"Thus I have shewn you what redemption is; and upon what reasons and considerations it pleased God to constitute Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son, to be our Redeemer. There remains but one thing more in the doctrinal part of the text which requires explication; and when I have briefly discussed that, I shall close up this whole subject with some practical inferences and application. Let us then enquire WHO THE PERSONS ARE FOR WHOM JESUS CHRIST HATH WROUGHT OUT THIS GREAT REDEMPTION. The text tells us, Christ hath redeemed us: but of what extent that particle us is, whether so large and universal, as to comprehend all mankind; or else, so limited and restrained as to denote only the elect according to God's purpose, is still under debate and controversy. Much indeed is spoken, and I think, much mistaken concerning the doctrine of Universal Redemption. 1. And therefore, to state this question aright, let us observe:
(1) That the death of Christ may be taken either in a more large or in a more restrained and proper sense. If it be understood properly, nothing else is meant thereby, but the dissolution of the union that was between His soul and body when He gave up the ghost upon the cross. But if we take it more largely so it signifies, not only the separation of His soul and body, but the whole course of His life here on earth: for indeed life is but the beginning of dying; and death is but the end of living. Whatsoever therefore our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ either did or suffered in His state of humiliation by which virtue and value accrued to His merits; all that in this question we call by the name of His death: and that very deservedly; because both all His acts of obedience, and all the sorrows and sufferings of His afflicted life, received their worth, consummation, and obsignation, in His Death.
(2) Observe that the death of Christ may be considered either according to His temporal passion; or else according to the eternal value and acceptation of that passion. It was inflicted in time, but accepted from all eternity. The virtue and efficacy of what He suffered in the days of His flesh was before God from the beginning of the world: and therefore He is called The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world: Rev. xiii. 8. So that the holy fathers and patriarchs who lived many ages before Christ was born, were redeemed and saved by the very same merits as we are, who now live in the declining and almost decrepit age of the world. Only this difference occurs that they were redeemed by the acceptation of a price to be paid; but we are redeemed by the acceptation of a price already paid.
Observe, (3) When Christ is said to die for all men, that term of universality may be taken either pro generibus singulorum; or, pro singulis generum: either 'for all sorts and degrees of men;" or, "for all men of each sort and degree.' And here the question doth not proceed concerning the universality of sorts and degrees: for it is agreed on all hands that Christ died to redeem some of every sort; that is, of each sex, of every age, state, and condition among men. But the only controversy is concerning the other universality, viz. Whether Christ died to redeem every particular man of each sort and degree.
Observe, (4) That there is...a twofold sufficiency in the death of Christ to redeem every person. A naked, simple, and absolute sufficiency. An ordained and appointed sufficiency.
The first is nothing else but an equality of the price to the debt or demands of the creditor: as a thousand talents are, in their own value, sufficient to discharge a debt of a thousand talents though they were never offered nor intended to any such purpose. The other sufficiency superadds to this the will and intention of our Redeemer in offering this sufficient price to our creditor; to the end that, upon the account and consideration thereof, we should be delivered and redeemed. And here, it is on all hands agreed that there is in the death and sufferings of Christ, an internal and absolute sufficiency 'for the redemption of every person, of each sort and condition: 'ad singidos generum redimendos.'
For through the dignity of his person, being God as well as Man, His merits were enhanced to such a redundancy that all the creatures on earth, were their sins more and their misery greater, could never impoverish it. The question, therefore is, whether the death of Christ were a price ordained by him and offered unto God with an intention to redeem all and every particular person in the world.
(5) The intention of Christ's death for the redemption and salvation of all and every particular person may be either absolute or conditional. And here we are agreed that Christ in dying did not absolutely intend the salvation of every man. But yet, upon each branch of the distinction ariseth a question. Whether Christ in dying, did not absolutely intend the salvation of some particular persons. Whether He did not, hypothetically and conditionally, intend the salvation of all.
