Rollock:

Special redemption (sample):

1) And wherefore died Christ; was it to redeem us from persecution, or crosses in this world? No, the Lord died that he might redeem us from sin with his precious blood; and Paul (to the Corinthians) maketh mention of that triumph that the Church shall have when the Lord Jesus shall come, ” O death where is thy sting?” Then she shall glory that she is redeemed from sin, and from offending of God. Robert Rollock, “The Thirteenth Sermon on Psalm 80,” in Selected Works, 1:481.

2) And, if thou wilt repent thee, I assure thee, though thou wert the greatest dinner that ever was, thou shalt have mercy; and, therefore, if thou hast gone long on in din, yet even for God’s cause at last take up thyself; and I promise thee exceeding mercy in that bloody sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath died both for thee, and me, and all penitent sinners. To him, therefore, with the Father and Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory for evermore. Amen. Robert Rollock, “The Resurrection of Christ,” in Select Works, 2:427.

3) Think not that ever thy sins shall be forgiven thee, without the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ. And either thou must die, or have part in the death of the Mediator. The end of his suffering was the perfect abolishing and undoing of the sins of the elect, ye may read in the ninth chapter to the Hebrews. Robert Rollock, “The Passion of Christ,” Selected Works, 2:221.

4) Now, Brethren, and if ye make again the words well, ye shall see a great difference betwixt the prayer that Christ made, and betwixt the Prayer of the faithful in the world: When we pray for others, our prayer is confused: we cannot separate the Reprobate from the Elect: we pray for all together, good and evil, because we know not who is chosen, and who is reprobate and cast away. Then, we pray for the Elect, and for the Kirk, our prayer is but confused and general: we cannot pray for every particular man, or every chosen one, because we know them not: but generally we recommend unto God the whole Kirk: this is the manner of our prayer. Bt it is far otherwise in this prayer which the Lord makes for his Disciples, and for the Chosen. The Lord prays for his Elect, but he prays not for the Reprobate: and particularly hereafter he excludes Judas; because the Lord knew who was elect, and who was reprobate. Then again, when he prays for the Elect, he prays not confusedly, as we do: but in his eye is set upon everyone of the chosen particularly. There was never one of the chosen, that was that time that Christ was in the world, or was since the beginning of the world, or shall be to the end of the world, but the LORD prayed for everyone of them particularly: he prayed for me, and he prayed for thee, and he saw everyone pf us before the beginning of the world, and now he recommends us to the Father. Think not, that the Lord Jesus prayed confusedly, and generally for all men: no, he prayed particularly for the Chosen: there is not one Chosen, but the eye of the Lord is upon them all. Why? The Lord knew who was chosen: No, there was not one little one, yea, the poorest upon the face of the earth, of the chosen number, but in that time he had his eye upon them, that the holy Spirit might flow to them out of his death. When the Lord died, ye must not think that he died for all: he died for some: he died not for any reprobate: he separated the Elect from the Reprobate, by virtue of his death. When he offered himself to the death, his eye was set upon every one of the Elect that was in the world: and when he was going to death, he said in his heart, I will die for this sinner, and this sinner, &c. His eye was upon every one of them. Paul to the Galatians, Chap. 2. vers 20. knew this well: The life I live now in the flesh (says the Apostle,) I live by faith in the Son of God, who has loved me, and given himself, not for the Chosen in general, but particularly for me. Well then, says Pul, this ways that he died for him particularly? And the Lord said before his death, I have a particular eye to Paul. And howbeit he was an enemy to Christ, at that time, persecuting him in his members, yet he says, I will die for Paul. Then every one of us should say, as Paul said, Not generally the Lord loved the world, the Lord gave himself for the Elect: but particularly the Lord loved me, and the Lord loved thee; and the Lord died for thee, and died for me; and the Lord had an eye to me in his death, and a respect to me in his prayer &c. This particular respect which the Lord had to me, furnished great comfort, when I consider it: for if the Prince had a respect to any particular person, he would be greatly comforted: and should not this particular respect of the LORD JESUS, King of all kings, comfort us? No, there is not one Chosen in this life, but the Son of God,i n his death, had a particular respect unto us, without regard who got it: No, he knew well to whom the last spark, or drop, of that blood should appertain. Robert Rollock, Five and Twentie Lectures Upon the Last Sermon and Conference of our Lord Jesus Christ, With his Disciples immediately before his Passion, (Edinburgh: Printed by Andro Hart, 1616), 214-215.

