Название: An Apology for the True Christian Divinity
Автор: Robert Barclay
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066199425
isbn:
The Author de Vocat. Gentium, Lib. 11. Cap. 6. “There is no Cause to doubt but that our Lord Jesus Christ died for Sinners and wicked Men. And if there can be any found, who may be said not to be of this Number, Christ hath not died for all; he made himself a Redeemer for the whole World.”
Chrysostom on John i. “If he enlightens every Man coming into the World, how comes it that so many Men remain without Light? For all do not so much as acknowledge Christ. How then doth he enlighten every Man? He illuminates indeed so far as in him is; but if any of their own accord, closing the Eyes of their Mind, will not direct their Eyes unto the Beams of this Light,The Cause they remain in Darkness. the Cause that they remain in Darkness is not from the Nature of the Light, but through their own Malignity, who willingly have rendered themselves unworthy of so great a Gift. But why believed they not? Because they would not: Christ did his Part.”
The Arelatensian Synod, held about the Year 490, “Pronounced him accursed, who should say that Christ hath not died for all, or that he would not have all Men to be saved.”
Ambr. on Psalm cxviii. Serm. 8. “The mystical Sun of Righteousness is arisen to all; he came to all; he suffered for all; and rose again for all: And therefore he suffered, that he might take away the Sin of the World. But if any one believe not in Christ, he robs himself of this general Benefit,The Sun-Beams shut out, heat not. even as if one by closing the Windows should hold out the Sun-Beams. The Sun is not therefore not arisen to all, because such an one hath so robbed himself of its Heat: But the Sun keeps its Prerogative; it is such an one’s Imprudence that he shuts himself out from the common Benefit of the Light.”
The same Man, in his 11th Book of Cain and Abel, Cap. 13. saith, “Therefore he brought unto all the Means of Health, that whosoever should perish, may ascribe to himself the Causes of his Death, who would not be cured when he had the Remedy by which he might have escaped.”
§. IX.
Seeing then that this Doctrine of the Universality of Christ’s Death is so certain and agreeable to the Scripture-Testimony, and to the Sense of the purest Antiquity, it may be wondered how so many, some whereof have been esteemed not only Learned, but also Pious, have been capable to fall into so gross and strange an Error. But the Cause of this doth evidently appear, in that the Way and Method by which the Virtue and Efficacy of his Death is communicated to all Men, hath not been rightly understood, or indeed hath been erroneously taught. Pelagian Errors.The Pelagians, ascribing all to Man’s Will and Nature, denied Man to have any Seed of Sin conveyed to him from Adam. And the Semi-Pelagians, making Grace as a Gift following upon Man’s Merit, or right improving of his Nature, according to the known Principle, Facienti quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam.
Extremes fallen into by some, making God the Author of Sin.This gave Augustine, Prosper, and some others Occasion, labouring, in Opposition to these Opinions, to magnify the Grace of God, and paint out the Corruptions of Man’s Nature (as the Proverb is of those that seek to make straight a crooked Stick) to incline to the other Extreme. So also the Reformers, Luther and others, finding among other Errors the strange Expressions used by some of the Popish Scholasticks concerning Free-Will, and how much the Tendency of their Principles is to exalt Man’s Nature and lessen God’s Grace, having all those Sayings of Augustine and others for a Pattern, through the like Mistake run upon the same Extreme: Though afterwards the Lutherans, seeing how far Calvin and his Followers drove this Matter, (who, as a Man of subtle and profound judgment, foreseeing where it would land, resolved above-board to assert that God had decreed the Means as well as the End, and therefore had ordained Men to sin, and excites them thereto, which he labours earnestly to defend) and that there was no avoiding the making of God the Author of Sin, thereby received Occasion to discern the Falsity of this Doctrine, and disclaimed it, as appears by the latter Writings of Melancthon, and the Mompelgartensian Conference, [65]where Lucas Osiander, one of the Collocutors, terms it Impious; calls it a making God the Author of Sin, and an horrid and horrible Blasphemy. Yet because none of those who have asserted this universal Redemption since the Reformation have given a clear, distinct, and satisfactory Testimony how it is communicated to all, and so have fallen short of fully declaring the Perfection of the Gospel Dispensation, others have been thereby the more strengthened in their Errors; which I shall illustrate by one singular Example.
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