Chapter VIII.
Objections against the former proposal answered.
By what was said in the last chapter, it clearly appeareth that the oblation and intercession of Christ are of equal compass and extent in respect of their objects, or the persons for whom he once offered himself and doth continually intercede, and so are to be looked on as one joint means for the attaining of a certain proposed end; which what it is comes next to be considered. But because I find some objections laid by some against the former truth, I must remove them before I proceed; which I shall do “as a man removeth dung until it be all gone.”
The sum of one of our former arguments was, — That to sacrifice and intercede belong both to the same person, as high priest; which name none can answer, neither hath any performed that office, until both by him be accomplished. Wherefore, our Saviour being the most absolute, and, indeed, the only true high priest, in whom were really all those perfections which in others received a weak typical representation, doth perform both these in the behalf of them for whose sakes he was such.
I. An argument not unlike to this I find by some to be undertaken to be answered, being in these words proposed, “The ransom and mediation of Christ is no larger than his office of priest, prophet, and king; but these offices pertain to his church and chosen: therefore his ransom pertains to them only.”
The intention and meaning of the argument is the same with what we proposed, — namely, that Christ offered nothing for them for whom he is no priest, and he is a priest only for them for whom he doth also intercede. If afterward I shall have occasion to make use of this argument, I shall, by the Lord’s assistance, give more weight and strength to it than it seems to have in their proposal, whose interest it is to present it as slightly as possible, that they may seem fairly to have waived it. But the evasion, such as it is, let us look upon.
“This,” saith the answerer, “is a sober objection;” which friendly term I imagined at first he had given for this reason, because he found it kind and easy to be satisfied. But reading the answer and finding that, so wide from yielding any colour or appearance of what was pretended, it only served him to vent some new, weak, false conceptions, I imagined that it must be some other kindness that caused him to give this “objection,” as he calls it, so much milder an entertainment than those others, which equally gall him, which hear nothing but, “This is horrid, that blasphemy, that detestable, abominable, and false,” as being, indeed, by those of his persuasion neither to be endured nor avoided. And at length I conceived that the reason of it was intimated in the first words of his pretended answer; which are, that “this objection doth not deny the death of Christ for all men, but only his ransom and mediation for all men.” Now, truly, if it be so, I am not of his judgment, but so far from thinking it a “sober objection,” that I cannot be persuaded that any man in his right wits would once propose it. That Christ should die for all, and yet not be a ransom for all, himself affirming that he came to “give his life a ransom for many,” Matt. xx. 28, is to me a plain contradiction. The death of Christ, in the first most general notion and apprehension thereof, is a ransom. Nay, do not this answerer and those who are of the same persuasion with him make the ransom of as large extent as any thing in, or about, or following the death of Christ? Or have they yet some farther distinction to make, or rather division about the ends of the death of Christ? as we have had already: “For some he not only paid a ransom, but also intercedeth for them; which be doth not for all for whom he paid a ransom.” Will they now go a step backward, and say that for some he not only died, but also paid a ransom for them; which he did not for all for whom he died? Who, then, were those that he thus died for? They must be some beyond all and every man; for, as they contend, for them he paid a ransom. But let us see what he says farther; in so easy a cause as this it is a shame to take advantages.
“The answer to this objection,” saith be, “is easy and plain in the Scripture, for the mediation of Christ is both more general and more special; — more general, as he is the ‘one mediator between God and men,’ 1 Tim. ii. 5; and more special, as he is ‘the mediator of the new testament, that they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance,’ Heb. ix. 15. According to that it is said, ‘He is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe,’ 1 Tim. iv. 10. So in all the offices of Christ, the priest, the prophet, the king, there is that which is more general, and that which is more special and peculiar.”