Truman:

Object. Here the Antinomians object: What do you talk of terms and conditions? Is it not injustice to refuse immediately to justify the party; immediately to pardon and acquit the offender for whom the price was paid? And is it not injustice to set them terms and conditions of their benefit by the price paid for their Justification and Salvation, so as without the performance of them they shall have no benefit by the said price?

Answ. It is not injustice. That which misleads Men, and makes them think otherwise is, their looking to God as if he was properly a Creditor; whereas he is Governor, our sins are not properly debts owing to God, but so called Metaphorically because in some things alike, they subject us to danger and trouble as debts do; and they look upon Sinners as Debtors, and Christ was a Surety properly. Get these things well into your minds, and you may see through these mists.

First, Labor to understand this, that the case here is not properly the case of Debtors, but of offending Subjects; and God is not to be looked upon properly as a Creditor, but as a Rector, Governor, Legislator; and the person Christ sustained, and the part he acted in his Sufferings, was not in a strict sense (though figuratively once so called) that of a Surety paying the debt it self, and discharging the Bond by paying the very thing itself in the Obligation; but of a Mediator, expiating guilt, and making reparation to Justice some other way, than by the execution of the Law; yea, endeavoring that the Law, the Legal threat, might not be executed, by making amends for the non-execution of it.

Secondly,  Get this into your minds; that the Sufferings of Christ were not properly an execution of the Law (though they may be figuratively so called) but a Satisfaction to Justice, that the Law-threat might not be executed. The Sufferings of Christ were not the very individual things threatened: for it threatened the offenders should die and be damned. “Cursed is everyone that continues not,” &c. “In the day thou eats, thou shalt die.” So that it was not Christ was threatened, but we; for he was not the offender. His Sufferings therefore were not idem, but tantundem, not proper payment, but a valuable consideration, or you may call it a refusable payment, though it be not properly payment at all; not solution, or payment in the strictest sense; but a Satisfaction in the strictest sense. The essence of which lies in this, that it is justly and refusable. In payment of Debts, the most Laws admit payment by a Substitute, and take it as all one account of law, whosoever pays it, so it be but paid; yea, in many cases though it be by another without Debtors knowledge; it was paid by the same person in Law, though not by the same natural person: and if any Laws do lay any stress on the person of the Debtor, so that it shall be judged no payment except paid in person, such are hard laws, and against natural equity; so that  though payment should justly according to such Municipal Laws be refusable: But it is quite otherwise in all Law and natural Equity in the case of obedience and punishment: For here the Laws do justly and equitably determine the very person that shall obey or suffer; and allow not any delegation, as doing or suffering by another; so that if another suffer, it is not the same in Law; if the penalty be suffered by another natural person, it is suffered by another person in Law: And here, Dum alius solvit, aliud solvitur; therefore such suffering of another contrary to Law may be a satisfaction that the Rector may with honor not execute the Law, but cannot possibly by an execution of the Law, the idem, the same threatened.

Joseph Truman, The Great Propitiation; or Christ’s Satisfaction and Man’s Justification by it, Upon His Faith; that is Belief of, and Obedience to the Gospel (London: Printed by A. Maxwell, for R. Clavell, in Cross-key Court in Little Britain, 1672), 87-91.  [Some spelling modernized, some reformatting, and underlining mine.]

[comments below]

Owen:

1) Now from all this, thus much (to clear up the nature of the satisfaction made by Christ) appears,–namely, It was a full, valuable compensation, made to the justice of God, for all the sins of all those for whom he made satisfaction, by undergoing that same punishment which, by reason of the obligation that was upon them, they themselves were bound to undergo. When I say the same, I mean essentially the same in weight and pressure, though not in all accidents of duration and the like; for it was impossible that he should be detained by death. Now, whether this will stand in the justice of God, that any of these should perish eternally for whom Jesus Christ made so full, perfect, and complete satisfaction, we shall presently inquire; and this is the first thing that we are to consider in this business. John Owen, “Death of Death,” in Works 10:269-270.

2) MR BAXTER having composed his Aphorisms of Justification, with their explications, before the publishing of them in print, he communicated them (as should appear) to some of his near acquaintance. Unto some things in them contained one of his said friends gives in some exceptions. Amongst other things he opposed unto those aphorisms, he also points at my contrary judgment in one or two particulars, with my reasons produced for the confirmation thereof. This provokes their learned author (though unwilling) to turn aside to the consideration of those reasons. Now, the first of those particulars being about the payment made for sin in the blood of Christ, of what sort and kind it is, I shall willingly carry on the inquiry to this farther issue, whereunto I am drawn out.

