Humfrey:

1)

Of Redemption.

As for this Head of Redemption, I am for a middle Way, as Mr. Baxter was, and Dr. Davenant in his Book De morte Christi, which Arch-bp. Usher approved, and was biased toward the Universality of it. For seeing the Scripture is so express and full that Christ died for all, that he tasted Death for every Man, that he was a Propitiation for the Sins of the whole World; and that so many more Texts might amply be quoted, there is some Sense wherein this Universality must be maintained, or the Scripture be forsaken.

The Death of Christ therefore may be considered as it hath purchased Remission and Salvation on Condition, and so it is for all, and acknowledged (as Mr. Baxter notes) by Dr. Twiss. But the strict Calvinist will have more, that it redounds to purchase the Condition also, and the Redeemed therefore are only the Elect. This Inference I dislike quite, and the Proposition, that Christ by his Death (whereby he hath made Satisfaction for our Sins) hath purchased the Condition also for any, I question.

For the Inference, If there was a double Redemption, once to purchase Pardon and Life on Condition, and another to purchase also the Condition, then would it be plain, that one was for all, and the other for the Elect only. But Redemption is but one, though that one may have a double Respect, and Dr. Davenant and Mr. Baxter no doubt thought not any otherwise: that is, a Respect to the whole World, or a Respect to the Elect. As it respects all the World, it does purchase Remission and Salvation on Condition; as it respects the Elect, it does farther (as they must hold) purchase for such the Condition also. Upon this account therefore with them it does not follow, that none are redeemed but the Elect, because that though in one respect, as Christ by his Redemption hath purchased also the Condition (supposing it so) it was for the Elect: yet in another respect, as it hath purchased Pardon and Life only on Condition, it is for the World; so that in these diverse Respects, all are redeemed, and also the Elect only. I will not wonder therefore at these two Eminent Men, Mr. Baxter and Bishop Davenant, that they affirm Redemption to be Universal and Special both, I thank them for their Pains, their great Pains, but in good earnest it is an Inconsistency I cannot fully, but half approve.

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Saurin:

Christ died for all, therefore all died (2 Cor. 5:14-15):

1)

SERMON VII.

The Efficacy of the Death of Christ.

2 Corinthians v. 14, 15.

The love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if one died For all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him, which died for them, and rose again.

My Brethren,

We have great designs today on you, and we have great means of executing them. Sometimes we require the most difficult duties of morality of you. At other times we preach the mortification of the senses to you, and with St. Paul, we tell you, “they that are Christ’s, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts,” Gal. v. 24. Sometimes we attack your attachment to riches, and after the example of our great Master, we exhort you to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal,” Matt. vi. 20. At other times we endeavor to prepare you for some violent operation, some severe exercises, with which it may please God to try you, and we repeat the words of the apostle to the Hebrews, “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin: Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,” Heb. xii. 4, 12. At other times we summon you to suffer a death more painful than your own; we require you to dissolve the tender ties that unite your hearts lo your relatives and friends; we adjure you to break the bonds that constitute all the happiness of your lives, and we utter this language, or shall I rattier say, thunder this terrible gradation in the name of Almighty God, “Take now thy son–thine only son–Isaac–whom thou lovest–and offer him for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of,” Gen. xxii. 2. Today we demand all these. We require more than the sacrifice of your senses, more than that of your riches, more than that of your impatience, more than that of an only son; we demand an universal devotedness of yourselves to the author and finisher of your faith; and to repeat the emphatical language of my text, which in its extensive compass involves, and includes all these duties, we require you “henceforth not to live unto yourselves: but unto him, who died and rose again for you.”

As we have great designs on you, so we have great means of executing them. They are not only a few of the attractives of religion. They are not only such efforts as your ministers sometimes make, when uniting all their studies and all their abilities, they approach you with the powder of the word : It is not only an august ceremony, or a solemn festival. They are all these put together. God hath assembled them all in the marvelous transactions of this one day.

Here are all the attractives of religion. Here are all the united efforts of your ministers, who unanimously employ on these occasions all the penetration of their minds, all the tenderness of their hearts, all the power of language to awake your piety, and to incline you to render to Jesus Christ love for love, and life for life. It is an august ceremony, in which, under the most simple symbols, that nature affords, God represents the most sublime objects of religion to you. This is a solemn festival, the most solemn festival, that Christians observe, this occasions them to express in songs of the highest joy their gratitude and praise to their deliverer, these are their sentiments, and thus they exult, “The right hand of the Lord doth valiantly!” Psal. cxviii. 15. “Blessed he the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” Eph. i. 3. “Blessed be God, who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” 1 Pet. i. 3.

And on what days, is it natural to suppose, should the preaching of the gospel perform those miracles, which are promised to it, if not on such days as these? When if not on such days as these, should “the sword of the spirit, divide asunder soul and spirit joints, and marrow,” Eph. vi. 17. Heb. iv. 12. and cut in twain every bond of self-love and sin?

