To the Reader
Reader,
If you intend to go any further, I ask you to stay here a little. If you are, like many in this pretentious age, merely a sign- or title-gazer, and come into books as Cato came into the theater, only to go out again, you have had your entertainment. Farewell. But if you resolve to examine the following discourse seriously, and truly desire satisfaction from the Word and Christian reason concerning the great matters contained in it, I ask you to hear a few words at the entrance.
There are several matters of no small importance to the business before us with which, I am persuaded, you are already acquainted. I will not trouble you by needlessly repeating them. I ask only your permission to preface the point at hand, and my present undertaking of it, with the result of some of my thoughts concerning the whole subject. For more than seven years I have seriously inquired into the mind of God concerning these things, grounded, I hope, upon the strength of Christ and guided by his Spirit. I have also carefully read everything I could obtain that human wit, in former or later days, has published in opposition to the truth that I desire here to affirm, according to the measure of the gift I have received.
Concerning the principal point in hand, then, I would ask the reader to observe the following things.
First, the assertion of universal redemption, or a general ransom made beneficial in even the least degree for its intended end, does not stand alone. The election of free grace, as the fountain of all the dispensations that follow, and every discriminating purpose of the Almighty that depends upon his own good pleasure and will, must be removed from its path.
Hence, those who wish, for the sake of pleasing the people with tales of their own invention, to preserve some appearance of affirming the liberty of eternally distinguishing free grace, utterly demolish every fruitful or profitable result of the imaginary structure of general redemption that they had previously erected. Some of them, including Thomas More, make the decree of election antecedent to the death of Christ, or, as they absurdly speak, to the decree of Christ’s death. They then construct a twofold election: some are elected to be sons, and the rest to be servants. But Scripture calls this election of some to be servants reprobation and speaks of it as the outcome of hatred, or a purpose of rejection (Rom 9:11-12). To be a servant in opposition to children and their liberty is as severe a curse as can be expressed (Gen 9:25). Is this the election taught by Scripture? Besides, if Christ died to bring those for whom he died into the adoption and inheritance of children, what good could possibly come from his death to those who were predestined beforehand to be only servants?
Others, including Cameron, Amyraut, and their associates, make a general conditional decree of redemption antecedent to election. They affirm election to be the first discriminating purpose concerning the sons of men and to depend upon God’s good pleasure alone. Yet they deny that anyone besides the persons so elected will partake of Christ’s death or its fruits, whether in grace or glory. For whose benefit, then, and to what purpose does the general ransom serve? It serves only to assert that Almighty God would have the precious blood of his dear Son poured out for innumerable souls whom he does not intend to share in a single drop of it. With respect to them, therefore, it was spilled in vain, unless it was shed for them only so that they might be more deeply damned.
This fountain of free grace, this foundation of the new covenant, this ground of all gospel dispensations, this fruitful womb of all eternally distinguishing mercies, namely, the purpose of God according to election, must therefore be opposed, slighted, and blasphemed so that the invention of the sons of men may not appear to be a fig-tree trunk, useless wood. All the thoughts of the Most High that distinguish one person from another must be said by some to take their occasion, and by others to be caused, by people’s own supposedly holy and spiritual endeavors. What a pleasing work for the farmers, a savory sacrifice to the Roman Belus, a sacred rite to the long-lamented spirit of Saint Pelagius!
Second, free will, the love and delight of humankind, corrupted nature’s deformed darling, the Pallas or beloved self-conception of darkened minds, finds open hearts and arms for its adulterous embraces. Indeed, the die has been cast and the Rubicon crossed. To this have the fortunes of the church come: after opposing God’s free, distinguishing grace as free will’s sole sworn enemy, people advance free will itself, an inborn native ability in everyone to embrace a portion of generally exposed mercy, under the name of free grace. Has such confidence in your race possessed us? This, this is the universalists’ free grace, which in the language of Scripture is cursed and corrupted nature. Nor can it be otherwise.