Sufficient ransom and redemption for the sins of the world:

1) No man’s death was ever so powerful as the death of the Lord Jesus. All the emperors in the world had no such power in their death as Christ had. It testifies of a power to purge the sins of man. What emperor’s blood ransomed sinful man, or could purge him from his sins? What water came there ever from an emperor’s heart, which washed away the corruption of thy nature? Now, to speak it in a word, this blood and this water testified of a power that flowed from the death of Christ to the remission of sins, and the washing of our foul nature; with the blood broke out remission of sins, and with the water burst out regeneration. Yet, to make this plainer; by the blood of Christ, (which is the blood of God, God and man in one,) we are ransomed from death and hell, the guiltiness of all our sins is taken away, the punishment with the guilt is taken away, hell is taken away, the justice of God, that required our blood, is satisfied by that blood of Christ, that wrath that would have sucked up thy blood, (it would not have left one drop of thy blood unsucked,) and that wrath which cannot be satiate without blood, is satiate by the only blood of Christ. Robert Rollock, “The Passion of Christ,” in Select Works, 2:282.

2) So, the ministers have these two things enjoined unto them, to preach the word, and to minister the sacraments. We hear nothing spoken here of offering of a sacrifice, either bloody or unbloody, or of a priesthood; and, no question, if there had been such a thing, or, at least, if it had been a matter of such importance, and so necessary, as the pope and his shavelings say, the Lord would 1 altogether have misknown it, and passed it over with silence, but he would have spoken something of it to his apostles; so, it is but a folly and vanity to think, that since Christ hath once offered himself a propitiatory sacrifice for the redemption of the world, that now there remains any propitiatory sacrifice in the church. The Lord hath put an end to them all by his death and sacrifice; there is no priesthood committed either to the apostles before, or to the ministers now, but that where, by the preaching of the word, they offer the souls of men and women in a sacrifice to the Lord. Away with that devilish sacrifice of the mass, whereby the pope and his clergy deceive the world, making men believe that daily they offer up Christ again, as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Father, for the sins of the quick and the dead. No; there is no propitiatory sacrifice now left to the kirk. That sacrifice which the Lord once offered upon the cross is sufficient and perfect enough to take away the sins of the world. Robert Rollock, “The Resurrection of Christ,” in Select Works, 2:661.

3) Only believe in that blood, and thou shalt be saved. Rom. 3. vers. 25. “God has set forth Christ to be a reconciliation through faith in his blood.” Away with merits paltry; fie on thee and thy merits both. Thou thinks thou can not be saved but by thy merits, as though the blood of Christ were not able to redeem thee without merits: away with such vanity. The blood of Christ is sufficeient to redeem ten thousand worlds; yea ten thousand millions of world. Robert Rollock, Lectures Upon the Epistle of Paul to the Colossians, (London: Imprinted by Felix Kyngston, dwelling in Pater-noster row, over against the sign of the checker, 1603), 62.

4) Then after to let us see the preciousness of this blood, and the necessity of this redemption by his blood, he fell out into a fair and high description of the son of God, setting him out in many points of his glory, partly as he is God, the son of God only; partly as he is both God and man the mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. Of the which whole points of his glory, we concluded he blood of such a glorious personage, must be exceeding precious; and so it behooved that this blood should ransom us, and ransom the world. Yea, if we look to this preciousness of it, it is not only sufficient to ransom a world, but to ransom ten thousand worlds. Robert Rollock, Lectures Upon the Epistle of Paul to the Colossians, (London: Imprinted by Felix Kyngston, dwelling in Pater-noster row, over against the sign of the checker, 1603), 88.

