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interpretation best suiting with the argument St. SERM. Paul useth,) however it is expressed that God is, according to desire or intention, the Saviour of all men, in reference to their spiritual and eternal advantage ; as willing that all men should embrace the gospel; which is further most evidently confirmed by the words immediately following; For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

4. Because, according to the tenor of scripture, and the analogy of Christian doctrine, St. Paul's assertion thus interpreted is true, as our subsequent Discourse may declare.

ii. 3.

5. I might add, that the living God in our text! Tim. i. 1. may very well be understood and expounded to be 2 Tim.i.10. our Lord Jesus himself; not only as partaking of the divine nature, but as exhibited in the gospel, the Word incarnate, who as such may seem commonly by St. Paul to be styled, God our Saviour; God Tit. ii. 10, manifested in the flesh; God, that purchased the 3. iii. 4. Church with his own blood; Christ, who is over all, 1 Tim. iii. God blessed for evermore. However it from the Acts xx. 28. Rom. ix. 5. premises is sufficiently apparent, that God's being the Saviour of all men doth relate unto our Saviour Jesus his undertakings and performances for the salvation of all men; since God in a sense evangelical is no otherwise said to save, than in concurrence with what Jesus did undertake and perform; than as designing, ordering, accepting, prosecuting, and accomplishing our Lord's performances; Jesus being the conduit through which all evangelical mercies and blessings are from God conveyed and dispensed to mankind. So that God being the Saviour of Eph.i.3, 6. mankind, is either directly and immediately, or by

SERM. equivalence and in consequence, the same with Jesus being the Saviour of all men.

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That our Lord Jesus is the Saviour of all men ; or that the most signal of his saving performances do in their nature and their design respect all men, as meant for, as conducing and tending to all men's salvation, yea and as in their own nature (supposing men's due and possible concurrrence with them) effectually productive of their salvation; that, I say, this ancient catholic point of doctrine (the which we profess to believe, when with the church we say in the Nicene Creed-Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and the which particularly our church in its Catechism, in the Ministration of Baptism, and in the Communion, doth most evidently and expressly declare itself to embrace) is very true, many full and clear testimonies of scripture do shew, many reasons grounded on scripture do prove; the which we shall first touch, and then further both illustrate and enforce the truth, by declaring upon what accounts, or in what respects, our Lord is the Saviour of all men; as also by an application to practice, declarative of its usefulness and subserviency to the purposes of piety. For immediate testimonies:

1. Jesus is called the Saviour of the world; who was sent and came into the world to save the world;

whose chief performances were designed and directed John iv. 42. to the salvation of the world; We have heard and known, said the men of Samaria, that this is truly 1 John iv. the Saviour of the world, the Christ. We have seen and testified, saith St. John, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world, (that John i. 10. world, of which it is said, He was in the world, and

14.

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xii. 47.

Acts x. 42.

con-xvii. 31.

come

Rom. xiv.

IO.

John vi. 51.

the world was made by him, and the world knew SERM. him not.) And, God sent his Son into the world, not to judge (or not to condemn) the world, but that the John iii. 17. world by him should be saved, (that world, whereof John v. 22. a great part he in effect would both judge and demn for unbelief and disobedience, he did primarily upon intent to save.) And, The bread 2 Cor.v. 10. which I shall give is, saith he, my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. And, Behold, John i. 29. said the Baptist, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. And, God was in 2 Cor.v. 19. Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their offences, saith St. Paul, to the world, which otherwise he expresseth by rà Távra, by him Coloss.i.20. to reconcile all things unto himself. And, He is a 1 John ii. 2. propitiation not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world, (the whole world, in contradistinction from all Christians, to whom St. John speaketh in that place of his catholic Epistle; that Kóσμos όλος, of which he saith in that same Epistle, κόσμος : John v. ὅλος ἐν τῷ πονηρῷ κεῖται, the whole world lieth in wickedness.) In all which places that the world according to its ordinary acception (and as every man would take it at first hearing) doth signify the whole community of mankind, comprehending men of all sorts and qualities, good and bad, believers and infidels, (not in a new, unusual sense, any special restrained world of some persons, particularly regarded or qualified,) will, I suppose, easily appear to him, who shall without prejudice or partiality attend to the common use thereof in scripture, especially in St. John, who most frequently applieth it as to this, so to other

cases or matters.

2. The object of our Saviour's undertakings and

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19.

SERM. intentions is described by qualities and circumstances LXXI. agreeing unto all men. All the sons of Adam are by disobedience in a lost condition, (lost in error

II.

23.

15.

and sin, lost in guilt and condemnation, lost in Matt. xviii. trouble and misery ;) and, The Son of man, saith he himself, came to save, to anoλwλòs, that which was Rom. iii. lost, (or whatever was lost.) All men have sinned, saith St. Paul, and are fallen short of the glory of I Tim. i. God; and, It is a faithful saying, saith the same apostle, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Rom. v. 8. Jesus came into the world to save sinners. God Ephes. ii. 1, &c. commended his love to us, that we being yet · sinners Christ died for us. All men naturally are weak and wicked; are in a state of alienation and enmity Rom. v. 6, toward God: and, Even when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly: When we were enemies, we were reconciled to 1 Pet. iii. God by the death of his Son: Christ once suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, All men have souls and lives exposed to misery and Luke ix.56. ruin and, The Son of man, so he assures us, came not to destroy, but to save the souls (or lives) of men. Those propositions in form, respecting an indefinite object, are according to vulgar use equipollent to those, wherein the object is expressed universally. However,

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18.

10.

3. They are interpreted by others, expressed in terms as general and comprehensive as can be; such 1 Tim. iv. as these texts contain: The living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of the faithful, (of all men universally, not only of the faithful, though 1 Tim.ii. 4, chiefly of them.) God our Saviour would have all men to be saved; He is the mediator of God and Rom. xi. men, who gave himself a ransom for all men ; God

5, 6.

14, 15.

hath shut up all men under sin, that he might have SERM. mercy upon all. The love of Christ constraineth LXXI. us, judging this, that if one died for all, then are all 2 Cor. v. dead; and he died for all, that they who live may not live to themselves, but to him that died for them, and rose again. The saving grace of God Tit. ii. 11. hath appeared to all men, (or the grace of God, which is saving to all men, hath appeared, érepáv ň

χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις.) He tasted Heb. ii. 9. death (iep navròs) for every man. He is the true John i. 9.

light, that enlighteneth every man coming into the world. Which propositions do sufficiently determine the extent of our Saviour's saving performances.

10.

4. Further yet, to exclude any limitation or diminution of these so general terms, (at least to exclude any limitation in regard to all the members of the visible church, which are or have been incorporated thereinto,) it is expressed, that our Saviour's undertakings did respect even those, who (by their own default) might lose the benefit of them, and who in effect should not be saved. For, of those false teachers, who introduced pernicious heresies, it is 2 Pet. ii. 1. said, that they denied the Lord who bought them. And St. Paul implies, that by scandalous example a weak brother, for whom Christ died, being induced

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II.

to sin, might be destroyed. And by thy knowledge 1 Cor. viii. shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? And, Do not, saith he again, by thy eating Rom. xiv. destroy him, for whom Christ died. And the apostle

15.

to the Hebrews signifies concerning apostates, that they do trample upon the Son of God, and pollute Heb. x. 29. the blood of Christ, by which they are sanctified.

Væ illis, qui auctorem propriæ salutis negaverunt. Ambr. Ps. xxxix.