A brief declaration and vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity as also of…

7. Since Christ could not pay what was not his own, it follows that in the payment of his own, the case still remains equally grievous. Since the debt is not hereby absolved or forgiven, but transferred only; and by consequence we are no better provided for salvation than before, owing that now to the Son, which was once owing to the Father.

Answ. The looseness, and dubiousness of the expressions here used, makes an appearance that there is something in them, when indeed there ⟨p. 204⟩is not. There is an Allusion in them to a debt and a payment, which is the most improper expression that is used in this matter, and the interpretation thereof is to be regulated by other proper expressions of the same thing. But to keep to the Allusion, (1.) Christ paid his own, but not for himself, Dan. 9. 26. (2.) Paying it for us, the debt is discharged, and our actual discharge is to be given out according to the ways and means, and upon the conditions appointed and constituted by the Father and Son. (3.) When a debt is so transferred as that one is accepted in the room, and obliged to payment in the stead of another, and that payment is made and accepted accordingly, all Law and Reason require that the original Debtor be discharged. (4.) What on this account we owe to the Son, is praise, thankfulness, and obedience, and not the debt which he took upon himself, and discharged for us, when we were non-solvent, by his love. So that this matter ⟨p. 205⟩is plain enough, and not to be involved by such cloudy expressions and incoherent discourse, following the Metaphor of a debt. For if God be considered as the Creditor, we all as Debtors, and being insolvent, Christ undertook out of his Love to pay the debt for us, and did so accordingly, which was accepted with God; it follows that we are to be discharged, upon Gods terms, and under a new obligation unto his Love, who hath made this satisfaction for us, which we shall eternally acknowledge. It is said,