CHAPTER 11.
WHETHER SALVATION MAY BE ATTAINED
WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF, OR FAITH IN, CHRIST JESUS.
Shall shut up all this discourse concerning the meritorious cause of
salvation, with their shutting out of Christ from being the only one and
absolutely necessary means to bring us unto heaven, to make us happy. This is the
last pile they erect upon their Babylonish
foundation, which makes the idol of human self-sufficiency every way perfect,
and fit to be sacrificed unto. Until these proud builders, to get materials for
their own temple, laid the axe to the root of Christianity, we took it for
granted that “there is no salvation in any other,” because “there is none other
name under heaven given unto men whereby we must be saved,” Acts 4:12. Neither
yet shall their nefarious attempts frighten us from our creed, nor make us be
wanting to the defense of our Savior’s honor. But I shall be very brief in the
consideration of this heterodoxy, nothing doubting but that to have repeated it
is fully to have confuted it, in the judgment of all pious Christians.
First, then, They grant salvation to the ancient patriarchs and Jews,
before the coming of Christ, without any knowledge of or faith in him at all;
nay, they deny that any such faith in Christ was ever prescribed unto them or
required of them. [1] “It
is certain that there is no place in the Old Testament from whence it may
appear that faith in Christ as a Redeemer was ever enjoined or found in any of
them,” say they jointly in their Apology; the truth of which assertion we shall
see hereafter. Only they grant a general faith, involved under types and
shadows, and looking on the promise as it lay hid in the goodness and
providence of God, which indirectly might be called a faith in Christ: from
which kind of faith I see no reason why thousands of heathen infidels should be
excluded. Agreeable unto these assertions are the dictates of their patriarch Arminius, affirming, [2] “that
the whole description of the faith of Abraham, Romans 4, makes no mention of
Jesus Christ, either expressly or so implicitly as
that it may be of any one easily understood.” And to the testimony of Christ
himself to the contrary, John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my
day; and he saw it, and was glad,” he answereth, “He
rejoiced to see the birth of Isaac, who was a type of me,” — a goodly gloss,
corrupting the text.
Secondly, What they teach of the Jews, that also they grant concerning
the Gentiles living before the incarnation of Christ; they also might attain
salvation, and be justified without his knowledge. [3] “For
although,” saith Corvinus,
“the covenant was not revealed unto them by the same means that it was unto the
Jews, yet they are not to be supposed to be excluded from the covenant” (of
grace), “nor to be excluded from salvation; for some way or other they were
called.”
Thirdly, They
are come at length to that perfection in setting out this stain of
Christianity, that Bertius, on good consideration,
denied this proposition, [4] “That
no man can be saved that is not ingrafted into Christ
by a true faith;” and Venator to this question, [5] “Whether
the only means of salvation be the life, passion, death, resurrection, and
ascension of Jesus Christ?” answereth, “No.” Thus
they lay men in Abraham’s bosom who never believed in the Son of Abraham; make
them overcome the serpent who never heard of the Seed of the woman; bring goats
into heaven, who never were of the flock of Christ, never entered by him, the
door; make men please God without faith, and obtain the remission of sins
without the sprinkling of the blood of the Lamb,—to be saved without a Savior,
redeemed without a Redeemer,—to become the sons of God, and never know their
elder Brother;—which prodigious error might yet be pardoned, and ascribed to
human imbecility, had it casually slipped from their pens, as it did from some
others. [6] But
seeing it hath foundation in all the grounds of their new doctrine, and is
maintained by them on mature deliberation, [7] it
must be looked on by all Christians as a heresy to be detested and accursed.
