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Calvin and Calvinism » 2009 » May

Archive for May, 2009

18
May

Experience Mayhew (1673-1758) on the Death of Christ

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism    in For Whom did Christ Die?

Mayhew:

Christ sent to redeem the world:

1) Now, if the Case be really such as has been now expressed, I would fain know what Kindness (if any at all) is showed to those that fail of Salvation: Or will it be said. That in the Revelation of a Way of Salvation by Jesus Christ, there Is no real Favor shown to any but those who shall eventually be saved? May we then tell those to whom we preach the Gospel, that unless they obtain eternal Life, God has shown them no real Kindness, in all that which has been done, of which we have an Account in the Gospel? Can we think that the maintaining of this would be to the Honor of divine Grace? For my Part, I cannot think that all that seeming Love which God manifests to Mankind, in sending his Son to redeem a sinful World, and setting up a Treaty of Peace among all those to whom the Gospel is preached, is no Kindness to such as are not eventually saved. Such an Opinion as this seems not to agree with such Texts as these which follow, viz. John 3. 16. 1 John 2. 2. and Chap. 4. 19. so Luk. 2. 10,11. 2 Cor. 5, 18-20, and many other Places. Experience Mayhew, Grace Defended in a Most Plea For an Important Truth; Namely, That the offer of Salvation made to Sinners in the Gospel comprises in it an Offer of the Grace given in Regeneration (Boston: Printed by B. Green, and Company, for D. Henchman, in Cornhil, 1744), 141. [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.]

Man’s redemption:

1) 3) It further fallows, on the Hypothesis here insisted on. That our first Parents, and all their Posterity, did, by Means of the Interposition of a Mediator to redeem and save them, immediately become Subjects of his mediatorial Kingdom. Mankind had, ’till then, been held fast under a Covenant of Works, to be dealt with according to the Tenor of that Covenant; but now the Son of God, (having been appointed a Mediator from Eternity) was promised to be a Savior, in Gen. 3. 15. and so the Decree was declared, as in Psal. 2. 7, and his Undertaking this glorious Work revealed; and began to have its proper Efficacy, he being the Lamb virtually slain from the Foundation of the World. Not that Mankind were hereby immediately discharged from the Guilt of Sin, and entitled to eternal Life; for they remained still subject to the Penalty threatened in the broken Covenant of Works ‘till something might be farther done for them, pursuant to the mentioned Undertaking of the Redeemer. But what I intend, is, that they immediately became rightful Subjects of that Kingdom which the Son of God had, as Mediator, committed to him. and which he was afterwards to deliver up to his Father, as in 1 Cor. 15. 24. It was by paying the Price of Man’s Redemption, that our Lord obtained such a Right to rule and govern all those, by his Laws and Ordinances, who are the Objects of his Purchase: And all the Laws given to Mankind since the Fall, are properly the Laws of the Mediator, by him given to them, the Price of whole Redemption he undertook to pay, and in due Time did so, according to his Covenant with his Father: And according to these Laws of his, he actually governs the World, blessing and rewarding the Obedient, and punishing the Disobedient, as is in the holy Scriptures abundantly declared. As for the Covenant of Works, that being once broken, Mankind stood in no other Relation to it than this, that they must undergo the Punishment threatened in it, unless in some Way consistent with the Tenor of it, they might obtain a Discharge there from. God never after the Fall of Adam, proposed the Covenant of Works to sinful Men, as a Way in which they might obtain eternal Life; though he has sometimes given them a Representation or the Nature and Tenor of that Covenant, that he might convince them how impassible it Is to obtain Happiness by Obedience to it, as in Gal 3. 10–12. Yet sincere Obedience to the moral Law is required in the new Covenant and is, according to the Nature and. Tenor of it, necessary to Man’s Happiness: Rev, 22.14.

4) It is obvious, on the Hypothesis. for which I plead, That all. Adam’s Off-spring are brought into the World in a salvable Condition. In such a Condition, I mean, as that, in a Way consistent with divine Justice, and the Tenor of the first Covenant, they may be eternally saved. Nor do I intend this in such a Sense only, as wherein the same may be verified concerning sinful Mankind, before (if I may so speak) a Ransom was found for them, because it was in the Power of God to find out and provide a Way for their salvation; which, if he could not have done, no Sinner could ever have been saved.

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15
May

Experience Mayhew (1673-1758) on Divine Permission of Sin

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism    in Divine Permission of Sin

Mayhew:

1) 4. From God’s permitting free Agents thus to act, the Things in this Way brought to pass, will as certainly have a Being as if God decreed to bring them about by a positive Act of his Power. For if he himself does, or decrees to do all that is necessary in order to their Futurition, giving his Creatures all the Power and Aid that is necessary thereunto, administering also the Occasions leading to such Actions or Events, when he knows that his Creatures being put into such a State, and then left to their own free Will, will assuredly act after such a Manner; he does by Consequence will or decree such Actions or Events, as they, not he, are the immediate Efficients and formal Causes of. I say, he that wills to do that on which he certainly knows such an Event will follow, does by Consequence will that Event, tho’ he himself neither does the Thing, nor is properly the Cause of another’s doing it; and tho’ the Agent by whom such an Agent is done, or such an Effect produced, be at perfect Liberty whether he will do so or not. In this Case the Event will assuredly happen, or the Effect be produced, as if the Agent acting had no Liberty; because God has determined to do, and actually does, that which he knows will be an Occasion (not Cause) of that Agent’s so acting.

