It has been said, `That redemption is universal, and that the reason why salvation is not universal, is because men do not avail themselves of the advantages of redemption.' This gives plenty of scope for universal invitations, and just suits the pride of the human heart, because it gives to man a sort of self-dispensing power over the eternal favours of God, and denies God's sovereignty in the dispensations of his own blessings. This also makes the redemption work of Christ to come a certain distance toward the sinner, but not to reach all the way to him as a sinner, without strength, dead in sins, and at enmity against God, in order to fetch him out from that very state. But if the ladder…

It has been said, `That redemption is universal, but the application particular; and that a universal redemption is a necessary preliminary to a particular application.' What can men of learning and talent think the redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ really to be, to speak of it in this way? For the word redemption itself must be well known to have no such meaning, acceptation, or use among men by any analogy under the whole heavens. It is well known that the word signifies buying back, a rescue, a release, a reclaim, a freedom obtained by an adequate price paid for the same, with the consideration that there is no such freedom without such price, and that no such price is paid without such freedom…

Whether universal redemption as the ground-plot of universal invitations, will universally stand, or be particular only in its final effects, perhaps may be considered to be not so much our business to enquire, as it is at once to admit that redemption in itself is in some way universal, by the clearest Bible testimony, which at once plainly declares that Christ did die for all; and that `as it is so said in the holy word, it is for us so to believe, receive, and speak of it.' But while with heart and soul we receive and revere the Bible as the infallible truth of God, and believe that every sound of it is intended to convey some true and solemn sense, we ask, is…

“Who gave himself a ransom for all,” 1 Tim 2:6. This evidently and simply means, all sorts and grades of society of men, whom the apostle exhorted Timothy that they should be prayed for, verse 1,2, `that we might lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness;' and also because that such all men `God will have to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,' and the same to be testified in due time.' It is not said God would have all men to be saved, nor would have had all men to be saved; but `Will have all men to be saved,' and this will extends quite as far as the gift of the ransom; and all intended by…

`For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved,' John 3:17. `And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world,' John 6:5. `And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world,' 1 John 2:2. These portions of sacred truth, from the use of the words world, and the whole world, are considered to involve an evident universal intention and consequent universal virtue, provisionally, if not determinately, in the redemption work of Christ. But while God in the Trinity of his persons is as mighty to save as he is…

`To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,' 2 Cor 5:19. This text, from its sound, has been taken to deny the personal divinity of Christ; but it was never intended to express the personal constitution of Christ, so much as it is the nature, order, economy and design of the incarnate life, deeds, and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. For when Jesus as mediator moved in obedience, worth and merit, the Triune God moved in design. And what was that design? Reconciliation! Of whom? The world; Gentiles of all nations, and Jews of all ranks. How? `Not imputing,' charging or reckoning `their trespasses unto them.' `Blessed is the man to whom the Lord…