Page:A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (John Ball).djvu/250

 238 considered, that in Scripture you shall not find, that God gave Christ to die for any nation, people, or world to whom he sent not the word of reconciliation; nor is any people or nation cast off, and rejected for their impiety, left without the means of grace, given over to the vanity of their mindes, without God in the world, ever said to be redeemed by the bloud of Christ, or reconciled unto God.

In many places we reade that Christ died for them that shall, or may perish, for reprobates and cast-awaies, 2 Pet. 2. 1. There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction, Rom. 14. 15. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died, 1 Cor. 8. 11. And through thy knowledge shall the weake brother perish for whom Christ died, Heb. 10. 29. Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath troden under foot the Sonne of God, and hath counted the bloud of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace. From which passages they argue thus, He that died for the elect and reprobate, for them that perish and perish not, he died for all men. But Christ died for the elect and reprobate, for them that perish and perish not. The Proposition they take for granted, but it is apparently captious. For he that died for all the elect, and all the reprobate, for all that shall be saved, and all that perish, died for all men: but to die for the elect and some reprobate, is not to die for all men, but for some only. And if they meane it in the first sence, the passages of Scripture will not prove what they affirme; if in the second, it fals short of the question. But suppose they argue thus, some denied the Lord that bought them, and thereby brought upon themselves swift destruction: therefore Christ did not buy the elect only, to save them: If they dispute thus, they conclude not the question in hand, they put more in the conclusion then is in the antecedent, and if they cannot shew, that there is the same reason of all reprobates, they must confesse it makes much against them: for the thing to be proved is, that Christ died equally for all and every man; and it is one thing to die for the reprobate in some sense, and to die for them with an intention and purpose to save them: and if Christ died for some and but some that perish in a manner not common