232 THE DEATH OF DEATH. [BOOK 11.
null and abolished ; of which covenant Jesus Christ is the first and chief promise, as he that was to procure for them all other good things promised therein, as shall be proved.
Fourthly, The things 2'>urcliased or procured for those persons, — which are the proper effects of the death and ransom of Christ, in due time certainly to become theirs in possession and enjoyment, — are, remission of sin, freedom from wrath and the curse of the law, jus- tification, sanctification, and reconcihation with God, and eternal life; for the will of his Father sending him for these, his own intention in laying down his life for them, and the truth of the purchase made by him, is the foundation of his intercession, begun on earth and continued in heaven ; whereby he, whom his Father always hears, desires and demands that the good things procured by him may be actually bestowed on them, all and every one, for whom they were procured. So that the whole of what we assert in this great business is exceedingly clear and apparent, without any intricacy or the least difficulty at all ; not clouded with strange expressions and unneces- sary divulsions and tearings of one thing from another, as is the opposite opinion : which in the next place shall be dealt withal by arguments confirming the one and everting the other. But because the whole strength thereof lieth in, and the weight of all lieth on, that one distinction we before spoke of, by our adversaries diversely expressed and held out, we will a little farther consider that, and then come to our arguments, and so to the answering of the opposed objections.
CHAPTER V.
Of application and impetration.
The allowable use of this distinction, how it may be taken in a sound sense, the several ways wdiereby men have expressed the thing which in these words is intimated, and some arguments for the over- throwing of the false use of it, however expressed, we have before intimated and declared. Now, seeing that this is the vpurov -^Budog of the opposite opinion, understood in the sense and according to the use they make of it, I shall give it one blow more, and leave it, I hope, a-dying.
I shall, then, briefly declare, that although these tAvo things may admit of a distinction, yet they cannot of a separation, but that for Avhomsoever Christ obtained good, to them it might be applied ; and for whomsoever he wrought reconciliation with God, they must ac- tually unto God be reconciled. So that the blood of Christ, and his death in the virtue of it, cannot be looked on, as some do, as a me-
THE PROPER END OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST ASSERTED. 233
dicine in a box, laid up for all that shall come to have any of it, and so applied now to one, then to another, without any respect or difference, as though it should be intended no more for one than for another; so that although he hath obtained all the good that he hath purchased for us, yet it is left indifferent and uncertain whether it shall ever be ours or no : for it is well known, that notwithstand- ing those glorious things that are assigned by the Arminians to the death of Christ, which they say he purchased for all, as remission of sins, reconciliation with God, and the like, yet they for whom this purchase and procurement is made may be damned, as the greatest part are, and certainly shall be. Now, that there should be such a distance between these two, —
First, It is contrary to common sense or our usual form of speak- ing, which must be wrested, and our understandings forced to ap- prehend it. When a man hath obtained an office, or any other obtained it for him, can it be said that it is uncertain whether he shall have it or no? If it be obtained for him, is it not his in riffht, though perhaps not in possession? That which is impetrated or obtained by petition is his by whom it is obtained. It is to offer violence to common sense to say a thing may be a man's, or it may not be his, when it is obtained for him ; for in so saying we say it is his. And so it is in the purchase made by Jesus Christ, and the good things obtained by him for all them for whom he died.
Secondly, It is contrary to all reason in the world, that the death of Christ, in God's intention, should be applied to any one that shall have no share in the merits of that death. God's will that Christ should die for any, is his intention that he shall have a share in the death of Christ, that it should belong to him, — that is, be applied to him ; for that is, in this case, said to be applied to any that is his in any respect, according to the will of God. But now the death of Christ, according to the opinion we oppose, is so applied to all, and yet the fruits of this death are never so much as once made known to far the greatest part of those all.