What I have to say on the present subject of the design of the Atonement will be grouped under the fol- lowing heads :—(1.) The exact statement of the real question in debate, excluding all irrelevant issues, and sharply defining the only point about which men can differ on this subject. (2.) A discussion of the true re- lation which the question as to the design of the Atone- ment necessarily sustains to the previous and more important question as to its nature. (3.) A brief sketch in outline of the history of opinion on this subject, espe- cially the different forms the controversy has assumed among Calvinists. (4.) An answer to the questions, What were the personal views of Calvin? What is Cal- vinism ? What is the standard of that system of faith held by common consent by the Reformed Churches ? and especially, What doctrine is solemnly professed by all those who adopt the Westminster Confession, ex animo, as the confession of their faith? (5.) An exhibi- tion of the Scriptural evidence relied upon to establish the doctrine of the Reformed Churches as to the personal and definite design of the Atonement. (6.) An examina- tion and solution of the several arguments presented by the advocates of general and indefinite redemption as refutations of our doctrine, and as evidences establish- ing the truth of theirs,
CHAPTER a.
The ques-
tion as to the design of the At- onement stated nega- tively.
CHAPTER ILI.
~ THE TRUE DOCTRINE AS TO THE DESIGN OF THE ATONEMENT ACCURATELY STATED.
bse
| PROPOSE, then, to give an exact statement of
i =©6 the true question at issue between those who maintain the definite and personal and those who maintain the general and indefinite design of the vicarious work of Christ. Whatever may be the subject in debate, it is evident that the exact discrimi- nation of the point in question is the first thing to be done, the well-doing of which is of the very highest im- portance. But this is far more than ordinarily true in the present instance, because it so happens that among those who agree as to the nature of the Atonement and as to the sovereignty of the divine decrees there is no thinkable difference here possible. The bare statement of the question will itself, therefore, dissipate as irrele- vant the vast mass of objections made to the orthodox doctrine by its adversaries, and manifestly reduces to a mere contest of words the only issue which can possibly be debated by intelligent and honest Calvinists.
The question, then, (1) does not relate to the sSuUF- FICIENCY of the satisfaction rendered by Christ to secure the salvation of all men. The Reformed Churches have uniformly taught that no man has ever yet perished, or ever will perish, for want of an atonement. All Cal- vinists agree in maintaining earnestly that Christ’s
STATEMENT OF DOCTRINE. 329
obedience and Cer were of infinite intrinsic value rea in the eye of law, a that there was no need for him —— to obey or to suffer an iota more nor a moment longer in order to secure, if God so willed, the salvation of every man, wom and child that ever lived. No man can have a moment’s doubt upon the subject who acknowledges the supreme divinity of the glorious Victim. It is insisted upon by Turretin, Witsius, and by John Owen,* as earnestly as it is by Jenkyn or Barnes. It is consequently utterly irrelevant to the question in hand, when Barnes closes his argument to prove that Christ died in order to make the salvation of all men indiscriminately possible, with the plea that after eighteen hundred years the stream of Atonement is found unexhausted alike in its volume and its virtues. Surely this is even less than the glorious truth. It will be none the less true after eighteen millions of years. But this question has never been debated by the Re- formed Churches. We unite with all other Christians in glorying in the infinite sufficiency of the satisfaction of Christ to reach and to save all men who have been or who will be created or creatable.
2. The question does not relate to the APPLICABILITY of the satisfaction rendered by Christ to the exact legal relations and to the necessities, in order to the salvation, of every lost sinner in the world. Christ did and suf- fered precisely what the law demanded of each man per- sonally and of every man indiscriminately, and it may be at any time applied to the redemption of one man as well as to another, as far as the satisfaction itself is con- cerned. Putting these two things together, therefore, the sufficiency for all and the exact adaptation to each,
* Turretin, L. 14, Q. 14,39. Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ, b. iv., ch. i., 31. Witsius’ Economy of the Covenants, b. ii., eh ix.6¢ 2. :
CHATTER Ii.
330 THE DESIGN OF THE ATONEMENT.