An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

§. 17. That plain truth therefore which must here satisfy us is, That God, who is the first efficient and ultimate final Cause of all things, and caused by none, did of his free abundant Mercy undertake the saving of sinful Man, and notwithstanding his Threatening and Man's Defect, resolving to make advantage of our Sin and Misery, for the Glory of his Wisdom, Love, Mercy and Justice, he promised that the Eternal Word should in due time assume Man's nature, and therein ⟨p. 95⟩do and suffer that which should glorify him more than Man's Perdition would have done, and which should make it just and meet for him to save the Guilty, both inceptively at the present under the Promise (for 4000 years) and afterward more fully at Christ's Incarnation, and finally to perfect all in Glory.

§. 17. That plain truth therefore which must here satisfie us is, That God, who is the first efficient and ultimate final Cause of all things, and caused by none, did of his free abundant Mercy undertake the saving of sinful Man, and notwithstanding his Threatning and Man's Defect, resolving to make advantage of our Sin and Misery, for the Glory of his Wisdom, Love, Mercy and Justice, he promised that the Eternal Word should in due time assume Man's nature, and therein ⟨p. 95⟩do and suffer that which should glorifie him more than Man's Perdition would have done, and which should make it just and meet for him to save the Guilty, both inceptively at the present under the Promise (for 4000 years) and afterward more fully at Christ's Incarnation, and finally to perfect all in Glory.

So that the Work of our Salvation is one entire frame, composed by Divine Wisdom and Love; where one part is the Reason of another, though none be the Cause of any thing in God: And Christ's Mediation, though coming after 4000 years, yet was then to do that which should make it meet and right and just for God to pardon Sin before: Even as in a Building the several parts may be the reason of each other, because they must be all compaginated and fitted to their relative places and uses: And though the Foundation make not the Superstructure, it upholdeth it And as Aquinas briefly faith, Deus non propter hoc vult hoc, sed vult hoc esse propter hoc; nothing is the Cause of God's Will, but it is God's Will that one thing shall be for another: And when all his Work must be one Frame, the part last made may be a reason of the former. And so Christ's merits and sacrifice, though after 4000 years, perform that for which it became just and meet before for God to pardon Sinners. For though it was not then existent, yet (besides the Decree) the Promise, Prediction and Publication made it useful to its ends, in respect to GOD and Man.