A general ransom without free will is merely a burdensome fancy. In their account, the merit of Christ’s death is like ointment in a box that has neither the virtue nor power to act or extend its own application to particular persons. It is only displayed in the gospel for everyone to see, so that those who are willing may, by their own strength, take hold of it, apply it to themselves, and be healed. Hence the precious esteem and high valuation that this old idol, free will, has gained in these days. It is so useful to the general ransom that the ransom cannot live a day without it.
If what Scripture affirms were accepted as true, that we are by nature “dead in trespasses and sinnes,” etc., there would not remain of the general ransom even a potsherd with which to take fire from the hearth. Like the wood of the vine, it would not yield a peg on which to hang a garment. You will find all this fully explained in the following treatise.
But as though all the undertakings and Babylonian attempts of the old Pelagians, together with their varnished offspring, the later Arminians, were slight and easy matters, I will show you greater abominations than these and further discoveries of the imagery in the hearts of the sons of men. In pursuing this persuasion of universal redemption, not a few have arrived where it naturally leads them: at a denial of the satisfaction and merit of Christ.
Witness P. H., who, unable to untie this Gordian knot, boldly ventured to cut it, but in such a way that he made both ends of the chain useless. When asked whether Christ died for all men, he answers that Christ died neither for all nor for any in such a way as to purchase life and salvation for them. What a word has escaped the barrier of your teeth! Shall cursed Socinianism be dressed up in words as a glorious discovery of free grace?
Ask for proofs of this assertion, as you might justly expect Achilles-like arguments from those who delight in moving the immovable and in throwing down foundations whose loss would leave all the righteous in the world at a loss. Instead, “he throws out bombast and words a foot and a half long.” Great swelling words of vanity, hollow expressions, and the noise of emptiness, the usual language of people “who know not what they speake, nor whereof they doe affirme,” are all that is produced. Such contemptible products come from our swollen mountains.
Poor creatures, whose souls are traded away by the painted faces of novelty and vanity! While these Joabs greet you with the kisses of free grace, you do not see the sword in their hands with which they strike you under the fifth rib, in the very lifeblood of faith and all Christian consolation.
It seems that our blessed Redeemer’s deep humiliation accomplished none of these things: his bearing “the chastisement of our peace” and the punishment of our transgressions; his being made a curse and sin; his being forsaken under wrath and the power of death; his procuring redemption and the remission of sins through the shedding of his blood; his offering himself to God as a sacrifice to make reconciliation and purchase an atonement; his continuing this undertaking by constant intercession in the holiest of holies; and all the other benefits of his mediation. According to this opinion, none of these procure either life and salvation or the remission of sins. They serve only to declare that we are not really what his Word affirms us to be, namely, cursed, guilty, defiled, and all but actually cast into hell. “Judas, betrayest thou the Sonne of man with a kisse?” See this refuted at length in Book 3.
Once this last assertion was thoroughly embraced, it opened a door and gave entrance to all those pretended heights and newly named glorious attainments that have transformed the person and mediation of Christ into an imaginary, diffused goodness and love communicated from the Creator to the new creation. Cerdo’s two principles were no more absurd than these Familist fables. Nor were the Platonic numbers or Valentinus’s aeons, flowing from the teeming wombs of Fullness, Aeon, Perfection, Depth, Silence, and the rest, any less intelligible when they were put forward as high and glorious attainments in the Christian religion nearly fifteen hundred years ago. Marcion, that vermin from Pontus, did not equal these powerless impostors in his corrosive treatment of Scripture. They pour contempt and scorn upon it by exempting their whispered discoveries from its trial and exalting their revelations above its authority.
Some do not even stop here. By these steps one goes to heaven itself, and heaven is broken open for everyone. From universal redemption, through universal justification in a general covenant, they have arrived, and I speak of no unknown matter, at universal salvation. Nor, according to them, can the purchased inheritance ever be forfeited:
March on brave youths, ’ith praise of such free-grace, Surround your locks with Bayes; and full cups place In your right hands: drinke freely on, then call Oth’ publick faith, the Ransome generall.