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Leo:

Sins of the world:

1) What hope then do they, who deny the reality of the human person in our Savior’s body, leave for themselves in the efficacy of this mystery? Let them say by what sacrifice they have been reconciled, by what blood-shedding brought back.  Who is He “who gave Himself for us an offering and a victim to God for a sweet smell:” or what sacrifice was ever more hallowed than that which the true High priest placed upon the altar of the cross by the immolation of His own flesh? For although in the sight of the Lord the death of many of His saints has been precious, yet no innocent’s death was the propitiation of the world.  The righteous have received, not given, crowns:  and from the endurance of the faithful have arisen examples of patience, not the gift of justification.  For their deaths affected themselves alone, and no one has paid off another’s debt by his own death: one alone among the sons of men, our Lord Jesus Christ, stands out as One in whom all are crucified, all dead, all buried, all raised again. Of them He Himself said “when I am lifted from the earth, I will draw all (things) unto Me ” True faith also, that justifies the transgressors and makes them just, is drawn to Him who shared their human natures and wins salvation in Him, in whom alone man finds himself not guilty; and thus is free to glory in the power of Him who in the humiliation of our flesh engaged in conflict with the haughty  foe, and shared His victory with those in whose body He had triumphed. Leo the Great, “The Letters and Sermons of  Leo the Great,” in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 12:92-93, Letter 124. [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.]

Christ died for all:

1) Whilst the height of all virtues, dearly-beloved, and the fullness of all righteousness is born of that love, wherewith God and one’s neighbor is loved, surely in none is this love found more conspicuous and brighter than in the blessed martyrs; who are as near to our Lord Jesus, Who died for all men, in the imitation of His love, as in the likeness of their suffering.  For, although that Love, wherewith the Lord has redeemed us, cannot be equaled by any man’s kindness, because it is one thing that a man who is doomed to die one day should die for a righteous man, and another that One Who is free from the debt of sin should lay down His life for the wicked:  yet the martyrs also have done great service to all men, in that the Lord Who gave them boldness, has used it to show that the penalty of death and the pain of the cross need not be terrible to any of His followers, but might be imitated by many of them.  If therefore no good man is good for himself alone, and no wise man’s wisdom befriends himself only, and the nature of true virtue is such that it leads many away from the dark error on which its light is shed, no model is more useful in teaching God’s people than that of the martyrs.  Eloquence may make intercession easy, reasoning may effectually persuade; but yet examples are stronger than words, and there is more teaching in practice than in precept.   Leo the Great, “The Letters and Sermons of  Leo the Great,” in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 12:197, Sermon 85.  [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.]

[Note: Leo is important because both Kimdoncius and Bastingius sought to establish a case for continuity between their view of the extent of the expiation and redemption with that of Leo’s. C.f., Kimedoncius, Bastingius and here.]

[To be continued…]

Bastingius:

Christ bore our sins (sample):

1) Whereupon Paul doubts not to say that God has already set us with Christ in the heavenly places [Eph. 2:6.], so that we do not by a bare hope only look to heaven, but are already posses of it in Christ, who is our head, who making full satisfaction for our sins in that earthly and bodily pledge, which he took for us, has now taken possession of heaven in our name. Jeremias Bastingius, An Exposition or Commentary Vpon the Catechisme of Christian Religion, which is taught in the Schooles and Churches both of the Low Countries, and of the Dominions of the Countie Palatine (Printed at London by Iohn Legatt, Printer to the University of Cambridge, 1614), 195-196. [Marginal references cited inline; some reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

2) Surely he himself knew better then we how we were to be instructed unto salvation, and therefore meant to prevent this superstition, and gave us the Scripture [ 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:19.] , and the lively preaching of the Gospel to direct us in his service: Therein it is taught that Christ died to bear our curse upon the cross, to satisfy for our sins by the sacrifice of his body, and to wash them away by his blood, finally, to reconcile us unto God the Father: to what purpose then was it to have everywhere in Churches so many crosses set up, of word, of stone, of silver and gold: the Gospel, and in a manner crucified before our eyes, and by hearing and reading of the Scripture, and meditation in the word, and by the use of the Sacraments, we might learn more, than out of a thousand crosses of wood or stone. Jeremias Bastingius, An Exposition or Commentary Vpon the Catechisme of Christian Religion, which is taught in the Schooles and Churches both of the Low Countries, and of the Dominions of the Countie Palatine (Printed at London by Iohn Legatt, Printer to the University of Cambridge, 1614), 427. [Marginal references cited inline; some reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

3) 2. There is ground therefore being laid of our humbling before God, Christ teaches how we may be delivered from the guiltiness of our sins and from the punishment, whereas we are by no means able to satisfy God ourselves’ to wit, by forgiveness alone, which is the pardon of God’s free mercy, when he himself does freely cross out these debts, that is, sins, and imputes not the punishment thereof unto us, taking no recompense at our hands, but of his own mercy making satisfaction to the himself in Christ, who did deliver himself once for all for a recompense, and shed his blood for us…

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