Cap. 4 Tip: Thesis 2 — Christ died sufficiently for all by ordained sufficiency, not bare price-value

Cap. 4. Thesis 2 is proposed, explained, and established. In our first thesis we tried to show that Christ’s death or merit, constituted by God, set forth in the sacred Scriptures, and to be considered by us, is a universal remedy applicable to all human beings unto salvation by God’s ordination. And for this reason we do not hesitate to assert that Christ died for all human beings, inasmuch as he underwent a death by whose merit and power all and each mortal who obeys the Gospel can be freed from death and obtain eternal salvation. But because some so concede that Christ died for all that with the same breath they assert he died for the elect alone, and so explain the received distinction of the Theologians — He died for all sufficiently, for the predestinate efficaciously — that they plainly extinguish the former limb, we will add a second thesis that will furnish occasion for disputing the matter on purpose, which until now we have only lightly touched in passing. This second thesis, then, will be cast in this form (pardon it if somewhat long): The death of Christ is acknowledged as the universal cause of human salvation, and Christ himself as having died sufficiently for all human beings, not by reason of a bare sufficiency or intrinsic value, according to which the death of God is a price more than sufficient for redeeming a thousand worlds, but by reason of the Evangelical covenant stabilized by the merit of this death with the whole human race, and of the Divine ordination depending thereon, according to which, under the possible condition of faith, remission of sins and eternal life are decreed to be exhibited, for the merits of the dead Christ, to any human being who will believe.

In treating this thesis we will do two things: First, we will untie certain terms that need explanation. Second, we will partition this thesis of ours into certain members and confirm them one by one with several arguments. First, then, it falls to be explained what we mean by bare sufficiency, and what by that which is commonly admitted by Theologians, that Christ died sufficiently for all. If we speak of the price of redemption, that lytron is to be acknowledged sufficient which answers equally to the captive’s debt, or which satisfies the demand of him in whose power it is to free this captive. Equality, whether of thing to thing, or to the demands of him who has dominion over the captive, constitutes what we call bare sufficiency. This will be illustrated by examples. Suppose my brother is held in prison for a debt of a thousand pounds. If I have as many pounds laid up in my chest, I can truly affirm, This silver is sufficient to dissolve my brother’s debt and free him from the debt. Yet so long as it is not yet offered for him, a bare sufficiency of the thing is understood, and it is estimated from value alone, while the act of offering that very lytron is still lacking, without which the aforesaid sufficiency effects nothing. By like reason, if many are condemned to death for the crime of treason, and the King himself against whom the crime was committed covenants that he is willing to be reconciled to all for whom his Son deigns to undergo death: already the Son’s death is by pact constituted a sufficient lytron for redeeming all for whom it shall be offered; but if there are any for whom that lytron is not yet offered, as to them it has only a bare and mere sufficiency, which is thought from the thing’s value considered in itself, not that which is understood from the offerer’s act. I add: even if we admit that the aforesaid lytron is not only sufficient by equality of thing to thing and by the demand of him who requires nothing further for redeeming captives, but is also greater and better by infinite degrees and exceeds all their debts, yet if the mind and act of offering for certain captives do not accompany it, although such a lytron be ever so copious and superabundant when viewed in itself and from its internal value, still what was said of sufficiency must be said of superabundance: it is a mere superabundance of the thing, and has as yet effected nothing for freeing the aforesaid persons.

To this mere sufficiency, which looks to nothing else than an equal or superabundant dignity of the appointed price for the thing to be redeemed, I oppose another, which for clarity’s sake I will call ordained sufficiency. That is understood when the thing that has the character of a lutron or redeeming price not only equals or by dignity surpasses the thing to be redeemed, but is moreover ordained to redeem it by some will and act of the offerer. Thus a thousand talents stored in a Prince’s treasury may be called a sufficient lytron for redeeming ten citizens captured by an enemy; but if the mind and act of offering and giving these talents for these captives, or for some of them, do not accompany it, as to those for whom it is not given a mere, not ordained, sufficiency of the thing is supposed. But add the act and mind of offering them for freeing certain persons, and then at last ordained sufficiency is asserted as to those alone. Further, this ordained sufficiency of the lytron for redeeming a captive can be twofold: Absolute, when between the one who gives and the one who receives this redeeming price for freeing captives it is so agreed that as soon as the price is paid, by the very fact of payment the captives are at once freed. Conditioned, when the price is accepted not that the captive be at once paid for and restored to liberty, but that he be freed under a condition, if he first does this or that. When we say that Christ died sufficiently for all, we understand not a mere sufficiency of the thing with a defect of oblation as to the greater part of human beings, but that ordained sufficiency which had joined to it the mind and act of the offerer, and that for all, yet by that conditioned, not absolute, ordination which we have expressed. In a word, when we affirm that Christ died sufficiently for all, we mean this: that there was in the victim itself a sufficiency or equivalence, indeed a superabundance, of price or dignity if compared to the whole human race; and that in the offerer and the accepter there was a certain ordination according to which the aforesaid victim was offered and accepted for the redemption of all human beings. Let this suffice for explaining the first term.