Observe that it is one thing for Christ to die for all and every one with an intention of saving each; and another, to die for all and every one that each may be saveable. And here again the question is: Whether Christ died, not with an absolute intention (not of saving every person), but of making every person saveable. The resolution of which will be the more clearly given if we observe:
(7) That those are to be accounted saveable who lie under no impossibility of obtaining salvation; or that have no invincible obstacle to hinder them from it. Now there was once a twofold impossibility or obstacle of our salvation. One, respecting the impetration of it; and that was from the vindictive justice of God requiring satisfaction for our sins. The other, respecting the application of it; and that was from our own infidelity and unbelief: for since we lost our primitive righteousness as a punishment of our first transgression it would not be consistent with the rules of divine justice to remit that part of our punishment or to bestow upon us any habits of holiness, of which faith is one, without the intervention of a price. ... we may reduce all the former subordinate questions to these two principal ones:
(1) Whether the ransom which Christ paid to the justice of God in His death and sufferings was intended by Him for the redemption of every particular person in the world so as to render them all saveable. That is, that God might, without violating the order of his justice, bestow faith, and thereupon eternal salvation on all.
(2) Whether He paid this ransom with an absolute intention that some persons, even as many as appertain to the election of grace, should be effectually redeemed by it; purchasing for them the gift of faith, and thereupon the reward of eternal life, and both to be actually conferred on them in their due season.
(3) Both these I affirm: the former, to illustrate the all-sufficiency of Christ; the latter, to establish the eternal purpose of God according to election: and therefore do assent to the doctrine, both of the Remonstrants and Anti-Remonstrants in what they assert in this particular; but to neither in what they deny. With the Remonstrant I affirm that Christ died for all men with an absolute intention of rendering all and every one saveable according to the measures of the divine justice and veracity. With the Anti-Remonstrant I affirm that Christ died for His elect with an absolute intention of conferring faith and salvation upon them according to the stability of God's eternal purpose and counsel.
And certainly, whosoever shall attentively compare the forcible arguments that each party produceth for the confirmation of these positions, with the evading answers of each unto them, must needs acknowledge that they have not more contradicted one another than truth, reason, and Scripture. And therefore, referring the reader to the treatises that have been written by the learned men of both persuasions, I shall only propound some principal, and, as I judge, unanswerable arguments to evince the truth of both propositions.
(1) That Christ died for all men with an absolute intention of bringing all and every one of them into a state of salvability; from the which they were excluded by their guilt and God's righteous judgment: and that He is not frustrated in this His intention; but by His death hath fully effected and accomplished it. This will appear if we consider that otherwise the intrinsical and absolute value of His death and merits is not sufficient to denominate Him the Saviour, the Redeemer of all men in that sense in which the Scripture doth frequently so style Him. For as He cannot be named a surety for a debtor who, though he possesseth large treasures, yet never offered them to the creditor for the payment of the debt contracted; so neither can Christ be called the Surety and the Redeemer of all men, though His blood and the treasure of His merits be of infinite worth and value unless He offer this price of His blood unto His Father with intention to redeem and make them saveable.
Now there is nothing which occurs more frequently in the Scripture than that Christ is called the Redeemer of those men who yet shall never obtain eternal life and glory. So 1 Tim. ii. 6. Who gave Himself a ransom for all. Heb. ii. 9. That by the grace of God He might taste death for every man. Add to these 2 Pet. ii. 1. where the Apostle foretells that there shall arise false teachers among them who should privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And with this, consider also that famous text, 1 John ii. 2. He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
If Christ therefore be a propitiation for all, hath tasted death for all, be a ransom for all; and many, even of those whom He hath bought and redeemed, shall yet bring upon themselves swift destruction as these Scriptures expressly affirm; and if on the other hand, the mere internal sufficiency of a price is not enough to constitute and denominate Him the Redeemer of all, as common reason and language do abundantly testify: it remains that His death was ordained and intended for the redemption of all; and that Christ, in offering up Himself to His Father had respect, not only to the elect, but to the reprobate; to those who should finally perish as well as to those who should be saved. But that He did not absolutely intend the salvation of all appears as evidently, as sadly, by the event: and, therefore, He intended the salvability of all. To this we have the testimony of another Scripture:
John iii. 16. God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Here Christ is propounded as an universal gift applicable to all: and in the next verse it is added, that God sent His Son into the world.....that the world through Him might be saved. It is frivolous to object that by the world here, is meant only the elect or believing world: for besides that this is hugely dissonant to the scripture-phrase, which opposeth the world to the elect and believers, we find God declaring His intention in sending His Son, v. 18. He, that believeth on Him is not condemned: but He that believeth not is condemned already. The very same world which Christ was sent to save consists partly of believers [and] partly of unbelievers; part of it to be saved and part to be condemned: and therefore, it cannot be restrained only to the elect world. From all which it appears clearly, as clearly as the evidence of truth can make any thing appear, that Christ did absolutely intend to procure by His death the salvability of all, but their salvation only conditionally. For our faith is required as a condition, not that God should give His Son to the whole world, nor that Christ should die for all the inhabitants of it; but only that we might obtain eternal life by Him, so given and so dying.
