92 A DISPLAY OF ARMINIANISM.
a sacrifice for their sins, he is surely a king, to apply the good things purchased by his death unto them, as Arminius himself confesseth; much more to whom he is a priest by sacrifice, he will be a priest by intercession. And, therefore, seeing he doth not intercede and pray for every one, he did not die for every one.
Fourthly, For whom Christ died he merited grace and glory, faith and salvation, and reconciliation with God ; as I shall show hereafter. But this he hath not done for all and every one. Many do never believe; the wrath of God remaineth upon some; the wrath of God abideth on them that do not believe, John iii. 36. To abide argueth a continued, uninterrupted act. Now, to be reconciled to one, and yet to lie under his heavy anger, seem to me aobarara, — things that will scarce consist together. The reasons are many; I only point at the heads of some of them.
Fifthly, Christ died for them whom God gave unto liim to be saved: " Thine they were, and thou gavest them me," John xvii. 6. He layeth down his life for the sheep committed to his charge, chap. X. 11. But all are not the sheep of Christ, all are not given unto him of God to be brought to glory ; for of those that are so given there is not one that perisheth, for " he giveth eternal life to as many as God hath given him," chap. xvii. 2. " No man is able to pluck them out of his Father's hand," chap. x. 28, 29.
Sixthly, Look whom, and how many, that love of God embraced that was the cause of sending his Son to redeem them; for them, and so many, did Christ, according to the counsel of his Father, and in himself, intentionally lay down his life. Now, this love is not uni- versal, being his " good pleasure" of blessing with spiritual blessings and saving some in Christ, Ej^h. i. 4, 5 ; which good pleasure of his evidently comprehendeth some, when others are excluded, Matt. xi. 25, 26. Yea, the love of God in giving Christ for us is of the same extent with that grace whereby he calleth us to faith, or bestoweth faith on us : for " he hath called us with an holy calling, according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus," 2 Tim. i. 9 ; which, doubtless, is not universal and common unto all. Innumerable other reasons there are to prove, that seeing God hath given his elect only, whom only he loved, to Christ to be redeemed ; and seeing that the Son loveth only those who are given him of his Father, and redeemeth only whom he loveth; seeing, also, that the Holy Spirit, the love of the Father and the Son, sanctifieth all, and only them, that are elected and redeemed, — it is not our part, with a preposterous liberality, against the witness of Christ himself, to assign the salvation attained by him as due to them that are without the congregation of them whom the Father hath loved and chosen, with- out that church which the Son loved and gave his life for, nor
OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 93
none of the members of that sanctified body wliereof Christ is the Head and Saviour. I urge no more, because this is not that part of the controversy that I desire to lay open.
I come now to consider the main question of this difference, though sparingly handled by our divines, concerning what our Saviour merited and purchased for them for whom he died. And here you shall find the old idol playing his jDranks, and quite divesting the merit of Christ from the least ability or power of doing us any good ; for though the Arminians pretend, very speciously, that Christ died for all men, yet, in effect, they make him die for no one man at all, and that by deny- ing the effectual operation of his death, and ascribing the proper issues of his passion to the brave endeavours of then" own Pelagian deity.
We, according to the Scriptures, plainly believe that Christ hath, by his righteousness, merited for us grace and glory; that we are blessed with all spiritual blessings, in, through, and for him ; that he is made unto us righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that he hath procured for us, and that God for his sake bestoweth on us, every grace in this life that maketli us differ from others, and all that glory we hope for in that which is to come ; he procured for us remission of all our sins, an actual reconciliation with God, faith, and obedience. Yea, but this is such a desperate doctrine as stabs at the very heart of the idol, and would make him as altogether use- less as if he were but a fig-tree log. What remaineth for him to do, if all things in this great work of our salvation must be thus ascribed unto Christ and the merit of his death? Wherefore the worshippers of this great god, Lib. Arbit., oppose their engines against the whole fabric, and cry down the title of Christ's merits to these spiritual blessings, in the behalf of their imaginary deity.