I do not reject these and similar persuasions merely because they are entirely new to the people of this generation. Let me add this in passing: every age has its employment in the discovery of truth. We have not reached the bottom either of vice or of virtue. The whole world has been engaged in the practice of iniquity for five thousand years and more, and yet “behold this novelty” may still be written upon many acts of wickedness. We see new inventions every day. It is no wonder, then, if all truth has not yet been discovered. Something may be revealed to those who until now have sat by. Do not be astonished if Saul also is among the prophets, for who is their Father? Is he not free in his dispensations? Have all the depths of Scripture, where elephants may swim, been sounded to the bottom? Let anyone observe the progress made during the last century in unfolding the truths of God, and he will scarcely remain obstinate in claiming that nothing more remains to be discovered.
What I desire to oppose is the itching of corrupted imaginations, the boldness of darkened minds, and the lustful wantonness of wits that publish newly created nothings and meaningless vanities mixed with a dash of blasphemy. I am especially concerned because of the temper, if I may call it that, of the days in which we live. By one means or another, an almost universal inclination toward novelty has grown among us: some are credulous, some negligent, some fall into errors, and some seek them.
A strong suspicion also grows upon me every day, and I would thank anyone who could free me from it upon solid grounds. I suspect that spiritual pride, joined with a Herostratus-like design to become great in the mouths of men, has driven many to conceive and publish certain easily invented false opinions. Should we not also suppose that the same disposition possesses many of them when almost everyone strives to go beyond his companions by devising some singular artifice? To follow others, even in desperate undertakings, is too low an achievement. As Juvenal writes:
Dare something worthy of narrow Gyara or of prison, If you desire to be somebody; honesty is praised and left to freeze.
As Seneca observed, in so busy a commonwealth ordinary wickedness finds no new stories to invent. And let your invention be no small peccadillo, my friends, no subordinate opinion, if you want it noticed in these busy times. Of ordinary errors you may cry:
… Who will read these things? Nobody, by Hercules, nobody, Or perhaps two, or nobody.
They must be glorious attainments, beyond human understanding and above the wisdom of the Word, if they are to attract the eyes of poor, deluded souls. May the great Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, recover his poor wanderers to his own fold. But let us return from this digression.
This is that fatal Helen, a useless, barren, fruitless fancy whose enthronement has caused such irksome and tedious contentions among the churches of God. It is a mere Rome, a desolate, filthy collection of cottages until all the world has been robbed and plundered to adorn it.
Suppose that Christ died for all. Yet if God in his free purpose has chosen some to obtain life and salvation while passing by others, will Christ’s death be profitable only to the former, or to all? Surely God’s purpose must stand, and he “will doe all his pleasure.” Therefore, election must either be made universal with Huberus, by a wild contradiction, or the thoughts of the Most High must be suspended upon the free will of man.
Add this borrowed feather to the general ransom so that it may at least display some color of pompous grandeur. Yet if God’s free grace works effectually in some and not in others, can those others, passed by in its powerful operation, receive any benefit from universal redemption? They can receive no more benefit than the Egyptians received when the angel passed over the houses whose doors were not sprinkled with blood, leaving some dead behind him.
Almighty, powerful, free grace must therefore lower its sail so that free will may enter with top and topgallant sails, like the Alexandrian ships coming into the Roman harbors. Without it, the whole territory of universal redemption will certainly be starved. But let the doctrines of God’s eternal election, the free grace of conversion, perseverance, and their necessary consequences be affirmed, and the little crow, stripped of its stolen colors, provokes laughter. Universal redemption has not the least appearance of profit or consolation except what it robs from God’s sovereignty and grace. But more of these things later.
The supporters of the general ransom usually put forward several flourishing claims. With your patience, courteous reader, we will examine them briefly at the outset, so that we may remove some prejudice that might stand in the way of truth.
First, they say that universal redemption greatly exalts the glory of God. They claim that his goodwill and kindness toward humanity are abundantly manifested by enlarging the extent of redemption, and that his free grace, which others restrict, is presented with powerful attractiveness. In effect, they say, “All things will be well when God is content with the portion of glory that we assign him.”
