' Eph. ii. 18-17. « Gen. viii. 21. 3 John xvii. 19; Rom. v. 19, vl. 6; 2 Cor. V. 21; Eph. V. 25, 26; Tit. ii. 14. Hleb. ix. 14, x. 14; 1 Pet. ii. 24; 1 John
i. 7 ; Rev. i. 5, 6.
so 2 DOCTKINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVEKANCK [CHAP.
woful experience, have discovered what such corrupt conclusions have tended unto. Others, again, fixing themselves on the necessity of obedience, and the concurrence of actual faith to the completing of justification in the soul of the sinner, with a no less dangerous reflec- tion upon the truth, do suspend the efficacy of the death of Christ upon our believing, " which gives life, and vigour, and virtue unto it," as they say, " and is the sole originally discriminating cause of all the benefits we receive thereby. Without the antecedent accomplishment of that condition in us, or our actual believing, it is not," say they, "nor will be, useful." Yea, that "the intention of God is to bestowupon us the fruits and effects of the death of Christ, upon condition we do believe; which that we shall is no part of his purchase, and which we can of ourselves perform," say some of them, others not. Doubt- less, these things are not, being rightly stated, in the least inconsis- tent. Christ may have his due, and we [may be] bound to the per- formance of our duty; which might be cleared by an enlargement of the ensuing considerations: —
(1.) That all good things whatsoever that are spiritual, tliat are v/rought either for men or in them, are fruits of the death of Christ. They have nothing of themselves but nakedness, blood, and sin, guilt and impenitency ; so that it is of indispensable necessity that God should show them favour antecedently to any act of their be- lieving on him. Faith is given for Christ's sake, as was observed.
(2.) That all the effects and fruits of the death of Christ, ante- cedent to our believing, are deposited in the hand of the righte- ousness and faithfulness of God, to whom as a ransom it was paid, as an atonement it was offered, before whom as a price and pur- chase it was laid down.^ ( It is all left in the hands of God's faith- fulness, righteousness, mercy, and grace, to be made out effectually to them for whom he died, in the appointed time or season. So that,— ^
(3.) The state or condition of those for whom Christ died is not actually and really changed by his death in itself, but they lie under the curse whilst they are in the state of nature, unregenerate, and all effects of sin whatever.^ That which is procured for them is left in the hand of the Father; they are not in the least intrusted with it until the appointed time do come.
(4.) That faith and belief are necessary, not to add any thing to com])lete the procurement of forgiveness of sins, any or all, but only to the actual receiving of it, when, upon the account of the death of Christ, it pleaseth God, in the promise of the gospel, to hold it out and impart it unto the soul, thereby completing covenant-justification.
And thus the whole business of salvation may be resolved into
> 1 Tim. ii. 5, G; Ileb. ii. 17; 2 Cor. v. 18, 19; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. » Eph. ii. 1-5; Jolin iii. 3G.
VIL] the mediation of CHRIST. 303
the mediation of Christ, and yet men carried on under an orderly dispensation of law and gospel into the enjoyment of it. Of the whole, these degrees are considerable: —
(1.) God's eternal purpose of saving some in and by the media- tion of Christ, that mediation of Christ being interposed between the purpose of God and the accomplishment of the thing purposed, as the fruit and effect of the one, the meritorious procuring cause of the other. This act of the will of God the Scripture knows by no other name than that of "election," or "predestination," or "the purpose of God according to election," or "the purpose of his will in Jesus Christ;" which though it comprise his will of not punishing them in their own persons that are within the verge of this his purpose, yet it is not pro- perly an act of forgiveness of sin, nor are they pardoned by it, nor is the law actually innovated or its obligation on them unto punish- ment dissolved, nor themselves justified in any sense thereby.^
(2.) That interposition of the Lord Christ whereof we have been treating being a medium indispensably necessary as to satisfaction, and freely designed by the will and wisdom of God for such a pro- curement of the good things designed in his eternal counsel as might advance the glory of his grace and make known his righteousness also ; and this being fixed on by God as the only thing by him re- quired that all the mercies, all the grace of his eternal purpose, might be dispensed in the order by him designed unto them ; upon the performance of it God resteth as well pleased, and they for whom he hath mediated by his blood, or for whom he is considered so to have done, are reconciled unto God, as to that part of reconciliation which respects the love of God, as to the dispensing the fruits of it unto them even whilst they are enemies, upon the accounts before mentioned.''