6. But the question does truly and only relate to the DESIGN OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON IN RESPECT TO THE PERSONS FOR WHOSE BENEFIT THE ATONEMENT WAS MADE; that is, to whom in the making of it they intended it should be appled. We contend that the following heads absolutely exhaust every possible question as to what is called the Extent of the Atonement: (q@) its essential nature, involving its exact adaptation to the legal relations and necessities of each and every man in- differently ; (6) its intrinsic sufficiency for all; (¢) its honest and authoritative offer to all; (d) its actual appli- cation ; (e) its antended application. We defy our op- ponents to show that this statement does not exhaust the case. The first three, all agree, are without any limit, thank God; the fourth, all agree, is limited to believers ; the fifth all Calvinists must believe to be limited to the elect. Now the advocates of universal and indefinite re- demption hold that Christ died with the design and effect of making the salvation of all men possible, and nothing more. The Reformed Churches hold that he died with the design of actually and certainly saving his elect people; that is, for the purpose of actually saving those whom he does actually save.
* Cunningham’s History of Theology, vol. ii., p. 882; Witsius’ Econ. of - the Covenants, b. ii., chap. ix., 24; Turretin, L. 14, Q. 14, 211.
STATEMENT OF DOCTRINE. 333
Amyraldus made ‘a distinction between objective and subjective grace. The former, rendering salvation objec- tively available to all men, he held was universal. The latter, which gives the gracious ability to accept the gospel, he admitted was designed for the elect alone. We believe that as far as the heathen are concerned, to whom Christ is never offered, salvation is no more objec- tively available than subjectively possible. It is true that Christ did make salvation, as an objective fact, possible to all men to whom it is offered, if they will believe. But the Reformed Churches maintain that a purpose to make salvation objectively available to those
who were never intended to enjoy it must, in the very
nature of things, not be an independent purpose in itself, but one purely subsidiary to the main design of actually and entirely effecting the salvation of all whose salvation was intended to be in fact realized. —
The Schoolmen were accustomed to affirm that Christ died sufficienter pro omnibus, efficienter pro electis ; and this form of expression was adopted by Calvin * and by the early Reformed theologians, previous to the thorough sifting of this subject occasioned by the speculations of the French theologians Cameron, Amyraldus, Testardus, &c. This scholastic expression is inaccurate and inade- quate rather than false. Christ did die sufficienter pro omnibus, but as an element of his design this otherwise inoperative and futile purpose must have been in thought, precisely as it is in execution, altogether subsidiary as a means to an end to his real—because actually accom- - plished—purpose of effecting the salvation of his elect. In other words, the actual ends effected are the exact measure of the real ends designed.
This question is capable of being stated in several different forms, while the identity of the essential prin-
* Commentaries, 1 John ii, 2.
CHAPTER: II.
CHAPTER It.
334 THE DESIGN OF THE ATONEMENT.
ciple involved is preserved and placed more distinctly in view. Thus,—
(1.) Was it the design of the redemptive work of Christ that it should carry into effect the purpose of election ; or was it the design of God’s sovereign election that it should carry into effect, in part, the general purpose of redemption? The theology of the Reformed Churches is broadly characterized by its subordination of re- demption to election. Their habitual mode of represen- tation is, that God, having of his mere good pleasure elected some men to everlasting life and to all the means thereof, sent his Son to effect that purpose by his obe-
‘dience unto death. All the advocates of indefinite re-