(2) The second argument is this: The covenant of grace is propounded to all indefinitely and universally. Mark xvi. 16. Whosoever believeth shall be saved. And under these general terms it may be propounded unto all, even the most desperate and forlorn sinners on earth. But if Christ had not died for all, as well for the reprobate as the elect, this tender could not be made to all, as our Saviour commands it to be, v. 15. Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. Neither would it be true doctrine to preach the contents of this Gospel to every man in particular, viz. that, if thou believest thou shalt be saved: for were it possible that some of them should believe, yet they could not be saved only for want of a propitiatory sacrifice; for still there would remain an impossibility of their salvation on the part of the vindictive justice of God which had received no satisfaction for their sins, no payment of their debts: than which nothing can be more absurd in divinity and more repugnant to the nature of the Gospel-Covenant.
(3) It must needs be acknowledged that Christ died for all men in such a sense as He is denied to have died for the fallen angels: then His death was not only a sufficient, but an intended ransom for all. For the death of Christ had sufficient worth and value in it to have redeemed and restored them; being an infinite price through the infinite dignity of His person. But now it is most certain that Christ so died for all mankind as He did not for the last and lost angels: otherwise why should not this proposition be true concerning them: That, if they believe, they shall be saved; which yet is most undoubtedly true concerning the most impious persons on earth?
... (4) All are bound to the great duty of believing in Christ. Therefore He died for all. The reason of the consequence is apparent. For what is it to believe in Christ, but to rely upon His death and merits for our salvation? At least if this be not the full notion of justifying faith, yet it cannot be excluded from the nature of it. But now this faith cannot justly be required from those for whom Christ died not: else God should command men to rely upon the death and merits of Him who died not, who merited nothing for them; which is infinitely abhorrent from the seriousness and gravity of the Divine commands" (Ezekiel Hopkins, Works; underlining mine--CD).
(1) That the death of Christ may be taken either in a more large or in a more restrained and proper sense. If it be understood properly, nothing else is meant thereby, but the dissolution of the union that was between His soul and body when He gave up the ghost upon the cross. But if we take it more largely so it signifies, not only the separation of His soul and body, but the whole course of His life here on earth: for indeed life is but the beginning of dying; and death is but the end of living. Whatsoever therefore our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ either did or suffered in His state of humiliation by which virtue and value accrued to His merits; all that in this question we call by the name of His death: and that very deservedly; because both all His acts of obedience, and all the sorrows and sufferings of His afflicted life, received their worth, consummation, and obsignation, in His Death.
(2) Observe that the death of Christ may be considered either according to His temporal passion; or else according to the eternal value and acceptation of that passion. It was inflicted in time, but accepted from all eternity. The virtue and efficacy of what He suffered in the days of His flesh was before God from the beginning of the world: and therefore He is called The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world: Rev. xiii. 8. So that the holy fathers and patriarchs who lived many ages before Christ was born, were redeemed and saved by the very same merits as we are, who now live in the declining and almost decrepit age of the world. Only this difference occurs that they were redeemed by the acceptation of a price to be paid; but we are redeemed by the acceptation of a price already paid.
Observe, (3) When Christ is said to die for all men, that term of universality may be taken either pro generibus singulorum; or, pro singulis generum: either 'for all sorts and degrees of men;" or, "for all men of each sort and degree.' And here the question doth not proceed concerning the universality of sorts and degrees: for it is agreed on all hands that Christ died to redeem some of every sort; that is, of each sex, of every age, state, and condition among men. But the only controversy is concerning the other universality, viz. Whether Christ died to redeem every particular man of each sort and degree.