1. He looks upon the stating of the question as I professedly laid it down at my entrance into that disputation, and declares that it is nothing at all to the question he hath in hand, nor looking that way. “He distinguisheth,” saith Mr Baxter,” betwixt paying the very thing that is in the obligation and paying so much in another kind; now, this is not our question, nor any thing to it,” Append. p. 137. If it be so, I know no reason why I was plucked into the following dispute, nor why Mr Baxter should cast away so many pages of his book upon that which is nothing at all to the business he had in hand. But though there be nothing to this purpose, p. 137 [265] of my book, the place he was sent to, yet, p. 140 [267], there is, as also something contrary to what is expressed in the former place, which he intimates in these words:–“In p. 140 [267] he states the question far otherwise, and yet supposes it the same, namely,–Whether Christ paid the idem or the tantundem? which he interprets thus, ‘That which is not the same, nor equivalent unto it, but only in the gracious acceptation of the creditor.’ Now, what he means by ‘not equivalent’ I cannot tell.

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Wiliams:

1) VI Prop. It was in the Covenant of Redemption, wherein it was adjusted and agreed, what should be thus Satisfactory and Meritorious, and fo effectual to save Sinners. See Isa. liii. 10, 1 1, 12. Psa. xl. 6,7,8. Zech. vi. 13. Job. xvii. 4. The Parties in this Covenant, are the Father and Spirit on the one part; and the Son on the other. Whatever Christ suffered in time, and all the Obedience he yielded, were terms proposed to him, and accepted by him. In that Volume were recorded, what his Work and Rewards were to be; and of the latter, the Salvation of his members is a part. What he herein submitted to, he became obliged as an act of faithfulness to perform. Whatever was herein promised him, he had a right to receive, and did accordingly claim. By this compact, he agreed to be a Subject and Servant; and hence the Law of Mediation did commence as binding. By this compact his Obedience and Sufferings became a Satisfaction, that otherwise had been ineffectual.

Satisfaction imports a refuseableness, antecedently to an agreement: And hence we may perceive, that though what Christ paid was a full equivalent, yet it was not in all things the fame in kind, as man was obliged to. True, Justice took care, that all was inserted into this Covenant, as Christ’s Work, which was necessary to the reparation of its Glory: And hence the great Essentials of the Law of Works were inserted, as Articles to be performed by Christ, viz. sinless Obedience as a man, which is the sum of the Precept, and Death the substance of the Threatening; and these to be done and suffered in this Human Nature. Nevertheless some thing in the Threatenings were incompetent to him; as spiritual Death, the hatred of God, &c. And many Precepts were not agreeable to his circumstances, all which were omitted: Nay, many things, which the Law of Works never enjoined on men, were necessary to be done by the Redeemer, and therefore were super-added. From this Covenant arises the immediate obligation of Christ to all his Obedience, as well as the rule and measure of it; and from this his Title to all the Reward, much of which the premiant Sanction of the Law of Works never contained, and could never give a right to. Daniel Williams, “Discourses on Several Important Subjects,” in Works (London: Printed by James Waugh, at the Turk’s Head, in Lombard-Street. 1750), 4:12-13.  [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.]

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Dick:

1) But how, it may be asked again, could the sufferings of Jesus Christ satisfy for the sins of “a great multitude which no man can number, out of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues?” The common answer is, that the transcendent value of his sufferings was the consequence of the dignity of his nature; and it seems to be sufficient. His sufferings were limited in degree, because the nature in which he endured them was finite; but their merit was infinite, because the suffering nature was united to the Son of God. An idea, however, seems to prevail, that his sufferings were the same in degree with those to which his people were liable; that he suffered not only in their room, but that quantum of pain and sorrow which, if he had not interposed, they should have suffered in their own persons through eternity; and so far has this notion been carried by some, that they have maintained that his sufferings would have been greater or less, if there had been one more, or one fewer to be redeemed. According to this system, the value of his sufferings arose, not from the dignity of his person, but from his power. The use of his Divine person in this case, was not to enhance the merit of his sufferings, but to strengthen him to bear them. If this is true, it was not necessary that he should have taken human nature into personal union with himself; it was only necessary that he should have sustained it; and this he could have done although it had subsisted by itself. That the sufferings of the man Christ Jesus were greater than those which a mere mortal could have borne, will be readily granted; but, although it does not become us to set limits to Omnipotence, yet we cannot conceive him, I think, considered simply as a man, to have sustained the whole load of Divine vengeance, which would have overwhelmed countless myriads of men through an everlasting duration. By its union to himself, his human nature did not become infinite in power; it was not even endowed with the properties of an angel, but continued the same essentially with human nature in all other men. Nor is the supposition which we are considering, at all necessary; for as, in virtue of the union, the sufferings of his human nature were the sufferings of the Son of God, they acquired an incalculable intensity of value, and were equivalent to the sufferings of all his people, as his obedience was equivalent to the obedience which they were bound individually to perform. The will of God determined their degree, and the dignity of his person imparted a worth to them above all price. This view of the subject does not occur, I believe, in some of our Theological systems, and in our popular books; but I persuade myself that it is just, and is preferable to the loose declamatory expressions which we often hear with respect to the greatness of his sufferings. John Dick, Lectures on Theology (New York: M.W. Dodd, 1850), 1:505-506

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