Fuller:

LETTER II

ON IMPUTATION.

Jan. 8, 1803.

My DEAR Brother, While Mr. B[ooth] refuses to give any explanation of his conduct, there can be no intercourse between me and him. I have no objection to give the most explicit answers in my power to the questions on Imputation and Substitution. I shall therefore address them to you ; and you are at liberty to show them to whom you please.

To impute¹ signifies, in general, to charge, reckon, or place to account, according lo the different objects to which it is applied. This word, like many others, has a proper and a figurative meaning.

First: It is applied to the charging, reckoning, or placing to the account of persons and things THAT WHICH PROPERLY BELONGS TO THEM. This, of course, is its proper meaning. In this sense the word is used in the following passages:–”Eli thought that she (Hannah) had been drunken.”–”Hanan and Mattaniah, the treasurers, were counted faithful.”–”Let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”–”Let such a one think this, that such as we are in word by letters, when we are absent, such will we be also in deed, when we are present.”–”I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”²

Reckoning or accounting, here, is no other than forming an estimate of persons and things, according to what they are, or appear to be. To impute sin, in this sense, is to charge guilt upon the guilty in a judicial way, with a view to his being punished for it. Thus Shimei besought David that his iniquity might not be imputed to him. Thus the man is pronounced blessed to whom the Lord imputes not iniquity: and thus Paul prayed that the sin of those who deserted him might not be laid to their charge.³

In this sense, the term is ordinarily used in common life. To impute treason or any other crime to a man is the same thing as charging him with having committed it, and with a view to his being punished.

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Truman:

1) 5. Though Christ’s death as a satisfaction, expiation, was the cause of no more to us than this, That, if we repent and believe, we shall be justified and saved, Satisfaction and Propitiation being only for sin: yet, considering this suffering of Christ, as a highly pleasing meritorious act, as a worthy voluntary undertaking for the Honor of God we may say, Christ did merit that God should give this Faith, work this Condition, and keep it in the Elect: for all would, notwithstanding this (and the easy reasonable terms made of their interest in it) through their own willful wickedness, have perished; and he deserved that his blood should not thus far be lost, as water spilt on the ground; but that he should have some fruit of the travel of his soul, in seeing a Seed, actually to honor, venerate, and adore their Redeemer. Though I must say, for the honor of our Redeemer in this great affair, He will have some reward in those that perish in that he did a wonderful kindness for them, it being only through their own chosen refusal, that they had no benefit by it. His Goodness and Grace is not therefore no Grace because men reject it. And to do a good and gracious act, is a reward and satisfaction in it self. And you may as well maintain, That, except God be ignorant, and know not that men will reject his mercy, he cannot be righteous and just in punishing them for it: which is contrary to the knowledge of the whole world; as to say, Except God be ignorant, and know not that they will through their wicked willfulness refuse his Mercy, his Grace and Mercy is no Grace and Mercy. If one of you take a long, tedious, and hazardous journey, to dissuade your friend from something you hear he designs to do, which you know will undo him, though he willfully persist, and will not be persuaded by you, and so is undone by it; yet he is bound to thank you all his life after, and your kindness ceases not to be kindness; and you have this satisfaction and reward, You did a kind act, though he reap no benefit. And suppose you might have prevailed with him, if you had there stayed longer with him, and taken more pains; yet your kindness ceases not to be a kindness because you did not greater kindness; since that which you did, would have been enough, had it not been for his willful obstinacy: And his after-ruing of his own folly, bears a loud testimony to, and tends to the honor of your kindness, Oh that I had hearkened to my Friend! How have I hated instruction, and would not incline mine ear to him that instructed me? They in Hell, if they would and could do as befits them, or as Christ hath deserved from them, would spend time as well in admiring the love of God, and the Redeemer, in this wonderful once offered and urged Kindness, as in ruing that they lost it through their own chosen willful madness. Some go on such grounds in speaking of these things, that (holding to their way) they must necessarily deny that sinners in Hell will ever rue, and befool themselves for their loss of salvation by Christ: But if any will hold so much power in man to receive Christ, as that they will rue it as their madness, and folly, and sin, to reject him, and perish by so doing; I can from that demonstrate (as clearly as I can do any thing) that this I now speak in this digression inevitably follows. Let me but ask you this, Was there no cause for Adam (when fallen from the benefit) to thank God for making that promise, Obey and Live; when as God might have annihilated him, notwithstanding his obedience, had it not been for that promise? And do you never thank God for it, though God knew he would fall? But to return: As Christ’s sufferings did not as an expiation or satisfaction, but as a highly meritorious act, deserve or obtain, that God should give greater things to those that believe, than Adam lost, for the honor of the Redeemer, and of this great work of Redemption: so, he did deserve, that God should cause some to believe; and so from eternity his death, foreseen or undertaken, was a cause, a meritorious cause or motive why God would, that is, decreed, to make some, and so, though more remotely, such particular persons, the Elect, to accept offered mercy and Christ, which they would otherwise (as others) have rejected. Some call this, the Covenant of Redemption; but it is an immanent act, and from eternity, and an elicit act of the will; and therefore is properly a Decree, and belongs to the Will of Purpose, and not to his Legislative will, his Rectoral Will. Methinks you may see hence, how it cometh to pass that we sometimes read of Christ’s dying for the world; and in other places that he laid down his life for his sheep; sometime, tasted death for every man, died for all; sometime again, gave himself for the Church; in one place, a Savior of the body; in another, a Savior of the world. He died for the Elect and World both, so far, that whosoever should believe on him, should not perish; but for the Elect, as they which were much in his eye, being those who certainly should believe, and so be actually saved. Though God and Christ did, as one says, æque intend this satisfaction, a propitiation conditionally applicable to every one; yet he did not ex æquo, as fully intend it for to be actually applied to every man. There is much of truth in that frequently cited passage of Ambrose, Christus passus est pro omnibus, pro nobis tamen specialiter passus est. Like that, a Savior of all men, especially of them that believe.

