Archive for November 14th, 2014

The Stafforts Book (1599):

Thus we now, with the full witness of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments and also of the teaching of the Christian church, confess that after the grievous fall of our first parents, man can do nothing at all for his own salvation or conversion, or of his own ability help or cooperate therein. Instead, God alone creates in us a new heart; in the place of our heart that is made a heart of stone by sin, [He] must give us a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:27). Now we must note the specific means that God uses in our conversion, namely the preaching of the merits of the Lord Christ and the holy, most worthy sacraments, which are the seals and gracious signs, and which are appended to the comforting preaching of de Merito Christi (the merits of Christ). In connection with the teaching of the merits of Christ, this disruptive question of our day intrudes itself into the Protestant churches: whether Christ has died for the sins of the entire world or for the sins of a few, that is, for those who believe! And although this question has its clear explanation in God’s Holy Scriptures, so that man ought not eagerly to rush into self-willed wrangling over a matter in which there should be no strife, nevertheless in order to make Our simple meaning plain, we confess that when one considers the merit of Christ in its worth, power, and complete ability (as Augustine states), the greatness, power, and worth of Christ’s merit is more than sufficiently powerful and precious to take away, redeem, and propitiate not only the sins of the whole world, but rather, the whole world even if the world were much larger than it is. . . .

Now as the Lord Christ says in John 3:18 and 36, “He who believes On the Son has eternal life. He who does not believe on the Son will not see life. Rather, the wrath of God remains on him.” We understand that this heavenly cure, this overwhelmingly precious and all-sufficient medication for sin, in whatever manner it may show its power and effectiveness in us, requires faith. . . .

Because, as has now been shown, only those are redeemed from eternal death by the death of Christ, are reconciled with God, are justified from sins, and are saved, who have received from the holy gospel the death of Christ and his merit through faith, and who Consecrate themselves to Him, so it cannot be otherwise taught (when one considers the meritum Christi quod efficaciam [the merit of Christ regarding its efficacy] and all that it so powerfully accomplishes), than that Christ died only for believers and not for all men in general. For the unbelievers, as long as they remain in unbelief, do not receive any benefit from the merit of Christ. And this is consistent with Holy Scripture. . . .

“The Stafforts Book (1599)” in, Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation, ed., James T. Dennison, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 3:768. [Some minor reformatting; italics original; bracketed inserts original; and underlining mine.]

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Williams:

3. In that they say: For whom Christ died, for them he made full satisfaction for their sins, as the Apostle shows, “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace” [Ephes. 1:7, Coloss. 1:14.]. But Christ made not any satisfaction for the sins of the reprobate, for if he had, then God in justice could not punish them for those sins for which Christ had fully satisfied, therefore, it cannot be that Christ died for reprobates.

The wicked
condemned for
not applying
the merits
of Christ.

I answer: that Christ made sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the reprobates, and yet God in his justice may punish them, for want of application of the merits of Christ: for as the patient may well perish though the physic be made for him, if he does not receive & apply the same unto himself. As S. Augustine shows, that we were all sick of sin, and the heavenly Physician descended unto us, and brought us heavenly physic, imo phamaca benedicta, even the most blessed medicines: yet, merito perijt agrotus, the sick man may well perish, if he does not receive and apply this heavenly physic unto himself, even so though Christ died for them, and made satisfaction for their sins, yet they be most justly condemned, for not receiving and applying the same unto themselves, but to suffer το λυδον υαγα,1 this great price, to be ineffectual unto them.

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