Universal redemption of mankind, by the Lord Jesus Christ stated and cleared by the…

Prop. XXIII. The same Faith which is now among us of absolute necessity to our Justification and Salvation, was not so to those before Christ; therefore it is not per se of absolute necessity to Justification by Christ: Therefore if God so please, those that hear not the Gospel may be Justified without that Faith which to us is necessary. If we believe not that Jesus is the Christ we shall Die in our sins. But this was not necessary to the Jews before Christs coming: Nay, it appears by divers passages in the Gospel, that Christs own Twelve Apostles after they had long heard his Teaching, and seen his Miracles▪ did not believe that Christ should be put to Death, and be made a Sacrifice for Sin; much less his Resurrection, &c. And how unlikely is it then that all the true believers of the World long before should believe this? (However some Prophets might discern much of it.) Do but well peruse every example of believing in, Heb. 11. and see what Faith it was that then saved them. Yet to think that the same would save us now, were a desperate mistake.

Prop. XXIV. God can if he please pardon and save men for the sake of Christs satisfaction, without letting them once know that Christ satisfied for them, else he cannot save an Infant or an Idiot. Some Divines (as Twice, &c.) are so bold as to say, that God could have pardoned Sin without Christs satisfaction: ⟨p. 478⟩I dare not say so: But methinks the same men should never make mans knowledge or belief of Christs satisfaction, to be absolutely necessary to Salvation, if the satisfaction it self be not: Dare any say, [My own Faith was more necessary than Christs Death? I could have been saved without Christ, but▪ not without Faith.] God could have forgiven men absolutely if he would, or else have made some other condition, when once his Justice was satisfied: And therefore we cannot conclude that this is the condition to any further than Scripture saith so.