design of application extended to all men individually according to the infallible order of predestination; but there is in God a certain obligation to remission, and a will of remitting sins and conferring life extended to all men individually, according to the tenor of the promise of the Gospel. But I say no more on this subject at present, because when we come to our next proposition, we shall designedly discourse of this same point more copiously.

OBJECTION 7. The will of the Father, the oblation of the Son, the saving operation of the Holy Spirit, equally extend to and respect the same persons: But it is the will of the Father to save the elect alone: and the Spirit, by giving faith and perseverance, actually saves the elect alone Therefore the death or oblation of Christ is not to be extended except to the elect alone; and therefore it ought not to be considered as a remedy from the ordination of God applicable to each and every man.

REPLY 7. If the major proposition is understood concerning the will of God in predestinating, which is always joined with the infallibility of the event; and concerning that special operation of the sanctifying Spirit, which is subservient to the execution of this decree; I say that it is not absolutely true: for the death or oblation of Christ. regards in some way certain persons whom predestination does not embrace. Predestination is the secret decree of God by which he determined with himself from eternity to whom he would infallibly give efficacious grace and eternal life through the infinite merit of the death of Christ: But the oblation of Christ on the cross is a common benefit granted to the human race, by virtue of which any one who only embraces it with a true faith, may claim for himself eternal life according to the will of God revealed in the Gospel. So Christ himself speaks, John iii. 14, 15, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Although, therefore, the predestination of God, and effectual vocation, which depends upon it, embraces no one not elected, yet, as the offering of Christ in the Gospel, so also the oblation of

Christ on the cross, is of wider extent, and is as far appli

will bring salvation to At the same time we

cable as it is announceable, and every one provided he believes it. leave to God his own secret will, according to which he hath mercifully determined to work effectually in some that they may believe, and to leave others to their inherent obduracy, and not to work effectually in them that they may believe. I add further, That there was in Christ himself a will according to which he willed that his death should regard all men individually; and there was also a will according to which he willed that it should pertain to the elect alone. He willed that it should regard all the posterity of Adam who should be saved, and that it should actually save them all, provided they should embrace it with a true faith. He willed that it should so pertain to the elect alone, that by the merit of it all things which relate to the obtaining of salvation, should be infallibly given to them. And in this sense we confess that the oblation of Christ is of the same extent as the predestination of God. Of which more will be said hereafter.

OBJECTION 8. If the death of Christ is determined to be applicable to each and every man according to the ordination of God, then all discrimination between the elect and non-elect is removed, and the doctrine of predestination is altogether overturned: For if Christ may be said in any sense whatever to have died for all, what hinders us from declaring in the same sense that all men individually are elected by God?

REPLY 8. These objections proceed from ignorance of the true reason of election or predestination. For it is not any kind of ordination to salvation, through whatever means, which places man in the number of the elect or predestinated, but an ordination through such means as God both knew and decreed would infallibly produce the effect of salvation in the elect person. Hence is that definition of predestination by Augustine (on Perseverance, cap. 14) It is a foreknowledge and preparation of the benefits of God, by which those who are delivered are most certainly delivered. Hence also that apostolical chain, Romans viii. 29, 30, in

which predestination is united in an inseparable bond with glorification, Whom he did predestinate, them he also glorified. Therefore, although we confess that the death of Christ was in some way ordained by God for a common remedy of the human race, and would benefit all under this Evangelical condition-if they should believe it, yet it does not follow hence that all men individually are promiscuously elected; because God hath not determined to give to all men individually that grace whereby they may believe, and, by believing, may infallibly derive life from this death of Christ. And it may further be added, that although we should grant not only that Christ died for all men, but also that on account of this death of Christ sufficient grace was prepared and given by God to every individual (which we do not hold), yet no one from these concessions could rightly infer that all men are promiscuously elected, or that there is no difference between the elect and those who are passed by. The reason is evident; Because there is no sufficient ordination of means to procure the salvation of man, were he predestinated, unless it should be added, that there is an infallible order of special providence appointing and directing the ordained means to a most certain attainment of the end, which nothing can prevent. This may be illustrated by the example of angels and men considered in a state of upright nature. All the angels individually when formed were furnished with sufficient grace, and thence sufficiently endowed to obtain blessedness. But this does not prove either that there was no election among the angels, or that they were all indiscriminately elected. Thus Adam himself, at his creation, and in him all his posterity, are understood to have been supplied with sufficient grace and duly furnished to obtain eternal life: but neither will it follow from thence that all men were elected, or that there was no predestination. For not every ordination to the obtaining of eternal life either at once makes a man elected, or denies that he is not elected, but only (as was before said) infallible ordination. That we may return therefore to our argument: From the death of Christ, ordained to be a propitiatory sacrifice for