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Spring:

DOCTRINE OF ELECTION
ILLUSTRATED AND ESTABLISHED.

Whatever may be our views concerning the doctrine of Election, in whatever perplexity and darkness it may to our minds be enveloped, or however strenuously we may deny it; it is evident that the Apostle Paul believed it, and has stated it with great precision in the words of our text. But my brethren,

this subject is involved in no such perplexity as is sometimes imagined. It is one of those important, plain, practical truths which must be believed and loved. In endeavoring to give as scriptural and intelligible view of this subject as I can, I propose–

To illustrate the doctrine;
To evince the truth of it, and
To vindicate it from objections.

1.  I am to illustrate, or explain the doctrine of Election.

This is the more needful, because it is sometimes identified with things that are not true, and often confounded with things that are true but which are foreign to the subject. Let us observe therefore.

1. That it is no part of the doctrine of Election, that God created a part of mankind merely to damn them. This is often said by those who wish to bring this doctrine into contempt. But it is not true. The ultimate object for which God created all men is the advancement of his own glory. He will punish multitudes of the human race, “with everlasting destruction from his presence;” but he did not bring them into being merely for the sake of punishing them. “God is love.” There is not one malevolent emotion rankling in his bosom. It is one of the foulest stains that was ever cast upon his spotless character, to admit the thought that he brought creatures into being merely for the purpose of making them forever miserable. In itself, he desires the salvation of every living man. We have his oath, “that he has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.” If he destroys the wicked, it is because their perdition is inseparable from the promotion of his own glory, and the highest good of his Kingdom, and not because it is well pleasing to his benevolent mind, or the ultimate object of their creation.

2. It is no part of the doctrine of Election, that Christ died exclusively for the Elect. Such a representation is an unjustifiable perversion of the doctrine, and exposes it to unanswerable questions. Though there would have been no atonement but for God’s design to save the elect, and though there could have been no designs of mercy toward the elect without an atonement; yet the doctrine of atonement and election are two distinct things. Much idle breath and illiberal crimination might have been spared, by giving them that place in the Christian system which they hold in the word of God. It has never yet been proved that Christ died exclusively for the elect. If language has any meaning, we are bound to believe that “he tasted death for every man.” One would imagine that if the Apostle had intended to put this question forever at rest, he could not have said more than he has in these memorable words: “And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

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Fuller:

LETTER III.

ON SUBSTITUTION.

Jan. 12, 1803.

My dear Brother, Whether Christ laid down his life as a substitute for sinners, was never a question with me. All my hope rests upon it; and the sum of my delight in preaching the gospel consists in it. If I know any thing of myself, I can say of Christ crucified for us, as was said of Jerusalem: “If I forget thee, let my right hand forget: if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”

I have always considered the denial of this truth as being of the essence of Socinianism Mr. B[ooth] professes, “in his juvenile years, never to have hoped for salvation but through a vicarious sacrifice.” But, if he allow himself to have believed this doctrine when he was an Arminian, it is rather singular that I, who am not an Arminian, as he himself acknowledges, should be charged with denying it. I could not have imagined that any person whose hope of acceptance with God rests not on any goodness in himself, but entirely on the righteousness of Christ, would have been accounted to disown his substitution. But, perhaps, Mr. B. considers “a real and proper imputation of our sins to Christ,” by which he seems to mean their being literally transferred to him, as essential to this doctrine; and, if so, I acknowledge I do not at present believe it.

For Christ to die as a substitute, if I understand the term, is the same thing as his dying for us, or in our stead, or that we should not die.

The only subject on which I ought to have been here interrogated is, “The persons for whom Christ was a substitute; whether the elect only, or mankind in general.” On this question I will be as explicit as I am able.

Were I asked concerning the gospel, when it is introduced into a country. For whom was it sent? I should answer, if I had respect only to the revealed will of God, and so perhaps would Mr. B., It is sent for men, not as elect, or as non-elect, but as sinners. It is written and preached, “that they might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing they might have life through his name.” But, if I had respect to the secret will or appointment of God as to its application, I should say. If the divine conduct in this instance accord with what it has been in other instances, he hath visited that country “to take out of it a people for his name.”

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