(1.) I pass the first and second exceptions, notwithstanding that of God's not esteeming of us as in Christ, upon his performance of the acts of his mediation for us, might admit of some consideration.
(2 ) The inference here couched, that these things are the immediate effects of Ciirist's Spirit on us, therefore the distant and mediate effects of his death for us, is very weak and unconcluding. The death of Christ procureth these things as a cause moral and impelling, the Si^irit worketh as an efficient; and therefore
SUNDRY OBJECTIONS REMOVED. 473
the same thing may be the immediate effect of them both, according to their several kinds of efficacy ; and so, indeed, they are. Our actual conversion, the efficient whereof is the Spirit, is the immediate procurement of the merit of Christ. See this at large in my treatise opposed. I know not any man that hath run out into more wide mistakes about tlie immediate effects of the death of Christ than Mr Baxter, who pretends to so much accurateness in this particulai'.
3. " He saitli," adds Mr Baxter, " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse, being made a curse for us."
" I explained," saith he, " before how far we are freed by redemption. He hath restored us, that is, paid the price, but with no intent that we should by that redemption be immediately or absolutely freed. Yet when we are freed, it is to be ascribed to his death as the meritorious cause, but not as the only cause."
(1.) A being freed so far or so far by redemption, and not wholly, fully, or com- pletely, whatever men may explain, the Scripture is wholly silent of.
(2.) That Chi'Ist, in paying a pi'ice, had no intent that those he paid it for should be immediately or absolutely freed, is crudely enough asserted. Of the immediate- ness of their delivery I have spoken already. It hath as strict an Immediation as the nature of such causes and effects will bear.
If he intended not that those for whom he died should be absolutely freed, then either he intended not their freedom at all, and so the negation is upon the term freed; or the negation of his intention is only as to the qualification absolutely, and so his intention to free them is asserted, and the affection of absoluteness in that intention only denied.
If the first he meant, — first. It is contrary to innumerable express testimonies of Scripture ; secondly, It renders the Son of God dying with no determinate end or designed purpose at all, in reference to them for whom he died, — a thing we would not ascribe to a wise man in a far more easy undertaking.
If the second, —
[1 . ] I desire to know what is this intention here assigned to our Saviour ? He paid a price or ransom for us ; he bought and purchased us by his blood to be a peculiar people to himself; he redeemed us from the curse and wi-ath due to us, that we may be conditionally freed! All things intended under condition are, as to their accomplishment, uncertain. The condition may be fulfilled, or it may not be fulfilled; and therefore the thing intended thereon can have no certainty, as to its accomplishment, in the mind of the intender. This, then, is that which is ascribed to the Lord Jesus : " Making his soul an offering for sin ; laying down his life a ransom for many ; and tasting death, to free the children given him from death ; praying that those for whom he died miglit together be partakers of his glory;" yet was he altogether uncertain whether ever any one of them should at all partake of the good things which, in his whole undertaking of mediation, he aimed at. Thus is he made a surety of an uncertain covenant, a purchaser of an inheritance perhaps never to be enjoyed, a priest sanctifying none by his sacrifice, etc.
[2.] Is the accomplishment of this condition, upon which freedom depends in the intention of Christ, certain in his mind under that intention? I ask, then, whence that assurance doth accrue ? Is it from his foresight of their good using of their abilities to fulfil the condition to them prescribed ? See, then, whither you have rolled this stone ! The folly and absurdity of this hath been long since sufficiently discovered.
But is it from hence, because by his death he purchaseth for them the completing the condition in them ? Thus he pays a price, with intention that those for whom be pays it shall be freed, by enjoying that freedom under such a condition as he procures for them, and thereupon knows that at the appointed time it shall be wrought in them. What differs this, in the close, from absolute freedom?
Farther ; feign some of them for whom Christ died to fulfil this condition, others
474) OF THE DEATH OF CHllIST.
not, and it will be more evident that the greatest uncertainty possible, as to the issues of his death, must be assigned to him in his dying. The pretence of an effectual discriminating purpose of free grace, following the purpose of giving Christ promiscuously for all, will not salve the contradictions of this assertion. But the truth is, this whole figment of conditional freedom is every way unsavoury, that very thing which is assigned for the condition of our freedom being itself the chirfest part of it. The whole, indeed, as here begun, potential, conditional, not actual, not absolute issues and effects of the death of Christ, have been abundantly disproved already.