An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

§. 7. The Deity it self may not unfitly be called our REDEEMER before the Incarnation, though not so fitly a MEDIATOR, and though Redemption by Christ's Death and Merits in the Flesh was not then wrought: Because the word Redeeming is oft taken for a merciful Delivering, though without a price; and also because the Price was promised from the beginning. But thus the word REDEEMER is equivocal, signifying either the Deity as a promising, undertaking Saviour, or the Mediator who was promised, and who performed the undertaken means.

§. 8. The MEDIATOR himself being purely the Gift of the Divine Love and Mercy, it was no inconvenience, that God then had all the Glory, and that Faith then acknowledged no other existent Saviour, but God himself the infinite Good.

§. 9. It troubleth men much to open, how Christ was any true Cause of our Pardon and Salvation as a Mediator, before his Incarnation? And what his merits, sacrifice and intercession could do, before they did exist? And the common Answer is, That Moral (though not Physical) Causes may cause before they exist, and so operate as foreseen, foredecreed or willed. But these Logical notions must not be used to put off the Question, instead of satisfactorily answering it. This tells us not whether by a Moral Cause they mean a True Cause of some moral Being, or something morally called a Cause which indeed is not so, but quasi causa: Nor yet whether they mean a Cause efficient, final or constitutive: Nor yet whether they mean a Cause of any thing in God, or only of some following effect.