The prisoners of the earth consider it their greatest wisdom to varnish their favors and proclaim with a full mouth what they have done with half a hand. But will it be acceptable to lie for God by extending his bounty beyond the marks and eternal bounds fixed for it in his Word? First change a hair of your own head or add a cubit to your stature, and only then come to the Almighty with an addition of glory that he has not acknowledged as his own.
For the most part, corrupted nature behaves this way in all such mysterious things and thereby reveals its own baseness and vileness. If God is understood to be as extensive in grace as corrupted nature is in offense, I mean with respect to particular offenders, for with respect to his own people he is more extensive, then all is thought to be well. Though his grace is free, and though he has proclaimed to everyone that “he may doe what he will with his owne,” giving no account of his affairs, people will still say, “He is gracious and merciful,” and so on. But once Scripture is understood to set forth his sovereignty and free, distinguishing grace, dispensed according to his own purpose in election, he is called savage, cruel, more hateful than the devil or Tiberius. I shudder to repeat it.
The learned know where to find this language, and I will not help propagate such blasphemies among others. Nature, as Augustine observed, appears so corrupted that failing to perceive its corruption is itself an even greater vice. Tertullian said of the heathen deities, “If a god does not please man, he will not be a god.” Shall it be so among us? God forbid.
This pride is inborn. It is part of our corruption to defend it. If we would uphold God’s glory, then, let us speak in his own language or be forever silent. That alone is glorious in him which he ascribes to himself. Our inventions, however splendid they appear in our own eyes, are an abomination to him. They are an attempt to pull him down from his eternal excellence and make him altogether like us. God has never allowed the creature’s will to be the measure of his honor.
The obedience required in Paradise was to have been regulated by God’s command, and God’s prescription has been the ground of his acceptance of every duty since he first had a creature to worship him. Even the heathen understood that God welcomes only the service that he himself requires and acknowledges only the glory in which he has revealed that he will appear glorious.
Thus Epimenides advised the Athenians, in a time of danger, to sacrifice “to the god to whom it was fitting and due.” This gave rise to the altar Paul saw bearing the inscription “to the unknowne God.” Socrates likewise says in Plato that every god will be worshiped “in the way that most pleases his own mind.” In Christianity, Jerome establishes the rule that God is dishonored by honor ascribed to him beyond his own prescription. As another writer said aptly concerning the second commandment, “It is not merely the image or likeness that is condemned, but the words, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee.’” To assign anything to God that he has not assumed is to make a deity for ourselves out of our own imaginations.
Let everyone cease measuring God’s glory by their own corrupted principles and still more corrupted persuasions. The Word alone must arbitrate in the things of God. I hope the following treatise will also show that, in the matter before us, the Word teaches nothing contrary to those natural conceptions of God and his goodness that have survived the sad ruins of innocence. On these grounds, we affirm that all the glory of God supposedly advanced by the general ransom, however glorious it may appear to purblind nature, is really a sinful flourish that obscures the glory in which God delights.
Second, it is forcefully claimed that the opposing opinion limits the worth and value of Christ’s satisfaction to a few, whereas universal redemption greatly magnifies them by extending them to all. Besides what has already been said against human attempts to extend the things of God beyond the bounds that he himself has fixed for them, this opinion completely weakens and overthrows the merit of Christ’s death. That merit consists in its own internal worth and sufficiency, together with the obligation that Christ’s obedience unto death placed upon the justice of God for its application to those for whom he died. Universal redemption makes this merit of no account, as though it never produced by itself, absolutely, the least good for any particular soul. This is so fully demonstrated in the following treatise that I cannot but ask the reader to consider it sincerely, since it is a matter of no small importance.
Third, many passages of Scripture seem to smile upon the opinion of universal redemption. Some words, though either figurative or indefinite in themselves, appear to have universal extent, and this causes the opinion’s supporters to rejoice greatly. Concerning this, I ask only that the reader not be startled by the multitude of Scripture passages that some recent writers have heaped up around this matter, especially Thomas More in The Universality of Free Grace, as though those passages proved and confirmed the position for which they are produced. Instead, prepare to marvel at the confidence of men, and particularly of the man just named, who makes such a display with colors and drums when he has no soldiers at all.