all men individually, and applicable through faith for the obtaining of remission and salvation, it does not follow that election and preterition is taken away; because this common ordination which is revealed in the Gospel being granted, there is also a certain secret ordination, according to which the aforesaid death of Christ is decreed to be infallibly applied to some persons, to whom God will manifest his special compassion; it is not decreed to be so applied to others, upon whom God will not have compassion in the same manner. And this is abundantly sufficient to defend the doctrine of predestination and reprobation, although we extend the death of Christ to all men in the aforesaid

sense.

OBJECTION 9. Some dispute, by means of an argument deduced, as they think, from similar circumstances, in this manner: It is as foreign from truth that Christ died according to the ordination of God, for some who are not saved, as that some are saved for whom, according to the ordination of God, he did not die: But this it would be absurd to assert: so likewise the former.

REPLY 9. I deny that the reasoning is similar on both sides. For (as it is a received maxim in Divinity) Good arises only from pure sources, evil from any kind of defect: The salvation of mankind therefore, which is the greatest good, is not produced without a full concurrence of all causes; but the loss of salvation, which is an evil, may happen from the defect of any one cause ordained for the salvation of mankind. Although it is impossible that any persons can be saved for whom Christ did not die, because the death of Christ is one of those ordained causes which operate to the salvation of mankind; yet it is not impossible to cut off some from salvation for whom he did die, because it was not appointed by God that the death of Christ alone, by the act of his oblation, should render God propitious to all, and should save all, but that it should be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, (Romans iii. 25), and it is unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference, as it is said in the 22d verse.

But if any one should still urge, Why is the death of Christ declared to be given for a remedy to all men, but faith is not said to be given or prepared for all? I answer, Because the Scriptures clearly teach, that Christ by dying obtained for each and every man this grace, that, under the condition of faith, they might now hope for and obtain remission of sins and salvation: but this conditional grace could not be offered to all, nor could regard all in every way, unless this death of Christ should pertain to all men from the ordination of God himself. Now, on the other hand, we do not maintain that faith is destined for or given to all, because the same holy Scripture, which proposes the death of Christ as a benefit vouchsafed to all and applicable to every one through faith, does not make this faith a benefit promised or given to all, but derived from the peculiar decree of election. In addition to these things, the Mediator himself, who offered himself for a sacrifice to God to expiate the sins of the world, (Acts iii. 19 et seq.) obtained from God that all those individuals. who should believe in him, should be absolved from their sins, and so far was willing to pay this ransom for all but he did not apply to all the merit of his death, nor obtained from God that all should infallibly partake of faith and salvation. And here the secret of election discovers itself, which ought not to overturn or weaken the universality of the oblation, or the truth of the promise of the Gospel.

OBJECTION 10. If the death of Christ were to be conceived by us as a remedy applicable to all men, then the holy Scriptures would not restrain the actual giving of the Son to those only who believe; but they apply to the faithful alone not only the benefit or real application, but also the very gift of the Son, John iii. 15, God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. That which is given to mankind conditionally, is understood to be given to no one, if the condition be set aside. Since, therefore, this condition of believing is fulfilled by the elect alone, the consequence is, that we should say, that Christ was of