[2.] The fomidation of God in sending his Son to die for his elect is oppugned hereby; and, —
[3.] It is destructive to all the proper fruits and effects of the death of Christ, etc., lib. ii. cap. 2.
(2.) In the will of God it seems that the merit and fruits of the death of Christ, whereof we treat, seem better to be treasured; and from hence it is that he can will, or willeth, to us the good things purchased by it. But, —
[I.] That the will of God should, by the death of Christ, be changed into any other habitude than what it was in before, was before disproved.
[2.] That now God can will good things to us, holds cut the enlargement of his power as to the acting thereof, mentioned above, rather than any thing pro- perly belonging to the will of God.
[3.] God's willing good Ihings to us it cannot consist in. His willing of a thing is operative of it. It is his efficacious, energetical will whereof we speak. When he actually willeth grace, we have grace: and when he willeth glory, we have glory. But that concerning which we speak is antecedent to the actual making out of grace and glory to us, being the procuring cause of them, though not of that act of the will of God whereby they are bestowed.
4G1 OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
(3.) His justice and truth only remain. For justice, that which is commuta- tive pro^icrly, with one consent, is removed from God. '' Who hath given first unto him, and it shall be rendered unto Iiini again?" Neither 'is distributive justice to l>e supposed in him antecedent to some free engagement of his own. Where no obligation is,, there cannot be so much as distributive justice properly. All obligation from God to the creature is from his own free engagement : other- wise he stands in no relation to it but of absolute dominion and sovereignty. All the justice of God, then (we consider not the universal rectitude of his nature, but) in i-eference to the creature, is "justitia regiminis," Ps. xxxiii. 4, 5, 1 John i. 5 ; and therefore must suppose some free constitution of his will.
This, then, rightly considered, ^do I affirm to be effected with the merit of Christ; there I place the procuring efficacy thereof, whence it is that all the fruits of it are made out unto us. Rut this in due order.
The first thing of immediate concernment hereunto is the covenant of the Father Avlth the Son, the free engagement of God to do such and such things for Christ, upon the performance of such other things to him appointed. This is the foundation of the merit of Christ, as was before declared. Hence his distri- butive justice ascribed to God as to this thing. It is righteous with him, being engaged by his own free jJurpose and promise, to make out those things which he appointed to be the fruit and procurement of the death of Christ. And from thence it is that all tlie things purchased by the death of Christ become due to those for whom he died, even from the equity attending this justice of God.
(4.) Herein, also, his truth hath a share. By his truth I understand his fidelity and veracity in the performance of all his engagements. This immediately attends every obligation that, by any free act of his will, God is pleased in his wisdom to jjut upon himself, and is naturally under consideration before that distributive justice whereby he is inclined to the performance itself of them
This, then, is that I say : —
God, by free pvirpose and compact, making way for the merit of Christ, which absolutely could be none, is obliged, from the vei'acity and justice which attend all his engagements, to make out, as in his infinite wisdom shall seem meet, all those things which he hath set, appointed, and proposed as the fruit and purchase of his death, unto all them for whom he died. And in this rests the merit of Christ.
Here two things may be observed : —
1. What we ascribe to the merit of Christ, — namely, the accomplishment of that condition which God required to make way, that the obligation which he had freely put vipon himself might be in actual force. And so much (how rightly I leave to himself to consider) doth Mr Baxter assign to our own works, thes. 26, p. 140.
2. The mistake of those who wind up the merit of Christ, as affecting God, if I may so speak, unto a conditional engagement, — namely, that we shall be made partakers of the fruits of it upon such and such conditions, to be by us fulfilled; ibr,—
(1.) All such conditions (if spiritual blessings) arc part of the purchase of the death of Christ ; and if not, are no way fit to be conditions of such an attain- ment.
(2.) It cannot be made apparent how any such conditional stiindation can be ascribed unto Go 1 ; that God should engage upim tRe death of Christ to make
1 " Si <le d(l)ito qtuxratiir, rospoctu ci'e.iturre in Denm cddcre non potest ; nisi ex aliqiia suppnsi- tione ipsi Deo voluiiUiria et Iil)era: ipuu noii putest ess..- nisi promissio nut pactio aliiiua, ex ijuibus fidelita'.isaiit justitix' dubitum oriri solet."- Snares. Keleet. rte Lib. Div. Volu Disp. L. lH. sec. ii. n. 5