For, first, deny the contagion and demerit of original sin; then make the
covenant of grace to be universal, and to comprehend all and every one of the
posterity of Adam; thirdly, grant a power in ourselves to come unto God by any
such means as he will appoint, and affirm that he doth assign some means unto
all,—and it will naturally follow that the knowledge of Christ is not
absolutely necessary to salvation, and so down falls the preeminence of
Christianity; its heaven-reaching crown must be laid level with the services of
dunghill gods. [8]
It is true,
indeed, some of the ancient fathers, before the rising of the Pelagian heresy,—who had so put on Christ, as Lipsius speaks, that they had not fully put off Plato,—have
unadvisedly dropped some speeches seeming to grant that divers men before the
incarnation, living meta< lo>gou, “according
to the dictates of right reason,” might be saved without faith in Christ; as is
well showed by learned Casaubon in his first exercitation on Baronius. But let this be accounted part of that stubble
which shall burn at the last day, wherewith the writings of all men not
divinely inspired may be stained. It hath also since (as what hath not?) been
drawn into dispute among the wrangling schoolmen; and yet, which is rarely
seen, their verdict in this particular almost unanimously passeth
for the truth. Aquinas [9] tells
us a story of the corpse of a heathen, that should be taken
up in the time of the Empress Irene and her son Constantine, with a golden
plate on his breast, wherein was this inscription:—“Christ is born of a
virgin, and I believe in him. O sun, thou shalt see
me again in the days of Irene and Constantine.” But the question is not,
Whether a Gentile believing in Christ may be saved? or
whether God did not reveal himself and his Son extraordinarily to some of them?
for shall we straiten the breast and shorten the arm of the Almighty, as though
he might not do what he will with his own; but, Whether a man by the conduct of
nature, without the knowledge of Christ, may come to heaven? the
assertion whereof we condemn as a wicked, Pelagian, Socinian heresy, and think that it was well said of
Bernard, [10] “That
many laboring to make Plato a Christian, do prove themselves to be heathens.”
And if we look upon the several branches of this Arminian
novel doctrine, extenuating the precious worth and necessity of faith in
Christ, we shall find them hewed off by the two-edged sword of God’s word.
FIRST, For their denying the patriarchs and Jews to have had faith
“in Christum exhibendum et moriturum,” as we in him “exhibitum
et mortuum,” it is disproved,—
First, By all
evangelical promises made from the beginning of the world to the birth of our
Savior; as that, Genesis 3:15, “The seed of the woman shall break the serpent’s
head;” and chapter 12:3, 49:10; Psalm 2:7,8,110; with
innumerable others concerning his life, office, and redeeming of his people:
for surely they were obliged to believe the promises of God.
Secondly, By those many clear expressions of his death, passion, and
suffering for us, as Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 53:6-10, etc., 63:1-3; Daniel 9:26.
But what need we reckon any more? Our Savior taught his disciples that all the
prophets from Moses spake concerning him, and that
the sole reason why they did not so readily embrace the faith of his passion
and resurrection was because they believed not the prophets, Luke 24:25,26;
showing plainly that the prophets required faith in his death and passion.
Thirdly, By
the explicit faith of many Jews, as of old Simeon, Luke 2:34; of the Samaritan
woman, who looked for a Messiah, not as an earthly king, but as one that should
“tell them all things,”—redeem them from sin, and tell them all such things as
Christ was then discoursing of, concerning the worship of God, John 4:25.
Fourthly, By the express testimony of Christ himself. “Abraham,” saith he, “rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was
glad,” John
Fifthly, By these following, and the like places of Scripture: Christ
is a “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” Revelation 13:8; slain in
promises, slain in God’s estimation and in the faith of believers. He is “the
same yesterday, and today, and for ever,” Hebrews 13:8, under the law and the
gospel. “There is none other name under heaven given unto men, whereby we must
be saved,” Acts
SECONDLY, If the ancient people of God, notwithstanding divers other
especial revelations of his will and heavenly instructions, obtained not
salvation without faith in Christ, much less may we grant this happiness
without him to them who were deprived of those other helps also. So that though
