The Snake in the Grass - Sect. 11.

Concerning the satisfaction of Christ

HEREIN the Quakers are direct Socinians, for they positively deny the satisfaction; and this is no less a distinguishing doctrine of the Socinians than their denying the Trinity, and the divinity of Jesus.

Mr. Penn blasphemes it as both irreligious and irrational. ¹His arguments are the old Socinian job trot, though I believe he knew it not, only good wits jumped; for in his Invalidity of John Faldo's Vindication, &c. printed the same year, 1673, p. 413, he vindicates himself from an imputation he says had been cast upon him for being a Socinian, upon occasion of his book called, The Sandy Foundation Shaken, and says, that he had not at that time ever read any one Socinian book in all his life, if so much as looked into one. And if he had known this to have been Socinianism, he would not in his Winding-Sheet, printed 1672, have upbraided T. F. and H. H. so often with the reproach of being Socinians: sect. 1. their beloved Socinianism—Socinian agency—the spirit of Socinianism tried, ac cording to that discovery it has made of itself in their lamentable yet conceited agent Hen. Hed worth—his grim Socinian cavils burstened with folly and revenge—2. this anti-scriptural Socinian —7. the scriptures Socinianized—8, this giddy headed Socinian, &c.

And yet Mr. Penn does (it seems without know ing it, though infallible) perfectly copy after these Socinians in his arguments against the satisfaction of Christ; as, that there was no need of any satis faction to God's justice for our sins; that it is not called unjust to forgive a debt without any satisfac tion: thus confounding the notions of justice and mercy; for all forgiveness proceeds from mercy; but justice cannot remit the least farthing, else it were not justice; and what is inconsistent with the na ture of justice is inconsistent with God; for God is not only just, but he is justice itself; justice in the ab stract, the highest and most adequate notion of justice.

What room then is there for God's mercy? If he be all justice, where is his mercy?

Answ. God's attributes do not fight, or contradict one another; they magnify and exalt one another. Thus God's justice is magnified in that it exacts full and adequate satisfaction; his wisdom is magnified in finding out such means as to do it; and his good mess or mercy is equally magnified in affording those means: and all these are fulfilled to the utmost, that is, infinitely, in the wonderful economy of our salva tion by the satisfaction paid to God's justice for our sins in the sacrifice and death of Christ, which, be cause of his divine nature, was full and adequate sa tisfaction, and by his human nature the satisfaction was paid by the same nature which offended.

But upon the Socinian and Quaker scheme one of God’s attributes must fight with and conquer the other; one must subdue and bear down the other, and his justice must quit the field to his mercy. This is great nonsense as well as blasphemy, and utterly inconsistent with the first notions of a God.

And upon this scheme no tolerable account can be given for the death of Christ: for whether as an example, or an intercessor, or a teacher, (which are all the notions wherein the Socinians and Quak ers do receive him,) in none of these is there any ne cessity or rational account to be given for his death.

This is the millstone of Socinianism, which will sink it into the sea. These men pretend to the highest reason, and reject the most express revelations of the holy trinity of God and the divinity of Christ, merely upon the account that their reason cannot compre hend these profound mysteries. These men reject the doctrine of the satisfaction upon the like pretence of reason, and advance in its place the most arbi trary and unaccountable supposed covenant betwixt God and Christ, to remit the sins of the penitent for the altogether needless and barbarous murder of the most innocent person in the world.

But having wrote at large upon this subject, I will not here repeat it; my business at the present being, not to enter into the large field of the Soci nian controversy, but to shew the much misled ge nerality of the Quakers, how ignorantly and blind fold their pretended infallibility is led into the most gross and vile heresy that ever the enemy sowed in the Christian church, which is that of the Socini ans, and which, in name, the Quakers do so much abhor.

And they exceed the impudence of the very So cinians, in their bold effrontery and loud blasphe mies against this most fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion: the satisfaction made to the justice of God for our sins by the blood of Christ outwardly shed, and our justification there by in the sight of God. Mr. Penn says, that, if it is our duty to forgive without a satisfaction re ceived, and that God is to forgive us as we forgive others, then is a satisfaction totally excluded. The poorness of this argument is exposed in Satan Dis robed, sect. 2, to which (for saving repetition) I refer the reader. But here observe how positively and boldly he denies the doctrine of satisfaction; he will not leave one scrip or footstep of it behind; it is not only excluded by him, but totally excluded! yet will he deny himself to be a Socinian!

And, speaking of our justification by the righteousness which Christ hath fulfilled in his own per son for us, he says, in his Serious Apology, p. 148, And indeed this we deny, and boldly affirm it in the name of the Lord to be the doctrine of devils, and an arm of the sea of corruption which does now deluge the whole world. See this further enlarged upon in Satan Disrobed, sect. 2, with other proofs to the same purpose in that section, where their defences for themselves are likewise considered. See likewise Mr. Crisp's Just and Lawful Trial of the Foxonian Quakers, &c. p. 69 to 76.

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1. Reason against Railing, 1673, p. 90-93.  ↩︎