Despite all their claims, it will appear that they hang the whole weight of their building upon three or four passages of Scripture, namely, 1 Tim 2:5-6, John 3:16-17, Heb 2:9, and 1 John 2:2, together with a few others and the ambiguity of two or three words that they themselves cannot deny have many different meanings. All these are discussed at length in the following treatise. I have omitted no passage that any of our adversaries has brought forward with even the least appearance of support, either in defense of their own position or in opposition to the effectual redemption of the elect alone. Thomas More’s book is met in its full strength and thoroughly refuted.
Fourth, through some misunderstanding I cannot explain, certain people have adopted the persuasion that the universalists’ opinion greatly displays the love and free grace of God. Indeed, they make that glorious expression, free grace, refer only to what is contained in their persuasion: that God loves everyone alike, gave Christ to die for everyone, and is ready to save everyone if they will take hold of him. Daily experience shows us how eagerly many swallow the hook along with the bait when it is presented under this description.
The truth is that this opinion utterly destroys God’s free, distinguishing grace in all its dispensations and operations. It plainly opposes God’s free grace in election, as has already been shown, and therefore opposes the very love from which God sent his Son. It also requires God’s free, distinguishing grace in effectual calling to give place to corrupted nature’s darling, free will. Indeed, it makes the whole covenant of grace void by presenting it only as a general removal of the wrath due for breaking the covenant of works. What else can possibly be imagined as granted to most of the “all” with whom they claim this covenant was made? Yet they certainly do not have even this (John 3:36).
Despite their flourish about free grace, they are forced to grant that, after everything effected by Christ’s death, it remained possible that no one would be saved. I hope I have also clearly proved that, if Christ accomplished by his death no more than they ascribe to it, it is utterly impossible that anyone should be saved. What conclusion could be worthy of so great a beginning?
Fifth, the opinion of universal redemption gains no small advantage by presenting convinced people with an apparently ready way to escape all their doubts and perplexities. It promises to give them all the comfort Christ’s death can afford before they feel any power of that death working within them, discover any efficacy of free grace drawing their hearts to embrace Christ in the promise, or obtain a particular interest in him. To flesh and blood, these are tedious things to attend to and wait upon. Some boast that this persuasion accomplished in an hour what they had waited seven years to receive without success.
To dispel this poor, empty flourish, I will show in the course of the work that this opinion is very ready and able to deceive multitudes with a plausible delusion. In reality, it undermines the very foundations of that strong and unfailing consolation which God has shown himself “abundantly willing that the heires of promise should receive.”
These and similar claims are the general pretenses by which the supporters of a general ransom seek to commend themselves and their opinion to the affections of credulous souls. Through them, they open an easy passage into people’s belief so that they may swallow and digest the bitter potion lurking at the bottom of the cup. I thought it appropriate to give the reader a brief view of these claims at the outset, taking his mind away from empty generalities so that he may be better prepared to weigh everything carefully in an equal balance when he comes to consider the particular matters examined later, in which the supposed strength of our adversaries lies.
It remains only for me to give the Christian reader a brief account of my call to this work and my undertaking of it, and then to close this preface.
First, I assure you that I was not driven to this task by the least thirst in my affections to drink the waters of Meribah, nor by the least desire to share Ishmael’s portion, having my hand against others and theirs against me. I never like myself less than when I wear the mask of a controversial disputant. The disposition of my soul is far more pleasing to me beside the waters of Shiloah:
… Not long ago I saw myself upon the shore, While the sea stood calm beneath the winds …
I do not know what attraction anyone can find in lodging, much less remaining, in this quarrelsome, scrambling territory, where, as Tertullian says of Pontus, every wind that blows is a north wind, sharp and piercing. There is little pleasure in walks bordered on every side by dangerous precipices and unpleasant difficulties. As Ovid writes:
And though you keep the path and are drawn aside by no error, You still must pass the horns of the opposing Bull, The Thessalian Archer, and the violent jaws of the Lion.
