Thomas Cranmer

Expiation and Propitiation

Sacrifice for Sin:

1) But what sleights and shifts this writer doth use to wind the reader into his error, it is wonder to see, by devising to make two sacrifices of one will; the one by declaration, the other by execution; advice such as was never imagined before of no man, and meet to come out of a fantastical head. But I say precisely, that Christ offered himself never but once, because the scripture so precisely and so many times saith so; and having the same for my warrant, it maketh me the bolder to stand against you, that deny that thing which is so often times repeated in scripture. And where you say, that”there is no scripture whereupon we might conclude that Christ did in this mortal life, but in one particular moment of time, offer himself to the Father:” to what purpose you bring forth this moment of time I cannot tell, for I made no mention thereof, but of the day of his death; and the scripture saith plainly, that as it is ordained for every man to die but once, so Christ was offered but once; and saith further, that sin is not forgiven but by effusion of blood, and therefore if Christ had been offered many times, he should have died many times. And of any other offering of Christ’s body for sin, the scripture speaketh not. For although St Paul to the Philippians speaketh of the humiliation of Christ by his incarnation, and so to worldly miseries and afflictions, even unto death upon the cross; yet he calleth not every humiliation of Christ a sacrifice and oblation for remission of sin, but only his oblation upon Good Friday, which as it was our perfect redemption, so was it our perfect reconciliation, propitiation, and satisfaction for sin. And to what purpose you make here a long process of our sacrifices of obedience unto God’s commandments, I cannot devise. For I declare in my last book, that all our whole obedience unto God’s will and commandments is a sacrifice acceptable to God, but not a sacrifice propitiatory: for that sacrifice Christ only made, and by that his sacrifice all our sacrifices be acceptable to God, and without that none is acceptable to him. Thomas Cranmer, ‘Of the Presenceof Christ,” in Works, 1:86.

2) And here they run headlongs into the foulest and most heinous error that ever was imagined. For if they make every day the same oblation and sacrifice for sin that Christ himself made, and the oblation that he made was his death, and the effusion of his most precious blood upon the cross, for our redemption and price of our sins; then followeth it of necessity, that they every day slay Christ, and shed his blood, and so be they worse than the wicked Jews and Pharisees, which slew him and shed his blood but once. Thomas Cranmer, “Of the Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ,” in Works 1:348.

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Arthur Dent:

Christ died for all, in the sufficiency of his death, but not in efficacy unto life; for only the elect shall be saved by his death; as it is written,  This is my blood in the new testament, which is given for you, meaning his disciples and chosen children. And, again, Christ, being consecrated, is made  the author of salvation to all that obey him.

Arthur Dent, A Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven (Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow Brighton, 1859), 210.

[Note: This stated form of the formula could be taken as expressive of either the classic or of the revised construction. What is interesting is the apparent representational intention, ‘Christ died for all in this sense.’ It was this apparent intentionality that motivated many to restate the formula, thereby removing any hint representation and intentionality, of Christ dying representatively for all even with regard to the sufficiency of the merit and ransom of Christ. Thus, we now know the formula as “Christ’s death is sufficient for all, but efficient for the elect.” Now the emphasis is purely on the death’s intrinsic sufficiency. What is more, so many modern readers, read the older formula as if it meant to say nothing more than the revised expression seeks to communicate; which is not a lot in actuality.]

While at the Dort, Bishop Carleton, says Godfrey, stressed the efficacy of the death of Christ for the elect, “which emphasized the strict Calvinist position.”¹ Carleton asserted this in contradistinction to Davenant and Ward. However, even with his apparent opposition, Carleton no less affirmed:

Christ therefore so dyed for all, that all and every one by the meanes of faith might obtaine remission of sins, and eternall life by vertue of that ransome paid once for all mankinde. But Christ so dyed for the elect, that by the merit of his death in speciall manner destinated unto them according to the eternall good pleasure of God, they might infallibly obtaine both faith and eternall life.

George Carleton, The Suffrage of the Divines of Great Britaine, Concerning the Five Articles Controverted in the Low Countries, (London: Robert Milbounre, 1629), 47-48.

When this work was published, it was signed by all the Englist delegates to Dort to signify their unity regarding the articles of Dort.

Credit to Marty for the find.

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¹William Robert Godfrey, Tensions Within International Calvinism: The Debate on the Atonement at the Synod of Dort, 1618-1619 (Ph.D diss., Stanford University, 1974), 177.

Of the Cause of Sin.

Sin properly is nothing formally subsisting or existing (for then God should be the author of it) but it is an ataxy or absence of goodness and uprightness in the thing that subsists, Psalm 5:4; John 2:16; 1 John 1:5; Habakkuk 1:13; Job 34:10.

The Manichees think that God can be no means be said to will sin, therefore they held two principles, summum bonum, from which all good things, and summum malum, from which all both sins and punishments. They thought it absurd and impossible for any evil to proceed from the chief good. But there can not be a summum malum, as there is a summum bonum, because evil in its own nature is nothing else but a privatio boni, sin a privation of justice and rectitude and an aberration from the Law, and every privation must necessarily be in some subject.

The Church of Rome slanders the Protestants, and says, that they maintain God to be the cause of sin, but we hold that the Devil and man’s corrupt will are the cause of it. Sin in man at first came from Satan, John 3:8 and 8:44; John 6:17; Matthew 16:23, the cause of sin now man is fallen, is from ourselves, Matthew 15:19.

God has no hand in the acting and approving of sin, Romans 3:5, 6, & 9:14. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity with approbation; He is the wise permitted, powerful disposer, and eternal avenger of it.

God cannot sin, or cause others to sin:

1. Because as he is subject to no Law which he can transgress, so his will is most holy and pure, and the rule of perfection, Isaiah 6. He is holy in his Nature, Actions, he has so confirmed his Angels in holiness that they cannot sin, 1 John 1:4.
2. To sin is to turn away from the chief and last end, therefore he cannot sin: The Scriptures always attribute it to the Devil and man, Romans 9:14.
3. God threatens sinners in his Word, and punishes them, therefore he allows it not.
4. All deservedly hate the Libertines, who would make that sacred and dreadful Majesty the cause of their detestable enormities, Quicquid ego & tu facimus Deus efficit, nam in nobis est. Calv. Advers. Libert. cap 12. Therefore Bellamine does wickedly in imputing to Protestant Divines that which they detest with the greatest loathing.

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