Besides, be it granted (which cannot be proved) that Christ by his death did procure this power of judging, would any thing hence follow that might be beneficial to the proving of the general ransom for all? No, doubtless; this dominion and power of judging is a power of condemning as well as saving; it is " all judgment" that is committed to him, John v. 22. " He hath authority given unto him to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man;" that is, at that hour " wlien all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of condenmation," verses 27-29; 2 Cor. v. 10. Now, can it be reasonably asserted that Christ
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died for men to redeem them, that he might have power to condemn? Nay, do not these two overthrow one another? If he redeemed thee by his death, then he did not aim at tlie obtaining of any power to condemn thee ; if he did the hotter, then that former was not in his intention.
II. Nor, secondly, was it his Father's good. I speak now of the proximate and immediate end and product of the death of Christ, not of the idtimate and remote, knowing that the supreme end of Christ's oblation, and all the benefits purchased and procured by it, was " the praise of his glorious grace ;" but for this other, it doth not directly tend to the obtaining of any thing unto God, but of all good things from God to us. Ai'minius, with his followers, with the other Universalists of our days, affirm this to be the end proposed, that God might, his justice being satisfied, save sinners, the hinderance being- removed by the satisfaction of Christ. He had by his death obtained a right and liberty of pardoning sin upon what condition he pleased : so that, after the satisfaction of Christ yielded and considered, " in- tegrum Deo fuit" (as his words are), it was wholly in God's free disposal whether he would save any or no; and upon what condition he would, whether of faith or of works. "God," say they, " had a good mind and will to do good to human kind, but could not by reason of sin, his justice lying in the way ; whereupon he sent Christ to re- move that obstacle, that so he might, upon the prescribing of what condition he pleased, and its being by them fulfilled, have mercy on them." Now, because in this they place the chief, if not the sole, end of the oblation of Christ, I must a little show the falseness and folly of it; which may be done plainly by these following reasons: —
First, The foundation of this whole assertion seems to me to be false and erroneous, — namely, that God could not have mercy on mankind unless satisfaction were made by his Son. It is true, in- deed, supposing the decree, purpose, and constitution of God that so it should be, that so he would manifest his glory, by the way of vin- dicative justice, it was impossible that it should otherwise be; for with the Lord there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning," James i. 17; 1 Sam. xv. 29 : but to assert positively, that absolutely and an- tecedently to his constitution he could not have done it, is to me an unwritten tradition, the Scripture affirming no such thing, neither can it be gathered from thence in any good consequence. If any one shall deny this, we will try what the Lord will enable us to say unto it, and in the meantime rest contented in that of Augustine: " Though other ways of saving us were not wanting to his infinite wisdom, yet certainly the way which he did proceed in was the most convenient, because we find he proceeded therein."''
' The reader may lie referred to the treatise by the author at the end of this volume, "De Diving, Jvistitia," for the full and mature expression of his views on the necessity
206 THE DEATH OF DEATH. [BOOK II.
Secondly, This would make tlie cause of sending his Son to die to be a common love, or rather wishing that he might do good or show mercy to all, and not an entire act of his will or purpose, of knowing, redeeming, and saving his elect ; which we shall afterward disprove.
Thirdly, If tlie end of the death of Christ were to acquire a right to his Father, that notwithstanding his justice he might save sinners, then did he rather die to redeem a liberty unto God than a liberty from evil unto us, — that his Father might be enlarged from that estate wherein it was impossible for him to do that which he desired, and which his nature inclined him to, and not that we might be freed from that condition wherem, without this freedom purchased, it could not be but we must perish. If this be so, I see no reason why Christ should be said to come and redeem his people from their sins ; but rather, plainly, to purchase this right and liberty for his Father. Now, where is there any such assertion, wherem. is any thing of this nature in the Scripture? Doth the Lord say that he sent his Son out of love to himself, or unto us? Is God or are men made the immediate subject of good attained unto by this oblation? Rep. But it is said, that although immediately, and in the first place, this riglit did arise unto God by the death of Christ, yet that that also was to tend to our good, Christ obtaining that right, that the Lord might now be- stow mercy on us, if we fulfilled the condition that he would propose. But I answer, that this utterly overthrows all the merit of the death of Christ towards us, and leaves not so much as the nature of merit imto it; for that which is truly meritorious indeed desei'ves that the thing merited, or procured and obtained by it, shall be done, or ought to be bestowed, and not only that it may be done. There is such a habitude and relation between merit and the thing obtained by it, whether it be absolute or arising on contract, that there ariseth a real right to the thing procured by it in them by whom or for whom it is procured. When the laboui-er hath wrought all day, do we say, ''Now his wages may be paid,"or rather, "Now they ought to be paid"? Hath he not a right unto it? Was ever such a merit heard of before, whose nature should consist in this, that the thing procured by it inight be bestowed, and not that it ought to be? And shall Christ be said now to purchase by his meritorious oblation this only at his Father's hand, that he might bestow upon and apply the fulness of his death to some or all, and not that he should so do? " To him that worketh," saith the apostle, " is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt," Kora. iv. 4. Are not the fmits of the death of Christ by his death as truly procured for us as if they had been obtained by