Observe, (4) That there is...a twofold sufficiency in the death of Christ to redeem every person. A naked, simple, and absolute sufficiency. An ordained and appointed sufficiency.
The first is nothing else but an equality of the price to the debt or demands of the creditor: as a thousand talents are, in their own value, sufficient to discharge a debt of a thousand talents though they were never offered nor intended to any such purpose. The other sufficiency superadds to this the will and intention of our Redeemer in offering this sufficient price to our creditor; to the end that, upon the account and consideration thereof, we should be delivered and redeemed. And here, it is on all hands agreed that there is in the death and sufferings of Christ, an internal and absolute sufficiency 'for the redemption of every person, of each sort and condition: 'ad singidos generum redimendos.'
For through the dignity of his person, being God as well as Man, His merits were enhanced to such a redundancy that all the creatures on earth, were their sins more and their misery greater, could never impoverish it. The question, therefore is, whether the death of Christ were a price ordained by him and offered unto God with an intention to redeem all and every particular person in the world.
(5) The intention of Christ's death for the redemption and salvation of all and every particular person may be either absolute or conditional. And here we are agreed that Christ in dying did not absolutely intend the salvation of every man. But yet, upon each branch of the distinction ariseth a question. Whether Christ in dying, did not absolutely intend the salvation of some particular persons. Whether He did not, hypothetically and conditionally, intend the salvation of all.
Observe that it is one thing for Christ to die for all and every one with an intention of saving each; and another, to die for all and every one that each may be saveable. And here again the question is: Whether Christ died, not with an absolute intention (not of saving every person), but of making every person saveable. The resolution of which will be the more clearly given if we observe:
(7) That those are to be accounted saveable who lie under no impossibility of obtaining salvation; or that have no invincible obstacle to hinder them from it. Now there was once a twofold impossibility or obstacle of our salvation. One, respecting the impetration of it; and that was from the vindictive justice of God requiring satisfaction for our sins. The other, respecting the application of it; and that was from our own infidelity and unbelief: for since we lost our primitive righteousness as a punishment of our first transgression it would not be consistent with the rules of divine justice to remit that part of our punishment or to bestow upon us any habits of holiness, of which faith is one, without the intervention of a price. ... we may reduce all the former subordinate questions to these two principal ones:
(1) Whether the ransom which Christ paid to the justice of God in His death and sufferings was intended by Him for the redemption of every particular person in the world so as to render them all saveable. That is, that God might, without violating the order of his justice, bestow faith, and thereupon eternal salvation on all.
(2) Whether He paid this ransom with an absolute intention that some persons, even as many as appertain to the election of grace, should be effectually redeemed by it; purchasing for them the gift of faith, and thereupon the reward of eternal life, and both to be actually conferred on them in their due season.
(3) Both these I affirm: the former, to illustrate the all-sufficiency of Christ; the latter, to establish the eternal purpose of God according to election: and therefore do assent to the doctrine, both of the Remonstrants and Anti-Remonstrants in what they assert in this particular; but to neither in what they deny. With the Remonstrant I affirm that Christ died for all men with an absolute intention of rendering all and every one saveable according to the measures of the divine justice and veracity. With the Anti-Remonstrant I affirm that Christ died for His elect with an absolute intention of conferring faith and salvation upon them according to the stability of God's eternal purpose and counsel.
And certainly, whosoever shall attentively compare the forcible arguments that each party produceth for the confirmation of these positions, with the evading answers of each unto them, must needs acknowledge that they have not more contradicted one another than truth, reason, and Scripture. And therefore, referring the reader to the treatises that have been written by the learned men of both persuasions, I shall only propound some principal, and, as I judge, unanswerable arguments to evince the truth of both propositions.
(1) That Christ died for all men with an absolute intention of bringing all and every one of them into a state of salvability; from the which they were excluded by their guilt and God's righteous judgment: and that He is not frustrated in this His intention; but by His death hath fully effected and accomplished it. This will appear if we consider that otherwise the intrinsical and absolute value of His death and merits is not sufficient to denominate Him the Saviour, the Redeemer of all men in that sense in which the Scripture doth frequently so style Him. For as He cannot be named a surety for a debtor who, though he possesseth large treasures, yet never offered them to the creditor for the payment of the debt contracted; so neither can Christ be called the Surety and the Redeemer of all men, though His blood and the treasure of His merits be of infinite worth and value unless He offer this price of His blood unto His Father with intention to redeem and make them saveable.
