Universal redemption of mankind, by the Lord Jesus Christ stated and cleared by the…

CHAP. V. Prop. 2. Christs sufferings for Mans Sins, were not the Idem, the same thing which the Law threatened to us: Or the fulfilling of the threatening; and discharge of the debt it self in kind. But the Aequivalens, or Value, freely paid by him (obliged only by his own sponsion,) and accepted by God, for our not fulfilling the Law as to its Precept and Commination.

CHAP. V. Prop. 2. Christs sufferings for Mans Sins, were not the Idem, the same thing which the Law threatned to us: Or the fulfilling of the threatening; and discharge of the debt it self in kind. But the Aequivalens, or Value, freely paid by him (obliged only by his own sponsion,) and accepted by God, for our not fulfilling the Law as to its Precept and Commination.

Some think this Question whether Christ paid the Idem or Tantundem? To be not Tantidem, not worth the disputing. Mr. O, (against me) seems stiffly to maintain it to be the Idem, but yielding it to be not per eundem, and the Law to be Relaxed so far, doth yield as much as I need, and gives up the whole cause; and made me think it a useless labour to reply to him. As small as this Question seems, I think the main Body of Divinity stands or falls according to the Resolution of it. For understanding the meaning of it, you must know, 1. That it is not of the quality of the suffering that we enquire: Whether Christ suffered the same kind of pain, or loss that we should have suffered? Nor of the quantity of Torment, for intension or duration? For I am willing to believe as much identity in ⟨p. 79⟩these as I can see any ground but of probability to encourage me: Though yet I know how hard it is, for them that say, by [Death] in the threatening, was meant, Death, Temporal, Spiritual, and Eternal, to prove that the loss of Gnds Image was none of the penalty; (for I hope none will say, that Christ lost Gods Image) or that Christs temporary sufferings, were the Idem with our Eternal, quoad quantitatem; and not the want of duration made up by the intension, or dignity of the person, as being Equivalent: (Which is our ordinary Doctrine, and I think sound): Or yet that the Eternity of the punishment was not in the threatening, but was accidental: Either, as some Schoolmen think, for want of power to deliver or overcome; or as others (and with them Parker and Sanford, I think, not soundly) because of the everlastingness of Sinning. I think none of these much worth the disputing, comparatively: Nor 2. is it de personâ naturali, who he was naturally that paid the debt, or made the satisfaction. It is not therefore de materia debiti, that we enquire, but de formâ: Whether it were the same formally which we owed, and the obligation required? Or only the Value, and not the same full debt? Also you must know that, though we may well use the word [debt] in this Case, because the Scripture doth, yet we must acknowledge it but a Metaphor, and the proper terms are, whether Christs sufferings were the same thing that the Law in its threatening required, i. e. obliged unto, and made due? And so a fulfilling of that threatening? And this with great averseness I deny.