all, there being the same reason of one and all? But at the present let this pass. His second question is, —