END OF Christ's death as eternally intended. 159
Heb. i. 8. To " sanctify the people with his own blood, he suffered without the gate/' chap. xiii. 12. "He gave himself for the church to sanctify and cleanse it, that it should be holy and without blemish," Eph. V. 25-27. Peculiarly amongst the graces of the Spirit, " it is given to us," I'Trlp Xpiffrou, " for Christ's sake, to believe on him," Phil, i. 29 ; God " blessing us in him with all spiritual blessings in hea- venly places," Eph. i, 3. Fourthly, Adoption, with that evangelical liberty and all those glorious privileges which appertain to the sons of God ; for " God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons," Gal. iv. 4, 5. Fifthly, Neither do the effects of the death of Christ rest here ; they leave us not until we are settled in heaven, in glory and immortality for ever. Our inherit- ance is a "purchased possession," Eph. i. 14. "And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by mea.ns of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance," Heb. ix. 15. The sum of all is, — The death and blood- shedding of Jesus Christ hath wrought, and doth effectually pro- cure, for all those that are concerned in it, eternal redemption, con- sisting in grace here and glory hereafter.
III. Thus full, clear, and evident are the expressions in the Scrip- ture concerning the ends and effects of the death of Christ, that a man would think every one might run and read. But we must stay : among all things in Christian religion, there is scarce any thing more questioned than this, which seems to be a most fundamental prin- ciple. A spreading persuasion there is of a general ransom to be paid by Christ for all ; that he died to redeem all and every one, — not only for many, his church, the elect of God, but for every one also of the posterity of Adam. Now, the masters of this opinion do see full well and easily, that if that be the end of the death of Christ which we have from the Scripture asserted, if those before recounted be the immediate fruits and products thereof, then one of these two things will necessarily follow: — that either, first, God and Christ failed of their end proposed, and did not accomplish that which they intended, the death of Christ being not a fitly-proportioned means for the attaining of that end (for any cause of failing cannot be as- signed); which to assert seems to us blasphemously injurious to the wisdom, power, and perfection of God, as likewise derogatory to the worth and value of the death of Christ ; — or else, that all men, all the posterity of Adam, must be saved, purged, sanctified, and glorified; which surely they will not maintain, at least the Scripture and the woful experience of millions will not allow. Wherefore, to cast a tolerable colour upon their persuasion, they must and do deny that God or his Son had any such absolute aim or end in the death or
160 THE DEA.TH OF DEATH. [BOOK I.
blood-shedding of Jesus Christ, or that any such thing was immedi- ately procured and purchased by it, as we before recounted ; but that God intended nothing, neither was any thing effected by Christ, — that no benefit ariseth to any immediately by his death but what is common to all and every soul, though never so cursedly unbelieving here and eternally damned hereafter, until an act of some, not pro- cured for them by Christ, (for if it were, why have they it not all alike?) to wit, faith, do distinguish them from others. Now, this seeming to me to enervate the virtue, value, fruits and effects of the satisfaction and death of Christ, — serving, besides, for a basis and foun- dation to a dangerous, uncomfortable, erroneous persuasion, — I shall, by the Lord's assistance, declare what the Scripture holds out in both these things, both that assertion which is intended to be proved, and that which is brought for the proof thereof; desiring the Lord by his Spirit to lead us into all truth, to give us understanding in all things, and if any one be otherwise minded, to reveal that also unto him.
CHAPTER IL
Of the nature of an end in general, and some distinctions about it.
I. The end of any thing is that which the age7it intendeth to ac- complish in and by the operation which is proper unto its nature, and which it apjjlieth itself unto, — that which any one aimeth at, and de- signeth in himself to attain, as a thing good and desirable unto him in the state and condition wherein he is. So the end which Noah proposed unto himself in the building of the ark was the preserva- tion of himself and others. According to the will of God, he made an ark to preserve himself and his family from the flood : " According to all that God commanded him, so did he," Gen, vi. 22, That which the agent doth, or whereto he applieth himself, for the compassing his proposed end, is called the means; which two do complete the whole reason of working in free intellectual agents, for I speak only of such as work according to choice or election. So Absalom intending a revolt from his father, to procure the crown and kingdom for him- self, " he prepared him horses and chariots, and fifty men to run be- fore him,'" 2 Sam, xv, 1; and farther, by fair words and glossing compliances, "he stole the hearts of the men of Israel," verse 6; then pretends a sacrifice at Hebron, where he makes a strong conspiracy, verse 12; — all wliich were the means he used for the attaining of his fore-proposed end,