Cap. 2 Ratios 2–3: He bore the penalty of the whole race; any wayfarer may be called to believe

Whoever, by undergoing death according to God’s ordination, sustained the penalty owed not only to the sins of certain singular persons but to the whole human race — his passion, by virtue of the same ordination, is applicable not only to certain and definite persons but to any individual of the human race. But Christ by dying sustained the penalty owed to the sins of the whole world. Therefore he willed his death to be, as it were, a universal cause of salvation applicable to all. Whoever denies the Major is bound to show why God willed his Son to bear the sins of the human race, if he did not will to institute in his death a cause at least applicable to the human race, even though an efficacious application does not follow in many. We can invent no other causes of this matter than that it pleased the divine goodness and wisdom to require from our Redeemer, and as it were to take into his own hands, a universal lytron applicable to all: (1) that in the application itself the liberty of the divine will, doing of its own what it wills, and a special eudokia toward the elect, might more appear; (2) that toward the non-elect, at least those called in the Church, he might show a specimen of great mercy; (3) that unbelievers might be convicted in their consciences that on Christ’s part a way of freeing them was not wanting, but that they failed themselves, according to Christ’s word (John 5:40): You will not come to me, that you may have life.

Let us now descend to the Minor, in which it is affirmed that Christ sustained the penalty owed to the sins of the human race. So the Scriptures speak (Isaiah 53:6): All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has made the iniquity of us all to meet upon him. So the Fathers speak: The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is the price of the whole world, from which price those are strangers who either, delighted with captivity, refused to be redeemed, or after redemption returned to the same servitude (Prosper, on the Chapters of the Gauls, sentence on 9). So our Church of England, Article 2: Christ truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, that he might reconcile the Father to us, and might be a sacrifice not only for original guilt but also for all actual sins of human beings. Finally, those who most tightly restrict this death of Christ cannot deny this. The reverend and most learned Pareus, in his judgment on this second Remonstrant article which he sent to the Synod of Dort, has these words: The cause and matter of Christ’s passion was the sense or endurance of the wrath of God stirred up by the sin not of some human beings but of the whole human race, whence is effected the universality of the sin and of the wrath of God against it endured by Christ; but the universality of a reconciliation obtained or restored for all, by no means (Acts of the Synod of Dort, p. 217). The force of the argument is: Whoever willed and ordained that Christ the Mediator should sustain the wrath of God owed to the sins not of certain persons but of the whole human race, that one willed this passion of Christ to be a remedy applicable to the human race — that is, to each and every human being, and not only to certain singular persons — the supreme power and entire liberty of dispensing and applying this infinite merit according to the secret good pleasure of his will being nonetheless left to himself.

Whoever by divine ordination can be called to believe in the Mediator, and who by believing can obtain eternal life — to those the death of Christ is applicable unto salvation by a prior ordination of God. But any wayfarer can be called to believe in the Mediator, and by believing can obtain eternal life according to the evangelical covenant. Therefore the death of Christ is applicable to any wayfarer. The connection of the Major is plain from this: that a serious call to believe presupposes an object prepared in which one may believe; and this very ability to be saved by believing intimates that the saving object — that is, the death or merit of Christ — has been ordained as a remedy applicable to the one to whom such a benefit is promised under the condition of faith. For if someone were called to faith in Christ to whom Christ was not applicable by God’s ordination, faith would be demanded in a false object — indeed in none at all — as regards such a called person. The matter would stand just as if an evangelical preacher should call some demon clothed in human appearance and dwelling among human beings to faith in Christ, and should promise him eternal life if he believed. Such a call would be erroneous on the caller’s part and empty on the called person’s part, because he is called to believe in Christ to whom Christ is not applicable by God’s ordination, and salvation is promised to him under a condition to whom, even if he were supposed to believe, salvation is nonetheless denied for want of a sacrifice and covenant pertaining to him. The matter does not stand so with any wayfarer: therefore it must be confessed that the death of Christ under the conditions of the evangelical covenant is applicable to anyone.

The Major being confirmed, I come to the Minor, which ought to be beyond controversy among all the orthodox. For although God’s providence does not bring it about that the Gospel becomes known to each and every person, and thus that all are called to Christ, yet God himself constituted that the Gospel should be something truly announceable to all, and should be preached to every creature. If one preacher could go through the whole world and meet each and every mortal, it would be lawful for him to offer Christ to any human being, and under the condition of faith to announce and promise salvation to be obtained through Christ. For so the Apostle himself speaks (Romans 3:21-22): But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested, attested by the law and the prophets — the righteousness of God, I say, through faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all who believe; for there is no distinction. The most learned Belgian Professors, in the judgment they exhibited to the Synod of Dort, confess this very thing (Acts of the Synod of Dort, p. 88): We confess, they say, that the merit and value of Christ’s death suffice not only to expiate all sins of human beings, even the greatest, but also to save all the posterity of Adam, even if they were far more numerous, provided they embraced it with true faith. But it would not suffice to save all, even if all believed, unless this be posited: that by divine ordination this death of Christ is a constituted remedy applicable to all. Deny that Christ died for some human beings, and I will at once infer that such persons, even if they believed, could not be saved through the death of Christ. What is commonly answered to this argument by some — that God did not command ministers to announce that Christ died for individual human beings whether they believe or not, but for believing and penitent sinners alone, and therefore that from the universality of the call it cannot be demonstrated that the death of Christ is by divine ordination a universal remedy applicable to anyone — seems to me said with too little consideration. For the faith of human beings is not presupposed as a condition that makes Christ to have died for them, but as a condition that makes the death of Christ — already applicable to all by the divine eudokia — in fact applied to individuals and fruitful. The death of Christ was a sacrifice established in the divine acceptation from the beginning of the world and ordained for human beings; nor could it help anyone, if he believed, unless it had been offered for him before he believed. When therefore we announce to someone that the death of Christ can profit him if he believes, we presume that it was destined for him as applicable before he believes.