There is no quiet or peace in these matters and ways, but continual brawls and dissensions:
… No guest is safe from his host, No father-in-law from his son-in-law, and even among brothers affection is rare.
The strongest bonds of the nearest relationships are too commonly broken by such disputes. Were it not for the command to be “contending earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the Saints” (Jude 3), together with the stirring of my inward affections over the loss of poor, seduced souls, I would willingly bind myself by an unchangeable resolution to flee all verbal battles and paper combats for the remainder of my few and evil days.
It was not, then, to return to my point, any salamander-like disposition that moved me to this undertaking.
Second, neither was I moved by any conceit of my own abilities for the work, as though I were the most suitable among many to undertake it. I know that, as in all things I am “lesse than the least of all Saints,” so in these matters I am “… neither first, nor fifth, nor twelfth, whether in reputation or number.”
More able pens have discussed and examined some of these questions in our own language during the past few years, including my reverend and learned brother Mr. John Stalham and Mr. Rutherford. Some of their works came into my hands, though none of substantial weight did so until I had almost finished this heap of my own, which was twelve months ago or more.
I would have rested fully satisfied in some of these works, if not all of them, except that I observed that every writer had confined himself to certain parts of the controversy, especially the removal of objections. None had encompassed or arranged the whole subject. Consequently, the nature of the matters under debate, namely, satisfaction, reconciliation, redemption, and the like, was left exceedingly obscure, and the strong foundation of the whole building was not uncovered even once.
I always desired someone to undertake the main subject and unfold from the Word, from the very foundation, the whole dispensation of God’s love to his elect in Jesus Christ, together with its conveyance through the promises of the gospel. Every fruit of that love was purchased and procured by the offering and intercession of Jesus Christ. Such a work could not fail to make clear the great design of the blessed Trinity in this great work of redemption, as well as the vanity and fruitlessness of every attempt to extend redemption beyond the bounds and limits assigned to it by its principal agents.
I also greatly wished that arguments might be produced to confirm the truth we affirm in opposition to the error we oppose, so that the weak might be established and dissenters convinced. The doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction, his merit, and the reconciliation accomplished through it is closely connected with the point of redemption. Since it is rightly understood by few and has recently been attacked by some, I desired to see it cleared, unfolded, and vindicated by an able pen.
After waiting a long time, however, I found no one who met my expectation. I can truly say of myself, with the character in the comedy, “I know that I am neither so clever nor so perceptive” as to be fit for such an undertaking. Horace’s counsel also frequently ran through my mind:
You who write, choose material equal to your powers, And consider long what your shoulders refuse to bear, And what they are able to carry.
Yet at last I laid aside all such thoughts and looked up to him who supplies seed to the sower and performs all our works for us. I allowed myself to be overcome and brought to the work by another writer’s words: “I would rather this had been done by anyone other than me; yet I would rather it were done by me than by no one.” This was especially pressing because of the industrious diligence of those who oppose the truth. As Horace writes:
… The unlearned and the learned write alike. Robbers rise by night to murder men; Will you not wake to save yourself?
Add to my former desire the frequent conferences to which I had been invited concerning these things, the daily spread of the opinions opposed here throughout the region where I live, the greater reports of their prevalence elsewhere, the advantage they had gained through certain military supporters, and the urging of several eminent and learned friends. Together, these are the sum of what I wish to present as the cause of my undertaking this task.
What the Lord has enabled me to perform in it must be left to the judgment of others. I am not altogether without hope of success, but I am fully persuaded that I will not live to see a solid answer given to it. If anyone undertakes merely to pluck and tear away some of the branches from the roots and principles of the whole discourse, I will freely allow them to enjoy their own wisdom and imaginary conquest. But if anyone seriously undertakes to debate the whole cause, and if I live to see it done, I commit myself, by the Lord’s assistance, to become either their humble convert or their fair antagonist.
In what has already been accomplished by the good hand of the Lord, I hope the learned may find something for their contentment and the weak something for their strengthening and satisfaction. In all of it, may some glory return to him to whom it belongs and whose truth is unfolded here by the unworthiest laborer in his vineyard.
J. O.
