Reconciliation of the Elect to God, is therefore another of those beautiful births which Christ travailed for. So you find it expressly, Rom. 5.10. If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son. This [if,] is not a word of doubting but argumentation. The Apostle supposes it as a known truth, or principle yielded by all Christians; that the death of Christ was to reconcile the Elect to God. And again he affirms it with like clearness, Col. 1.20. And having made peace by the blood of his Cross, by him to reconcile all things. And that this was a main and principal end designed both by the Father and Son in the humiliation of Christ is plain from 2 Cor. 5.18, 19. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. God filled the humanity with grace and authority. The Spirit of God was in him to qualify him. The authority of God was in him by Commission,1 to make all he did valid. The grace and love of God to mankind was in him, and one of the principal effects in which it was manifested, was this design upon which he came, viz. to reconcile the world to God. Upon which ground Christ is called the propitiation for our sins, 1 Joh. 2.2. Now, Reconciliation or atonement is nothing else but the making up of the ancient friendship betwixt God and men which sin had dissolved, and so to reduce these enemies into a state of concord and sweet agreement. And the means by which this blessed design was ⟨p. 530⟩effectually compassed, was by the death of Christ which made complete satisfaction to God for the wrong we had done him. There was a breach made by sin betwixt God and Angels, but that breach is never to be repaired or made up. Since as Christ took not on him their nature, so he never intended to be a mediator of reconciliation betwixt God and them. That will be an Eternal breach. But that which Christ designed as the end of his death was to reconcile God and man. Not the whole species, but a certain number whose names were given to Christ. Here I must briefly open. First, how Christs death Reconciles. Secondly, why this Reconciliation is brought about by his death, rather than any other way. Thirdly, what are the Articles according to which it's made. And Fourthly, what manner of Reconciliation this is.
Reconciliation of the Elect to God, is therefore another of those beautiful births which Christ travailed for. So you find it expresly, Rom. 5.10. If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son. This [if,] is not a word of doubting but argumentation. The Apostle supposes it as a known truth, or principle yielded by all Christians; that the death of Christ was to reconcile the Elect to God. And again he affirms it with like clearness, Col. 1.20. And having made peace by the blood of his Cross, by him to reconcile all things. And that this was a main and principal end designed both by the Father and Son in the humiliation of Christ is plain from 2 Cor. 5.18, 19. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. God filled the humanity with grace and authority. The Spirit of God was in him to qualifie him. The authority of God was in him by Commission,1 to make all he did valid. The grace and love of God to mankind was in him, and one of the principal effects in which it was manifested, was this design upon which he came, viz. to reconcile the world to God. Upon which ground Christ is called the propitiation for our sins, 1 Joh. 2.2. Now, Reconciliation or attonement is nothing else but the making up of the ancient friendship betwixt God and men which sin had dissolved, and so to reduce these enemies into a state of concord and sweet agreement. And the means by which this blessed design was ⟨p. 530⟩effectually compassed, was by the death of Christ which made compleat satisfact•on to God for the wrong we had done him. There was a breach made by sin betwixt God and Angels, but that breach is never to be repaired or made up. Since as Christ took not on him their nature, so he never intended to be a mediator of reconciliation betwixt God and them. That will be an Eternal breach. But that which Christ designed as the end of his dea•h was to reconcile God and man. Not the whole species, but a certain number whose names were given to Christ. Here I must briefly open. First, how Christs death Reconciles. Secondly, why this Reconciliation is brought about by his death, rather than any other way. Thirdly, what are the Articles according to which it's made. And Fourthly, what manner of Reconciliation this is.
- 1Reconciliare nihil aliud est quam amicitiam offensione aliqua gravi diremptam resar cire; & sic inimicos in pristinam concordiam reducer•. B. Daven. in Col. 1.20.