Redemption of man:

1) Thou thinks it nothing but surely it is wonderful matter, if ye consider it rightly: so then there is a wide step, a strange step, that steps down from his glory, wherein he stood equal with his Father. Yet he goes another step downward, “being found in the habit of a man:” he to whom all other creatures gives obedience, of his own will becomes obedient to his father. Wherein stands this obedience? Not in doing only, but in dying, What death? The death of he Cross, and execrable death: the bitterest death that ever was: nay, never man died so bitter a death as Christ died. All the death of men and Angels is not comparable to that death of Jesus Christ, that he died to redeem sinful man: There is his humiliation. Robert Rollock, Lectures Upon the Epistle of Paul to the Colossians, (London: Imprinted by Felix Kyngston, dwelling in Pater-noster row, over against the sign of the checker, 1603),58-59.

2) But yet let us mark the words betters: I have glorified thee, Father: that is, I have put and end to that work thou gavest me, the fair work of the redemption of man, the fairest work that ever was: yea, fairer than the creation of the world. Robert Rollock, Five and Twentie Lectures Upon the Last Sermon and Conference of our Lord Jesus Christ, (Edinburgh, Printed by Andro Hart, 1619), 195.

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Tyndale:

Redeemer of the World:

1) Here therefore it is to be noted diligently, that Christ meaneth, as every man may see, by death. the eating of this bread none other thing than the belief in himself offered up for our sins, which faith only justified! us, which sentence to declare more plainly, and that he would have it noted more diligently, he repeateth it yet again, saying, It is I that am the lively bread which am come down from heaven; whoso eateth of this bread shall live everlastingly. And to put you clear out of doubt, I shall show you in few words what this matter is, and by what ways I must be the Saviour and Redeemer of the world, to give it this life so often How the rehearsed, and therefore now take good heed. Tyndale, “The Supper of the Lord,” in The Works of the English Reformers William Tyndale and John Frith ed. Thomas Russell (London: Printed for Ebenezer Palmer, 1831), 3:24.

2) And even so verily must they that eat me, that is, believe in me, form and fashion them after my example, mortifying their flesh, changing their living; or else they eat me in vain, and dissemble their belief. For I am not come to redeem the world only, but also to change their life. Tyndale, ‘The Supper of the Lord,” in Works, 3:36

3) How long rill ye be without understanding? It is my spirit, I tell you, that giveth life. My flesh profiteth you nothing to eat it; but to believe that it shall be crucified and suffer for the redemption of the world, it profiteth. And when ye thus believe, then eat ye my flesh and drink my blood, that is, ye believe in me to suffer for your sins. Tyndale, ‘The Supper of the Lord,” in Works, 3:37.

Christ redeemed all:

1) Which two points, that is to wit, the law spiritually interpreted, how that all is damnable sin that is not unfeigned love out of the ground and bottom of the heart, after the ensample of Christ’s love to us, because we be all equally created and formed of one God our Father, and indifferently bought and redeemed with one blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ; and that he promises be given unto a repenting soul, that thirsteth and longeth after them, of the pure and fatherly mercy of God, through our faith only, without all deserving of our deeds or merits of our works, but for Christ s sake alone, and for the merits and deservings of his works, death, and passions that he suffered altogether for us, and not for himself: which two points, I say, if they be written in thine heart, are the keys which so open all the scripture unto thee, that no creature can lock thee out, and with which thou shalt go in and out, and find pasture and food everywhere. Tyndale, “Prologue to the Prophet Jonas,” in Doctrinal Treatises, 464.

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Definite atonement (sample):

1) The presumption and headiness of man would have set the cart before the horse ; but the everlasting truth hath appointed this order. Peter thought he would have jeoparded his life for Christ, and have redeemed the Redeemer: but Christ came to give his life for his sheep, of whom Peter was one. Now after that Christ died for those that be his, there is strength given in the hearts of such shepherds and sheep as be faithful, to suffer death for Christ s sake. “The Resurrection of Christ,” in The Writings and Translations of Miles Coverdale, 362.

