DEAR SIR, Y OU fum up the Force of your ever Diftinction there is in the Di"vine Nature, yet it is a Diftinction "which enters not into the Effence "of that Nature. If then God the "Son be truly God, and God the "Son fuffered in our stead for the "Sin of Man committed against "God; then the Consequence must "be, that God fuffered for a Crime "committed against God." In Answer to this, First, Let it be observed, that God did not, could not fuffer at all. The only Thing, that the second Person 3 in the Bleffed Trinity did, was this; by affuming our Nature, and by a perfonal Union with it, he ennobled and exalted it fo far, as to make it a meritorious Sacrifice. The Godhead then did not fatisfy, It only empowered and enabled the Human Nature to fatisfy the Divine, by ftamping a Value upon it. And pray where is the Abfurdity of this Procedure? If you fay, that the Satiffaction in the last Resort terminates in God; I answer, fo all our Sufficiency and Power does too. He is the Party pleafing, and the Party pleafed; fince He gave and upholds every Power and Faculty that we have. It is not fufficient to reply, that we co-operate with God: becaufe, the Human Nature did act in Concert with the Divine in the Cafe now now under Confideration. In fhort, God as well enables every One to pleafe him, as he enabled Chrift's Human Nature to fatisfy Him. Secondly, Let it be supposed that the Divine Nature, as perfonalized in Chrift, fatisfied the Divine Nature as perfonalized in the Father. You tell me, "That my Cafe of two Kings jointly reigning, One " of which foregoing his Right "makes Satisfaction to the Other for an Offence committed against "Both, doth not come up to the "Point: because They are two feparate Beings" (for that is your Meaning)" though their Authority "be the fame." Now, Sir, when we confider the Divine Nature I know of no Cafe, that can be exactly parallel to what concerns it. Whatever Case you can imagine, it will have no Property of an exact Parallel, except it be this ; that the two Cafes, like Parallel Lines, will never meet. But then, either Arguments from Human to Divine are inconclufive, or they are not. If they are inconclufive, then you cannot infer a Contradiction in one Nature from what is a Contradiction in another, and quite different Nature. No more than a Blind Man ought to conclude, that what is a Contradiction as to Touch, must be a Contradiction as to Sight. You must not infer that, fince it is an Abfurdity for a Man to fatisfy Himself, therefore it is an Abfurdity for the Godhead, branched out into Three Perfons, to fatisfy Itself: This being to argue à pari, where where there is an infinite Disparity: It is the Fallacy called Tranfitio à Genere ad Genus. But if you will contend, that Arguments ab Humanis ad Divina are conclufive, notwithstanding there must be a boundless Difproportion in all Debates concerning the Subftance and Perfonality of the Divine Nature infinitely furpaffing Human Comprehenfion; then I hope my Parallel may be intitled to the fame Degree of Favour, to which others are, though not exactly correfponding. Your Exception against the Parallel does not ferve your Purpose. For though the Subftance of the two Kings is different, that of the Trinity one and the fame; yet I challenge you to prove, that the Actions |