beleeved. Had they beleeved effectuallyLuk. 21.28.
Rom. 8.23.
Heb. 11.35.
Empti dicuntur, h.e. ut alibi loquitur scriptura,
Exod. 15.16.
Deut. 32.6
acquisiti, nempe quod illos Deus in familiam am suam adsciverit.
See Kimedont. de Redemp. hũ. gen. cap. 9. pag. 206. with a soveraigne, well-rooted affiance, they had been bought saving-effectually: as they beleeved superficially, so they were bought in act and event, but not unto Salvation. The purchase of redemption goeth before faith, is not made by faith, but applied only: but it is most assured, if men beleeve unfainedly, they are redeemed effectually, if they beleeve not, they are not redeemed: for them that be cast off as aliens, we doe not reade that redemption was purchased. This interpretation will not seeme new, nor strained to them that shall weigh the circumstances of the Text, not to them that urge it, when they shall consider it is their owne. It agreeth well with the scope of the Apostle, which is to shew the fearefull condition of such false teachers, because they in life denied the Lord that had called them into Covenant, which they had accepted, whom they had embraced by faith, by whom they were delivered from the pollutions of the world, in whom if they had beleeved unfainedly, without question, they should have been saved: and whom wilfully, not of frailty, they had denied. And is not this a good argument to prove, that by their wilfull departure they had brought upon themselves swift damnation. If they were never the neerer heaven by ought Christ had done, the fault was their owne: for life was truly promised unto them, whereof they deprived themselves, not because they could not doe otherwise, but because they would not receive it, or having received it in part, they voluntarily fell off. What though God never purposed to make them actuall partakers of the saving benefits of Christs death? By his commandement he bound them to beleeve, by promise he assured them of Salvation if they did beleeve, he bestowed upon them many spirituall gifts the fruits of Christs death; and if they fell away, God was no cause efficient or deficient of their revolt: And doth not all this conclude their sinne to be out of measure sinfull in denying the Lord that bought them.
The other places Rom. 14. and 1 Cor. 8. receive the same answer; for they speake of weake bretheren for whom Christ died, who were beleevers, or as beleevers, for whom Christ died in respect of application. And then this argument doth not hang handsomly together, Christ died for beleevers in respect of application, therefore he died for all men to impetrate righteousnesse. If they reason thus, he died for some in respect of application that mayperish;
