5. The Scriptures habitually affirm that the MOTIVE which led the Father to give his Son, and the Son to die, was not a mere general philanthropy, but the highest, most peculiar and personal love. Christ’s true purpose in dying can certainly have no more exact and complete expression than his outpourings of soul in the ear of his Father on the terrible night preceding his sacrifice, recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John. If ever the real design of his death was uppermost in his heart and speech, it must have been then. If ever the motives which led to his dying were in strong action, it must have been then. But all that he says of the world is, that he does not pray for vt. All the unutter- able treasures of his love are poured forth upon those whom the Father gave him out of the world. John xvii. 19: “ For their sakes,” he said, “I sanctify myself” —that is, devote myself to this awful service. John xvii. 13: “That they might have my joy fulfilled in them- selves.” “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John xv. 13). “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. v. 8). “That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ;
TRUTH OF THE REFORMED DOCTRINE. 377
and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph. iii. 18, 19). ‘‘ Hereby perceive we the love of God”— “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, be- cause that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world,” &c. (1 John itt. 16; iv. 9,10). This love of Christ for his Church has for its type the personal and exclusive love of the husband for the wife (Eph. v. 25-27).
It is inconceivable that this highest and most peculiar love, which moved God to give his only-begotten and well-beloved Son to undergo a painful and shameful death, could have had for its objects the myriads from whom, both before and after Christ, he had withheld all knowledge of the gospel; or those to whom, while he gives them the outward call of the Word, he refuses to give the inward call of his Spirit. Can such love as the death of Christ expresses, welling up and pouring forth from the heart of the omnipotent God, fail to secure the certain blessedness of its objects? Paul expresses his opinion upon this precise point: “ He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely gwe us all things ?” (Rom. vill. 32.) Surely it is a profane defamation of this love to say that its effects may be measured in God’s provid- ing a salvation for all men, to accrue to them upon con- ditions known, and intended in the case of most, to be impossible. It is surely an abuse of Scripture to say that the elect and the reprobate, “those appointed to honour” and “ those appointed to dishonour,” those who “were before of old ordained to this condemnation” and those who were ‘ ordained unto eternal life,” those whom God “ hardeneth” and those upon whom he “hath mercy,” the ‘ world” and those ‘“ chosen out of the world,” are all indiscriminately the objects of this amazing, this heaven-moving, this soul-redeeming love.
CHAPTER WI.
CHAPTER VI.
Christ’s design de- clared to be the salvation
church,” &e.
378 THE DESIGN OF THE ATONEMENT.
6. The Scriptures habitually represent the definite design of the death of Christ to be the saving of “many,” the redemption of “his sheep,” ‘his church,” “his people,’ “his children,” the ‘elect :” ‘“ And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. i 21). ‘The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep...... I lay down my life for the sheep” (John x. 11, 15). ‘The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts xx. 28), ‘Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it;...... that he might present. it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and with- out blemish” (Eph. v. 25-27). Christ is said (John xi. 51, 52) to have died to gather together in one the children of God who are scattered abroad, ‘‘ He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things ? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s ELECT ? It is God that justifieth ; who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh inter- cession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ?” (Rom. viii, 82—35.)