improvement, for much valuable and useful knowledge, for a more full and clear exhibition of duty, for greater restraints on wickedness, and stronger incentives to righteousness, and benevolence, and purity; with many other things, contributing to the prosperity of society and the welfare of individuals, which unassisted reason or civil legislation could never have secured.* The system of grace, established on earth and resting as its basis on the atonement of Christ, surrounds, so to speak, 'our guilty world with an atmosphere of natural and moral good, and scatters an endless variety of personal and social enjoyments.' These advantages are strictly universal; and if the sentiment that Christ died for all men, were understood to have no higher reference than these, we might not feel ourselves called upon to dispute it. Still, at the same time, we should be disposed to question the propriety of the language employed to express the sentiment in question. Because certain benefits, not of a saving nature, spring to all men from the death of Christ, we do not conceive it proper to say that Christ died for all men. It is plain that, in this sense, the phrase expresses a meaning different altogether from that which it bears when used with reference to the subjects of saving grace, or the objects of God's purpose of mercy. And, with nearly the same propriety, might it be affirmed that Christ died for angels, for it is not to be disputed, as we shall afterwards see, that they also derive important advantages * Hill's Lectures, v. iii. p. 9. from the death of Christ, more especially an enlargement of knowledge and an accession of companions, which, but for this, they could never have enjoyed. Besides; it ought to be observed, that universal terms are not to be stretched beyond that with reference to which they are used. They denote all comprehended within a specified whole, but the whole itself may be limited. In this sense, the term all may express an endless variety of extension; it may be all the members of a family, or all the citizens of a town, or all the population of a country, or all the inhabitants of the globe. Its meaning must be defined by that which is spoken of. That Christ died for all, is certainly affirmed; but for all whom? This is the question. Whether for all the human family? or only for all that were given him by his Father, for all his own, for all his church? Because, in speaking of privileges secured for the people of Great Britain, a writer should happen to say that these privileges were secured for all, it would surely be unfair to infer that he meant they were secured for all the inhabitants of the earth. Not less unwarrantable is it, because Christ is said to have died for all, when the whole context is treating of the privileges of the people of God, to draw the conclusion, that he died for all the human family without exception. And it is here not a little noticeable, that, in the whole compass of revelation, so far as we are aware, it is never once said, in so many terms, that Christ died for all men, or for every man. In the received version, it is true, the words men and man occur, but there are no corresponding terms in the original; all and every one are the words employed, leaving the sense to be filled up by the connexion. It may here also be remarked, that the Greek language possesses terms more strictly expressive of absolute universality than those which are used in treating of the extent of Christ's death ;* so that we may infer, it was not the design of the inspired writers to express the greatest degree of universality, else these more extensive terms would have been employed. Having make these general observations, we are now prepared for entering on a more close review of the particular passages of scripture, on which the objection we are considering is founded. These passages may be arranged into two classes: -Such as connect the death of Christ with the world or the whole world—and such as speak of his having died for all men or for every man. The passages which connect the death of Christ with the world or the whole world, are six in number. It may be premised, that the term world is used in scripture subjectively for the material world, or the world containing; as in the expressions, 'the world was made by him,' and 'the field is the world.' It is also used adjunctively for the world contained, that is, the men in the world; as when God is said to judge the world.' It is scarcely necessary to remark, that it is in the latter sense * Iãs is the word most commonly employed. But it is allowed not to have the same intensity as ἅπας, σύμπας, οι ἕκαστος, which we believe are not used in this connexion. † John i. 10; Matt. xiii. 38. Rom. iii. 6. the term occurs in the present controversy. But even in this sense, its meaning is not always uniform; it sometimes means all men collectively, and at other times all distributively, that is, some of all classes. Nothing is clearer than that the phrases the world, all the world, and the whole world, often occur in circumstances where absolute collective universality is perfectly inadmissible. Such is the case in the following passages:-'There went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus that all the world should be taxed ;'* where all the world can mean only the inhabitants of the Roman empire: The world knew him not;'t where all the inhabitants of the earth cannot be meant, as there certainly existed, even then, some who knew Christ: Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing; behold the world is gone after him ;' where, as denoting those who waited on the ministry of Jesus, a very restricted sense only of the term can be applicable :-'The whole world lieth in wickedness;'§ where, though more extensive than in the last quotation, universality is totally inadmissible, as, at the time this language was used, there were, at least, several thousand godly persons in the world: All the world wondered after the beast;' at the time to which this language applies there were with the Lamb on mount Zion a hundred and forty and four thousand, who had not the mark of the beast in their forehead. Thus is it distinctly proved that the phrases in question † John i. 10. * Luke ii. 1. ‡ John xii. 29. || Rev. xiii. 3. do not necessarily denote universality. If absolute universality is to be understood, when they occur in reference to the death of Christ, it must be on some other ground than the scripture usage of the language. And if the extent of import attachable to the words is to be determined by circumstances connected with the thing spoken of, we candidly submit whether the principles formerly advanced, from the purposes of God, the covenant of grace, the resurrection and intercession of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit, are not sufficient to warrant a restricted import, while the general observations, lately made, determine the nature and extent of this limitation. But let us look at the passages themselves in which these phrases occur. 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."* Here, the fact that the Lamb of God does not take away the sin of every individual in the world, peremptorily demands that the term shall be taken in a restricted acceptation; while the circumstance of the address having been made originally to Jews, sufficiently accounts, on a principle formerly explained, for the use of an extensive term. John was sent to announce a new order of things, widely different, in point of extent, from the levitical economy, which had now waxed old and was ready to vanish away. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in *John i. 29. |