Now, doubtless, as held by these men, all this was consistent with strict orthodoxy. They meant no more than that, incidentally to his great design of saving the elect, and in order to that end, God had made certain provisions which were sufficient for all, adapted to each, and freely offered to all. But all their forms of ex- pression were confused, and their laborious distinctions utterly profitless. What is the significancy of making a special head of that “ giving love” which makes an actual grant of salvation upon conditions known to be absolutely impossible, and which makes no provision for its application, and which never intended the salvation of its objects? What real idea is signalized by the verbal distinction between the bond fide offer of the gospel to all, and the “ Deed of Gift” of Christ upon which it is said to rest? What is the virtue of a ‘ Deed of Gift or Grant” which actually conveys nothing, and which was eternally intended to convey nothing? Besides this, this language is injurious, because it leads to the perversion of Scriptural language upon this subject, and to the great emptying of its proper force. We have proved that the Scriptures teach that the designed effect of Christ's death was to “save his people from their sins,” and not simply, as Brown intimates, to remove legal obstacles out of the way of all sinners indifferently. In Scripture language, the purpose of Christ in his death cannot fail, According to the implications of Brown’s language, that designed effect is left, as respects the vast majority of its objects, suspended upon the contingency of second causes. In Scripture language, God’s “ giving love” is that highest and most wonderful form of love which ‘spared not his own Son,” and therefore, @ jfor- tiort, will infalibly secure with him the gift of “all things” necessary for salvation (John ii. 16; Gal. 1. 20; Eph. a, 403 wv 2539 Rom, ‘vill, “32 911 Solin ei ae,
OPINION OF CALVINISTS. 355
iv. 9). In the language of the ‘“ Marrow men,” God’s cuarrer “ giving love” signifies a general benevolence towards all human sinners as such, consistent with his purpose that a large portion of them shall be left to the inevitable consequences of their own sin.
In this century a few, like Wardlaw and James Richards, have held the doctrine of the general reference of the Atonement in connection with strict orthodoxy as to other points. The great majority, however, of the Calvinistic advocates of a general redemption have been the professors of the New England or Edwardean Theo- logy generally, such as Emmons, Taylor, Park, Beman, and Barnes. The language of Amyraldus, the ‘“ Marrow men,” Baxter, Wardlaw, Richards, Brown, and others, is now used to cover much more serious’departures from the truth. All really consistent Calvinists ought to have learned by this time that the original positions of the great writers and confessions of the Reformed Churches have only been confused, and neither improved, strength- ened, nor illustrated, by all the talk with which the Church has, in the mean time, been distracted as to the “double will” of God, or the “ double reference” of the Atonement. If men will be consistent in their adher- ence to these ‘ Novelties,” they must become Arminians. If they would hold consistently to the essential principles of Calvinism, they must discard the “ Novelties.”
It has always been a marked characteristic of the Arminians, in their controversies with Calvinists, that they insist upon the importance of the distinction be- tween the Impetration and the Application of Redemp- tion. The former, they insist, is general; the latter, they admit to be limited to believers, Professed Calvin- ists of a certain school insist upon the same distinction. The Atonement, they maintain, is general, while they admit that Redemption, including the actual application
356 THE DESIGN OF THE ATONEMENT.
cnarrern of grace, is confined to the elect. They urge us to con- —_ sider “the Atonement in itself,” apart from all thought of its application. But if you separate all thought of purpose and design from the sufferings of Christ, you would have, of course, nothing more than calamities devoid of all moral significance. He died for a purpose. The question is, What did he aim to accomplish in his death? I challenge any one to show:(1) how the i- tended application of the Atonement could have been any more general than its actual application. And (2) if the wtended application is admitted to have been limited to the elect, what remains to the general re- ference of the Atonement except (a) the intrinsic suffi- ciency; (b) the exact adaptation; and (c) the bond fide offer ;——all which, it 1s agreed on all hands, is without
any limit at all?