For my part, as I have not as yet of late heard or read any thing of this kind, either from public disputes or in printed sheets, but only long-since-exploded sophisms, inconsequent consequences, weak objections, fully, soundly answered many a day since ; nor, by the taste which I have already received, have I any reason to expect, from the great endeavours which are entering the city of God with " lo triumphe," any thing beyond fruitless attempts to varnish over with plausible appearances formerly-decried invectives and reasonings, whose deformity and nakedness have been often discovered, to the loathing of them by the saints of God : so I no way doubt but that the Lord, whose truth is precious to him, will continue to pour out, from the rich provision which he hath made for the use of his church, and laid up in the Lord Jesus, suitable gifts and abihties' against all opposition whereunto, by the craft of Satan, it is exposed. I shall say no more, though occa- sion be administered to deplore that success which the spirit of seduction, that is gone out in this hour of temptation, hath had in prevaihng upon them that live in the earth to turn away their minds from sound doctrine and the form of whole- some words. Only, I desire to commend the reader unto those two apostolical cautions, — one, 1 Tim. i. 18, 19; the other, 1 Tim. vi. 20, — and so commit him to the grace of God.
J. O.
May I5ih, [1650.]
1 VI \ivfi(pn rou Xpiffrov vT^f ri$ (pipnii; X'oyu e|£;^85 to oixiTov oi'ifia, "va av7y,v i^ccyofae-/!.
— Ifrnat. ad Philad.
* 'E5r£wv Ti -roXvs vo/^os in^a xa) 'ivla. — Homer, Iliad, pa^'- "» 249.
3 Eph. iv. 11-13. " Ilaei-eics, de quoiuiidam infirmitatibus habeiit, q^uod valent, nihil -valentes, si in bene valentem fidcm ineun-ant."— Teitul. de Proesc. ad Hser., Matt, x.xiv. 24.
VOL. X.
28
OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
CHAPTER I.
The occasion of this discourse, with the intendment of the whole.
A FEW words will briefly acquaint the reader with the occasion of this discourse ensuing. It is now about two years since I published a treatise about the redemp- tion and satisfaction that is in the blood of Christ. My aim was, to hold out the whole work of redemption, as flowing from the love of the Father, dispensed in the blood of the Son, and made effectual by the application of the Spirit of grace: and because in this whole dispensation, and in all the method of God's proceedings to make us nigh to himself in the blood of Jesus, there is no one thing so com- monly controverted as the object of that redemption in respect of the extent of it, that in the whole I did specially intend.
What, by the grace of Him who supplieth seed to the sower, was attained in that undertaking, is left unto the judgment of men, upon the issue of his blessing thereunto. Altogether, I am not out of hopes that that labour in the Lord was not in vain. The universality of redemption, one thing in that treatise mainly opposed, having of old and of late got room in the minds of some men otherwise furnished with many precious truths and eminent gifts, I was not withoiit expec- tation of some opposition to be made thereunto. Something also, I have been in- formed, hath been attempted that way; but I am yet at so much quiet in that regard as an utter nescience of them can afford. Only, whereas many other ques- tions are incidentally and by the way handled therein, — as about the satisfaction and merit of Christ, etc., — it pleased Mr Baxter, a learned divine, in an appendix to a treatise of justification,' by him lately published, to turn aside in the censure of some of them, and opposition to them. Indeed, most of his exceptions do lie rather against words than things, expressions than opinions, ways of delivering things than the doctrines themselves, as the reader will perceive ; so that of this labour I might ease myself with this just apology,— that I was desired and pressed to handle the things of that discourse in the most popular way they were capable of, and in the best accommodation to vulgar capacities, so that it is no wonder if some expressions therein may be found to want some grains of accurateness (though they have not one dram the less of truth) in a scholastical balance.
Notwithstanding, because I am not as yet convinced, by any thing in Mr Baxter's censure and opposition, that there was any such blamable deviation as is pretended, but rather the words of truth and sobriety, clothing a doctrine of wholesomeness; and especially, because the things pointed at are in themselves weighty, and need- ing some exactness in the delivery to give a right apprehension of them; I was willing once more to attempt whether the grace of God with me, who am less than the least of all saints, might give any farther light into the right understanding of them, according to the truth, to the advantage of any that love the Lord Jesus in sincerity.
J " The Aphorisms of Justification." See Prefatory Note to this treatise.— Ed.
436 OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
The irue natiu-G of the satisfaction of Christ, with the kind of payment of our debt by him made and accomplished, is doubtless worthy of our most serious in- quiry. The right constitution of the immediate effects of the death of Christ, the relation of men to the election of God and the redemption of Christ, with their several states and conditions in reference unto those works of grace, ought to be of no less esteem ; and that not only for the nature and excellency of the things themselves, but also because a right disposal of them gives more light into the stat- ing and settling many other controverted truths about faith, justification, vocation, and the like. These are the subjects about which I am called forth in my own, or rather truth's defence. For the treatise and subject thereof, whose latter part gives rise to this, I shall say no more, but as there are in it many footsteps of com- mendable learning, industry, and diligence, so, to my present apprehension, the chief intendments of it, with very many occasional expressions of the author's judgment in sundry particulars, are obnoxious to just opposition from truth itself.