Sins of the world:

1) HERE should we children of belief diligently ponder and consider, what Christ hath done for our sakes; namely, that he, when he had fulfilled his ministration committed to him of the Father, and now would offer up himself upon the cross for the sins of the world, and with his own death deliver mankind from the captivity of Satan, and from eternal death, declared, how he loved his own until the end, and with what desire he longed to eat the Easter lamb with his disciples, before he suffered. 1 Cor. v. Isai. liii. John i.: giving them thereby to understand, that he was the true paschal Lamb, which, being slain for us, should take away the sins of the world, that the figures of the old testament might be reduced into the truth; that like as the Jews, to whom with a prescribed ordinance it was commanded yearly to eat the Exod. xii. Easter lamb, did the same for a memorial of their deliverance out of Egypt; so we believers also might in the new testament have a remembrance and exercise of the gracious redemption, whereas we by his death are delivered from the power of darkness, of the devil, and of sin, and brought to eternal life.

And to the intent now that the remembrance of such excellent benefits, grace, and merits of the passion of Christ, might ever be fresh and new with his disciples and all believers, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he now would go unto death, and pay the ransom for the sins of all the world, he then did eat the Easter lamb with his disciples, to finish the shadow of the old testament; and that he might be remembered thereby, he instituted the bread and wine for a sacrament and memorial of his holy body and blood. Miles Coverdale, “The Passion of Christ,” in The Writings and Translations of Miles Coverdale, 211

2) For the death of Christ is our life. The earth quaked, the stones burst asunder. For the preaching of the death of the Son of God hath altered the whole world, and many hard stony hearts are moved to repentance, faith, and good works. But when the side of the dead body of Christ was opened with the spear, and the rock, as Zachary saith, was digged up, there ran out water and blood; declaring manifestly thereby, that unto us out of the death of blood Christ followeth life and purifying. For water cleanseth, in the blood is the life of man, and with the blood of Christ is all blood stanched; and now is Christ s blood only available, being sprinkled through faith in our hearts. This oblation and passion of Christ, the ransom for the sin of the whole world, was done in the eighteenth year of the empire of Tiberius, reckoning from the beginning of the world 4007 years, the 25^th day of March. Miles Coverdale, “The Old Faith,” in The Writings and Translations of Miles Coverdale, 75-76.

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Sibbes:

Limited redemption:

1) First, He redeems us by paying the price, and so he only redeemeth, for he paid the price to divine justice. We are in bondage to the wrath of God under his justice; and so there must be satisfaction to justice before we can be free.

Then, secondly, We are in bondage to Satan, as God’s executioner and jailor. Now from him we are freed by strong hand. So Christ freeth us by his Holy Spirit, working such graces in us as makes us see the loathsomeness of that bondage; working likewise grace in us to be in love with a better condition, that the Spirit discovers to us. So that the Spirit brings us out by discovery and by power. All that Christ freeth by virtue of redemption, paying the price for, all those he frees likewise by his Spirit, discovering to them their bondage, and the blessed condition whereunto they are to be brought to a state of freedom, which freedom he perfects by little and little, till he bring them to a glorious freedom in heaven.

And the reason of this, that where Christ doth free by way of redemption, to die and satisfy God’s justice for any, to those he gives his Spirit, by which Spirit they are set at liberty the reasons are manifold. To name one or two. Sibbes, “Excellency of the Gospel,” in Works, 4:218.

2) Fourth, Again, Christ gave that that was his own, his own body, his own life, for his sheep; and his own endeavour, whatsoever he gave, was his own. So if we will be kind to others, we must do it of our own; we must not do good with that that we have gotten from others by unjust means. For the ‘sacrifice of the wicked,’ in this kind, ‘is an abomination to the Lord,’ Isa. i. 13. Let us have interest in that we give. Christ gave his own life, and God gave his own Son for us. Sibbes, “The Church’s Riches,” in Works, 4:523.

3) “Believed on in the world.” By ‘world,’ especially here in this place, is meant the world taken out of the world, the world of elect. There is a world in the world, as one saith well in unfolding this point; as we see, man is called a little world in the great world. Christ was preached to the world of wicked men, that by preaching, a world might be taken out of the world, which is the world of believers. Hence we may clear our judgments in that point, that when Christ is said to redeem the world, it must not be understood generally of all mankind. We see here, the world is said to believe in Christ. Did all mankind believe in Christ? was there not a world of un believers? Sibbes, “The Fountain Opened,” in Works, 5:516-517.

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