we confess the poor natural endeavors of the heathen not to have wanted their
reward (either positive in this life, by outward prosperity, and inward
calmness of mind, in that they were not all perplexed and agitated with furies,
like Nero and Caligula; or negative in the life to come, by a diminution of the
degrees of their torments,—they shall not be beaten with so many stripes), yet
we absolutely deny that there is any saving mercy of God towards them revealed
in the Scripture, which should give us the least intimation of their attaining
everlasting happiness. For, not to consider the corruption and universal
disability of nature to do anything that is good (“without Christ we can do
nothing,” John 15:5), nor yet the sinfulness of their best works and actions,
the “sacrifice of the wicked being an abomination unto the LORD,” Proverbs 15:8
(“Evil trees cannot bring forth good fruit; men do not gather grapes of thorns,
nor figs of thistles,” Matthew 7:16, 17);—the word of God is plain, that
“without faith it is impossible to please God, Hebrews 11:6; that “he that
believeth not is condemned,” Mark 16:16; that no nation or person can be
blessed but in the Seed of Abraham, Genesis 12:3. And the
“blessing of Abraham” comes upon the Gentiles only “through Jesus Christ,” Galatians
S.S. |
Lib. Arbit. |
“O fools, and slow of heart to believe all
that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these
things?” Luke 24:25, 26. |
“There is no place in the Old Testament whence it may appear that
faith in Christ as a Redeemer was either enjoined or found in any then,” Rem. Apol. |
“Abraham
rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad,” John |
“Abraham’s
faith had no reference to Christ,” Annin. |
“At that
time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,
and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God
in the world,” Ephesians 2:12. |
“The
Gentiles living under the Old Testament, though it was not revealed unto them
as unto the Jews, yet were not excluded from the covenant of grace, and from
salvation,” Corv. |
“There is
none other name under heaven given unto men, whereby we must be saved,” but
only by Christ, Acts |
“I deny
this proposition, That none can be saved that is not ingrafted
into Christ by a true faith,” Bert. |
“The
blessing of Abraham cometh on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ,” Galatians |
“To this
question, Whether the only way of salvation be the
life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ? I answer,
No,” Venat. |
ENDNOTES:
[1] “Certum est locum nullum esse, unde
appareat fidem istam, sub Vet. Test., praeceptam fuisse ant viguisse.”—Rem. Apol., cap. 7. p. 91.
[2] “Consideretur omnis descriptio fidei Abrahae, Romans 4; et apparebit in illa Jesu Christi non fieri mentionem, expresse, sed illa tantum
implicatione, quam explicare cuivis non est facile.”—Armin. “Gavisus est
videre natalem Isaac, qui fuit typus mei.”—Idem.
[3] “Gentes sub Veteri Testamento viventes licet ipsis ista
ratione qua Judaeis non fuit revelatum, non tamen inde continuo ex faedere absolute exclusae sunt, nec a salute praecise exclusi judicari debent, quia aliquo saltem
mode vocantur.”—Corv. Defens. Armin. ad Tilen.,
p. 107.
[4] “Nego hanc propositionem:
neminem posse salvari, quam qui Jesu Christo
per veram fidem sit insitus.”—Bert, ad Sibrand., p. 133.
[5] “Ad hanc queestionem an unica via salutis,
sit vita, passio, mors, resurrectio, et as-censio Jesu Christi? respondeo,
Non.”—Venat., apud Fest. Hom. et Peltium.
[6] Zulng. Profes. Fid. ad Reg. Gall.
[7]
[8] “Nihil magis repugnat
fidei, quam sine fide salvum esse posse quempiam hominum.”—Acost. de Indo. Salu. Proc.
[9] Aquin. 2, 2ae q.
2, a. 7, c.—“ Christus nascitur ex virgine, et ego credo in eum.
O sol, sub Irenae et Constantini temporibus iterum me videbis.”
[10] “Dum multum sudant
nonnulli, quomodo Platonem faciant Christianum, se probant esse ethnicos.”—
[11] Paradoqei>v ge, tw~n dia<
Cristo<n ajnairouma>noin, ajpo< tou~ ai]matov ]Azel tou~ dsikai>ou.—Ignat. Epist. ad Ephes. [cap. 12.]
[12] Pa>ntev ou=n eiJ
a[gioi ejn
Cristw~| ejsw>qhsan, ejlpi>santav eijv aujto<n
kai< aujto<n ajmagei>nantev, kai< di j aujtou~
swthei>av e]tucon.—Epist, ad Philippians
[cap. 5.]
[13] “Non alia fide quemquam hominum, sive ante legem sive legis
tempore, justificatum esse,
credendum est, quam hac eadem
qua Dominus Jesu,” etc.—Prosp. ad Ob. 8., Gallorum.
[14] “Omnes ergo illos qui ab Abraham sursum versus ad primum hominem, generationis ordine conscribuntur, etsi non nomine, rebus tamen, et religione Christianos
fuisse, si quis dicat, non mihi videtur errare.”—Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. 1. cap, 4.