Now there is nothing which occurs more frequently in the Scripture than that Christ is called the Redeemer of those men who yet shall never obtain eternal life and glory. So 1 Tim. ii. 6. Who gave Himself a ransom for all. Heb. ii. 9. That by the grace of God He might taste death for every man. Add to these 2 Pet. ii. 1. where the Apostle foretells that there shall arise false teachers among them who should privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And with this, consider also that famous text, 1 John ii. 2. He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
If Christ therefore be a propitiation for all, hath tasted death for all, be a ransom for all; and many, even of those whom He hath bought and redeemed, shall yet bring upon themselves swift destruction as these Scriptures expressly affirm; and if on the other hand, the mere internal sufficiency of a price is not enough to constitute and denominate Him the Redeemer of all, as common reason and language do abundantly testify: it remains that His death was ordained and intended for the redemption of all; and that Christ, in offering up Himself to His Father had respect, not only to the elect, but to the reprobate; to those who should finally perish as well as to those who should be saved. But that He did not absolutely intend the salvation of all appears as evidently, as sadly, by the event: and, therefore, He intended the salvability of all. To this we have the testimony of another Scripture:
John iii. 16. God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Here Christ is propounded as an universal gift applicable to all: and in the next verse it is added, that God sent His Son into the world.....that the world through Him might be saved. It is frivolous to object that by the world here, is meant only the elect or believing world: for besides that this is hugely dissonant to the scripture-phrase, which opposeth the world to the elect and believers, we find God declaring His intention in sending His Son, v. 18. He, that believeth on Him is not condemned: but He that believeth not is condemned already. The very same world which Christ was sent to save consists partly of believers [and] partly of unbelievers; part of it to be saved and part to be condemned: and therefore, it cannot be restrained only to the elect world. From all which it appears clearly, as clearly as the evidence of truth can make any thing appear, that Christ did absolutely intend to procure by His death the salvability of all, but their salvation only conditionally. For our faith is required as a condition, not that God should give His Son to the whole world, nor that Christ should die for all the inhabitants of it; but only that we might obtain eternal life by Him, so given and so dying.
(2) The second argument is this: The covenant of grace is propounded to all indefinitely and universally. Mark xvi. 16. Whosoever believeth shall be saved. And under these general terms it may be propounded unto all, even the most desperate and forlorn sinners on earth. But if Christ had not died for all, as well for the reprobate as the elect, this tender could not be made to all, as our Saviour commands it to be, v. 15. Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. Neither would it be true doctrine to preach the contents of this Gospel to every man in particular, viz. that, if thou believest thou shalt be saved: for were it possible that some of them should believe, yet they could not be saved only for want of a propitiatory sacrifice; for still there would remain an impossibility of their salvation on the part of the vindictive justice of God which had received no satisfaction for their sins, no payment of their debts: than which nothing can be more absurd in divinity and more repugnant to the nature of the Gospel-Covenant.
(3) It must needs be acknowledged that Christ died for all men in such a sense as He is denied to have died for the fallen angels: then His death was not only a sufficient, but an intended ransom for all. For the death of Christ had sufficient worth and value in it to have redeemed and restored them; being an infinite price through the infinite dignity of His person. But now it is most certain that Christ so died for all mankind as He did not for the last and lost angels: otherwise why should not this proposition be true concerning them: That, if they believe, they shall be saved; which yet is most undoubtedly true concerning the most impious persons on earth?
... (4) All are bound to the great duty of believing in Christ. Therefore He died for all. The reason of the consequence is apparent. For what is it to believe in Christ, but to rely upon His death and merits for our salvation? At least if this be not the full notion of justifying faith, yet it cannot be excluded from the nature of it. But now this faith cannot justly be required from those for whom Christ died not: else God should command men to rely upon the death and merits of Him who died not, who merited nothing for them; which is infinitely abhorrent from the seriousness and gravity of the Divine commands" (Ezekiel Hopkins, Works; underlining mine--CD).
