Chapter XXIII.
Of the death of Christ as it was a punishment, and the satisfaction made thereby.
So is the death of Christ revealed as a price and a sacrifice. What are the proper effects of it under these considerations shall be afterward declared.
III. The third consideration of it is its being a penalty or a punishment. To clear this I shall demonstrate four things: 1. What punishment, properly so called, is; 2. That Christ’s death was a punishment, or that in his death he did undergo punishment; 3. What that was that Christ underwent, or the material cause of that punishment; 4. Wherein the formality of its being a punishment did consist, or whence that dispensation had its equity.
For the first, I shall give, 1. The definition of it, or the description of its general nature; 2. The ends of it are to be considered.
1. For the first, that usual general description seemeth to be comprehensive of the whole nature of punishment; it is “malum passionis quod infligitur ob malum actionis,” — an evil of suffering inflicted for doing evil. Or, more largely to describe it, it is an effect of justice in him who hath sovereign power and right to order and dispose of offenders, whereby he that doth contrary to the rule of his actions is recompensed with that which is evil to himself, according to the demerit of his fault.1
(1.) It is an effect of justice.2 Hence God’s punishing is often called an inflicting of anger; as Rom. iii. 5, “Is God unrighteous, ὁ ἐπιφέρων τὴν ὀργήν, who inflicteth anger?” Anger is put for the justice of God, Rom. i. 18, “The anger (or wrath) of God is revealed from heaven,” etc.; that is, his vindictive justice against sin is manifested by its effects. And again, the cause [is put] for the effect, manger for the effect of it in punishment; and therefore we have translated the word “vengeance,” Rom. iii. 5, which denotes the punishment itself.
(2.) It is of him who hath sovereign power and judiciary right to dispose of the offenders: and this is either immediate in God himself, as in the case whereof we speak, — he is the “only lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy,” James iv. 12, — or it is by him delegated to men for the use of human society; so Christ tells Pilate, he could have no power over him (whom he considered as a malefactor) unless it were given him from above, John xix. 11, though that is spoken in reference to that peculiar dispensation.
(3.) The nature of it consists in this, that it be evil to him on whom it is inflicted, either by the immission of that which is corrupting, vexing, and destroying, or the subtraction of that which is cheering, useful, good, and desirable, in what kind soever; and therefore did the ancients call the punishment “fraus,” because when it came upon men, they had deceived and cut short themselves of some good that otherwise they might have enjoyed. So the historian: “Cæteræ multitudini diem statuit, ante quam liceret sine fraude ab armis discedere;” that is, that they might go away freely without punishment.3 And so is that expression explained by Ulpian, Dig. lib. xx.: “Capitalem fraudem admittere est tale aliquid delinquere, propter quod capite puniendus sit.”
The schoolmen have two rules that pass amongst them without control:— First, that “Omne peccatum est adeo voluntarium, ut si non sit voluntarium non est peccatum.” It is so of the nature of sin that it be voluntary, that if any thing be not voluntary, it is not sin. The other is, “Est ex natura pœnæ ut sit involuntaria.” It is so of the nature of punishment that it be against the will of him that is punished, that if it be not so, it is not punishment.
Neither of which rules is true, yea, the latter is undoubtedly false.
For the former, every sin is thus far, indeed, voluntary, that what is done contrary to the express will of him that doth it is not his sin; but that the actual will or willing of the sinner is required to make any thing his sin is false, — in the case of original sin manifestly. Wherefore John gives us another definition of sin than theirs is, that it is “dictum, factum, concupitum, contra legem,” — namely, that it is ἀνομία, “a transgression of the law.” Have it the actual consent of the will or no, if it be a transgression of the law, an inconformity to the law, it is sin.