Archive for October 19th, 2010
Foxe:
Christ Died for all:
1) Many other places there by in Holy Scripture, which testify of the righteousness, holiness, and innocency of this immaculate person, of whom it is written: “Which of you can rebuke me of sin?” Against whom also we read “That the Prince of this world came, and found in him nothing,” as writes Saint John, meaning thereby his innocency to be such, and perfection of his life so absolute, that no creature could stain or charge him with blot or blemish. So absolutely he performed the law, and every iota thereof, both the first Table, and the second, in loving God above all things, and his neighbor as himself, that neither was there lacking in him anything that the Law required, nor any thing forbidden in the Law, that in him was found: nor yet any else found able to accomplish the same Law, besides himself alone. For it behooved him, which should die for all, to be holy and innocent alone, and none but he, according as we read and sing in the hymn of Ambrose, Tu solus sanctus, i. “Thou art holy,” &c. And so he was, and is, and none else holy and innocent in all the world but he. John Foxe, A Sermon of Christ Crucified, preached, at Paules Crosse on Fridaie before Easter, commonly called Goodfri-daie, (At London: Imprinter by Ihon Daie: ouer Aldersgate, 1575), 102-103. [Some spelling modernized; some reformatting; and underlining mine.]
2) Christ
appointed to
fulfill the law
before the law
was given.
First, that God has given a Law to be fulfilled, we all confess.
Second, that Christ came from the beginning, before the Law was given, was preordained to be incarnate, and to take our nature, no man can deny.
How the law
is not impossible
to man,
and how it is
fully answered
by man.
Thirdly, that the same Christ in the same our nature has utterly fulfilled and discharged the law, it is manifest. And how then is that to be accounted impossible to man, which man so clearly has accomplished.
Christ the
second Adam.
Fourthly, that in the same nature and humanity of Christ, the Son of God, and the Son of Man, the whole nature of mankind is included, the Scripture teaches: and therefore his called the second Adam. For as all we were included in the nature of Adam, which first disobeyed, and by him condemned: So we are likewise generally included in the human nature of this second Adam, which obeyed, and by him saved.