The certain Futurition of any Events thus necessarily, or rather certainly, consequent on God’s permissive Decree, relating to them, does not at all infer a Want of Power or Liberty in the Agents immediately concerned in them, of not acting as they do. If God decrees to do that, on which he knows such an Event will follow, that is. That his Creature having Power so to act, will of its own Accord do so, the Consequence of this is not, that his Creature has not Power to do otherwise. I think this is as plain as any Thing can be. How should God’s Decree to suffer a free Agent to act after such a Manner, infer that Agent’s not having Power to forbear so acting?      Experience Mayhew, Grace Defended in a Most Plea For an Important Truth; Namely, That the offer of Salvation made to Sinners in the Gospel comprises in it an Offer of the Grace given in Regeneration (Boston: Printed by B. Green, and Company, for D. Henchman, in Cornhil, 1744), 187-189. [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.] 158-159

2) As God neither will, nor ever designed to torment Men in another Life, save for their Sins, whereby they well deserve the fame; so he never is, nor intended to be, the Cause of those Sins for which he resolved to punish those who he ever knew would deserve it. If God should himself cause Men to commit Sin, it would not stand with his Justice to punish them for it. But no Man can prove, that God was ever the Author of any Sin. To affirm he ever was, is to blaspheme his holy Name. If any have let fall Expressions implying that God is the Author of Sin, they have certainly erred therein: And they who accuse Men with this (as I think, is frequent) when they are not guilty of it,, are guilty of grievously wronging them.

They who affirm. That God has from Eternity decreed to permit those Sins to be committed, which he certainly knew would be committed, if he prevented them not, and that he accordingly does permit them, do not hereby make him the Author of Sin. God’s suffering his Creatures to Sin, when it is in his Power to hinder them, is not to be the Author of Sin. Nor is God in Justice obliged to exert his Power in hindering Persons from sinning, tho’ he knows they will Sin if he does not, and that their Sinning will bring Ruin on them.

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Sarcerius:

Of Predestination there may be two parts. The one is called Predestination of alligation[?], and the other Predestination of condition, according to the division of Augustine in his book of Predestination. Alligation is the necessity of things present, as when a thing is seen to be present by God’s foresight, that same must needs be, although it has no necessity of Nature: as that all men be mortal, it is necessary, God so providing. Predestination of condition, is: As if Adam eat of this Apple, he shall die. If Israel shall walk in the way of the Lord, and shall keep his commandments, he shall be saved. If thou receives the Gospel, and stick fast thereunto to the end of life, thou shall be saved. But if thou receive it not, thou shall be damned.

In this part of Predestination we ought to comfort our conscience, when we be vexed with the judgment of reason, contrary to the universal promise of the Gospel. But of these parts we shall speak more in the title of contingence or chance, which chance because of the fathers of the church would not take away, they seem to have invented the foresaid parts.

Erasmus Sarcerius, Common Places of Scripture, trans., Richard Tauerner (Imprinted at London by Nycolas Nyll for Abraham Vele, dwelling in Pauls church yarde at the signe of the Lambe, 1553), folio xiia. [Some reformatting, some spelling modernized; marginal side-headers  not included; and underlining mine.]

Hughes:

1) Should taste death; a metaphor to express to die as a sacrifice, making satisfaction to Divine justice, and expiating sins, Isa. liii.10. All his sufferings in body and soul, which were many and bitter, are here intended, and their completion by death, Matt. xxvi. 39, 42, intimating by his taste of this deadly cup, his sipping of it, but not having swallowed it: and it is a metaphor allusive to the Grecian customs, who put men to death by giving them a cup of poison, as the Athenians executed Socrates.

For every man
; to render sin remissible to all persons, and them salvable, God punishing man’s sin in him, and laying on him the iniquities of us all, Isa. liii. 4-6; 1 John ii. 2; and so God became propitious and pleasable to all; and if all are not saved by it, it is because they do not repent and believe in him, 2 Cor. v. 19-21: compare John x. 15. This was evident to and well known by these Hebrews,, as if they saw it, the work, concomitants, and effect of it demonstrating it. And this now in the gospel is evident to faith: it was so certainly visible and evidently true, as not to be denied but by infidels.  Source: The Matthew Poole Annotations, Hebrews 2:9.

2) He also himself likewise took part of the same; God the Son himself paralesios, had the next and nearest correspondent condition with theirs, even the same as to the kind of it, as like as blood is to blood, properly and truly, only freed from our sinful infirmities, as ver. 17; chap. iv. 15; this word diminisheth him not, but showeth his identity: metesche, took part, he became a partner with the children, and took their nature. It is not the Same word as before, kekoinoneke, as the Marcionites and Manichees corrupt it, as if he had this nature only in common with them, making him only man. But being God, besides his Divine nature, &c., to it he took the human, even their true and full nature, consisting of a body and a soul, and so united them. that in him they became one person; so that hence results a double union of Christ with man. By his incarnation he is of one nature with all the human race, and so is the Head of them: and by his dying for them all the human race are made salvable, which angels are not; and those who repent and believe on him, are actually sanctified and united to him, as his elect and chosen body, and shall be saved by him. Source: The Matthew Poole Annotations, Hebrews 2:14.

Ussher:

OF THE FALL OF MAN, ORIGINAL SIN, AND THE STATE OF MAN BEFORE JUSTIFICATION.

28. God is not the author of sin: howbeit, he doth not only permit, but also by his providence govern and order the same, guiding it in such sort by his infinite wisdom as it turneth to the manifestation of his own glory and to the good of his elect.