Capito:

A Brief Dialogue between a Christian Father and his stubborn Son, whom he would fain bring to the right understanding of the Christian man’s living.

[The father:] Above all pleasure and worldly delight (dear Son) to here or to read the pure word of God, seems to me a thing most sweet pleasant and amiable without comparison to the comfort and derision of a Christian man. The son: Think though thy self then a Christian man? The father: God forbids else. Son: Whereby knows thou that? The father: Because through the commandments of God I acknowledge myself a sinner. And again through his godly promises, and by that merit of Christ I doubt not but that I am one of God’s chosen children. For Christ has cleansed me from sin with his death. Son: Thou says well, but wherein consists the life of a Christian man, tell me. Father: In a steadfast faith toward God, and pure love without simulation toward a man’s neighbor. Son: What call thou faith? Father: It is a lively and steadfast persuasion of the mind, whereby we doubt not but that the promises of God are given unto us by Christ, as it is evidently declared in our Creed.

Wolfgang Capito, The true beliefe in Christ and his sacraments, set forth in a Dialoge between a Christen father and his sonne, very necessary to be learned of all men, of what estate soever they be (Imprinted at London for Gwalter Lynne, dwelling on Somers kaye, by Byllinges gate, 1550), [1-2]. [No pagination, pages numbered manually from the beginning of the dialogue; some spelling modernized; some reformatting; and underlining mine.]

Manton:

2. It carries a full respect to the punishment appointed for sin. Certain we are that he ‘ bore the curse of the law,’ Gal. iii. 13. Now the curse of the law, actively taken, is nothing but the sentence of the law, or rather of God the judge, condemning the transgressors of it to such punishment as the law appointed; passively taken, it is the punish ment itself. And the final and great curse is that described, Mat. xxv. 41. To be banished from the presence of the Lord, and cast into extreme torment. There is a double punishment–paena damni et sensus, the loss and the pain. The loss consists in our separation from God, from the comfortable happy fruition of him in glory: ‘depart, ye cursed.’ The pain in eternal torments is set forth by the worm and by the fire, Mark ix. 44. Now Christ being our surety, Heb. vii. 22, and giving himself ‘a ransom for all,’ 1 Tim. ii.6 antilutron, the word implies a substitution or surrogation of one person in the room of another; he was to suffer what we were to suffer; if not the idem, every way the same, yet the tantundem, that which was sufficient to Christ’s ends, that which was to carry a full resemblance with our punishment. It is one part of the punishment of sin to be forsaken of God, and many say the punishment of loss is greatest; he was there fore to suffer so much of it as his holy person was capable of; some thing that answers to the paena damni in his desertion, and to the paena sensus in his agonies and pains: Isa. liii. 4, ‘ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.’

It is true the accidentals of punishment Christ suffered not. As [1.] To the place, he was not in hell. It was not necessary that Christ should descend into the hell of the damned. One that is bound as a surety for another needs not go into prison provided that he pay the debt. All that justice requires is, that he satisfy the debt. In deed, if he doth not, nor cannot satisfy the debt, he must to prison. So here the justice of God must be satisfied, the holiness of God and hatred to sin sufficiently demonstrated, but Christ need not to go into the place of torments.

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Mayhew:

Now that which I here intend is this, That Mankind have, since their Fall into a State of Sin and Death, had so much done for them, in order to their Recovery out of that miserable Estate, as thereby to be put into a State of Salvability: For otherwise there would be no Room for an Offer of Salvation to be made to them. Now Mankind, since their Apostasy, may be conceived to be in a salvable Condition in two Respects, or on a two-fold Account, (1) In Respects of the Sufficiency of God to find out and provide a Way for their Salvation, whatever seeming Difficulties, in Respect of the Threatening denounced against Sinners, and of his own Truth and Justice, seemed to lay against it; yet this notwithstanding, I say, the Wisdom, Goodness, and Power of God was such, that it was, in that Respect, possible for him to find out and provide a Way, in which such Sinners as Mankind were, might be eternally saved. But this is not what I principally here intend. Wherefore, (2) Mankind may be said to be in a salvable State, in Respect of a Price already paid, or undertaken to be paid, for their Redemption. I say, either paid

or undertaken to be paid, because this was the fame Thing in Respect of the Efficacy of the Atonement I intend. It was as available, in Respect of all the saving Ends of it, before it was actually paid, as it was afterwards; and on this Account our Savior is called the Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World. It is in Respect of this Price of Redemption, that I here affirm Mankind to be in a salvable Estate. They are so now, in Respect: of a Price already paid for them, in order to their eternal Happiness. And this I suppose to be a Truth, with Respect to all Mankind without Exception: So that though there are many who never will be saved, yet the Reason of this is not, because there is not a sufficient Price paid for their Redemption, nor because this is not a Remedy applicable to them, according to the Tenor of the new Covenant, but for other Reasons hereafter to be mentioned.

This State of Salvability, which Mankind are by me supposed to be in, has its Rise and Foundation, as I have said, in the Price of Redemption paid for them, by their grant Savior; and that this was of sufficient Value to save the whole World I here take for granted. That it was a Price laid down for all, without Exception; and, according to the Tenor of the New Covenant, applicable to any one, and to every one of the sinful Children of Men, I suppose to be a Truth clearly revealed in the Word of God; and that the Reason why it is not so generally believed so to be, is not because it is not sufficiently asserted in Scripture, but because many have, without sufficient Grounds, supposed that a Belief of this cannot be reconciled to some other Articles of Faith, which they think clearly and fully revealed: But this I shall have Occasion hereafter to confider. 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), 40-42.  [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.]

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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