Donald Cargill

I have been reading this morning a biography of Donald Cargill by M. Grant called No King But Christ. Cargill was a Scots preacher during the 17th century who underwent many persecutions during the "sifting times" when the Church of England did great damage to the Scottish church. One of Cargill's great themes in his preaching was the mystery of God's redemptive purpose in Christ. He once said the following about it:

"Now must it be so? Must it be so that the Son of God must be put to these things? Was there a necessity for this? Can it be done no otherwise? No, there was no creature that could give merit to his suffering but he who was God indeed: the bearing of suffering was not enough, but the communicating of infinite merit and worth. That is the thing that looses the prisoners, that they were sufferings of infinite merit; and no creature, be what he will, could give infinite merit but his own Son. And it was by reason of that union, the hypostatical union, that this infinite merit was joined to the sufferings of Christ. It is our great shame and sin that we are not more exercised with our redemption, seeing it has been the thought of the infinite God from eternity, the work of the Son in time and it is the great work of the providence of God in the world, for there is more work bestowed upon the small number of the elect than there is upon all the world beside."