ARGUMENTS AGAINST UNIVERSAL REDEMPTION. 255
can assign a condition, on our part required, of faith, that is not faith itself. Can they do it? Let us hear it, then, and we will renew our in- quiry concerning that condition, whether it be procured by Christ or no. If not, then is the cause of faith still resolved into ourselves; Christ is not the author and finisher of it. If it be, then are we just where we were before, and must follow with our queries whether that condition was procured absolutely or upon condition. Depinge uhi sistavi.
But, secondly, if they will answer negatively, as, agreeably to their own principles, they ought to do, and deny that faith is procured by the death of Christ, then, —
1 . They must maintain that it is an act of our own wills, so our own as not to be wrought in us by grace ; and that it is wholly situated in our power to perform that spiritual act, nothing being bestowed upon us by free grace, in and through Christ (as was before declared), but what by him, in his death and oblation, was procured: which is contrary, — (1.) To express Scripture in exceeding many places, which I shall not recount: (2.) To the very nature of the being of the new covenant, Avhich doth not prescribe and require the condition of it, but effectually work it in all the covenantees, Jer. xxxi. 33, 84; Ezek. xxxvi. 26 ; Heb. viii. 10, 11: (3.) To the advancement of the free grace of God, in setting up the power of free-will, in the state of corinipted nature, to the slighting and undervaluing thereof. (4.) To the received doctrine of our natural depravedness and disability to any tiling that is good; yea, by evident unstrained consequence, overthrowing that fundamental article of original sin : yea, (5.) To right reason, which will never gi'ant that the natural faculty is able of itself, without some spiritual elevation, to produce an act purely spLri- tual; as 1 Cor. iL 14.
2. They must resolve almost the sole cause of our salvation into ourselves ultimately, it being in our own power to make all that God and Christ do unto that end effectual, or to frustrate their utmost endeavours for that pui-pose : for all that is done, whether in the Father's loving us and sending his Son to die for us, or in the Son's offering himself for an oblation in our stead, or for us (in our behalf), is confessedly, as before, of no value nor worth, in respect of any profitable issue, unless we believe ; which that we shall do, Christ hath not effected nor procured by his death, neither can the Lord so work it in us but that the sole casting voice (if I may so say), whether we will believe or no, is left to ourselves. Now, whether this be not to assign unto ourselves the cause of our own happiness, and to make us the chief builders of our own glory, let all judge.
These things being thus premised, I shall briefly prove that which is denied, namely, that faith is procured for us by the death of Christ; and so, consequently, he died not for all and every one, for "all men have not faith:" and this we may do by these following reasons: —
256 THE DEATH OF DEATH. [BOOK III.
1. The death of Jesus Christ purchased hohness and sanctifica- tion for us, as was at large proved, Arg. viii. ; but faith, as it is a grace of the Spirit inherent in us, is formally a part of our sanctifi- cation and holiness: therefore he procured faith for us. The assump- tion is most certain, and not denied ; the proposition was sufficiently confirmed in the foregoing argument ; and I see not what may be excepted against the truth of the whole. If any shall except, and say that Christ might procure for us some part of holiness (for we speak of parts, and not of degrees and measure), but not all, as the sanctification of hope, love, meekness, and the like, I ask, — first, What warrant have we for any such distinction between the graces of the Spirit, that some of them should be of the purchasing of Christ, others of our own store? secondly, Whether we are more prone of ourselves to believe, and more able, than to love and hope? and where may we have a ground for that?
2. All the fruits of election are purchased for us by Jesus Christ; for " we are chosen in him," Eph. i. 4, as the only cause and foun- tain of all those good things which the Lord chooseth us to, for the praise of his glorious grac6, that in all things he might have the pre- eminence, I hope I need not be solicitous about the proving of this, that the Lord Jesus is the only way and means by and for whom the Lord will certainly and actually collate upon his elect all the fruits and effects or intendments of that love whereby he chose them. But now faith is a fruit, a principal fruit, of our election ; for saith the apostle, " We are chosen in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy," Eph. i. 4, — of which holiness, faith, purifying the heart, is a principal share. " Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called," Rom. viii. 30 ; that is, Avith that calling which is according to his purpose, effectually Avorking faith in them by the mighty operation of his Spirit, "according to the exceeding greatness of his power," Eph. i. 19. And so they " believe" (God making them differ from others, 1 Cor. iv. 7, in the enjoyment of the means) " who are ordained to eternal life," Acts xiii. 48. Their being ordained to eternal life was the fountain from Avhence their faith did flow; and so "the election hath obtained, and the rest were blinded," Rom. xi. 7.