Strehle on Luther's View of the Extent of the Atonement

"If one has correctly understood the conception of atonement in Luther, his opinions upon the extent of the atonement need not even be inspected, since his system can only lead to one alternative, an unlimited atonement. Nevertheless, Luther makes his position clear, stating that Christ has borne "all the sins of all men,"[1] "the sins of the whole world, from Adam to the very last person,"[2] "not some, but all the sins of the whole world, great or small, few or many."[3] His death would even have sufficed to remove the sins of "many, many worlds."[4] But these conclusions only naturally follow from the mission of Christ in Luther to abrogate the whole law,[5] to swallow up all the enemies of His reign in His deity.[6] If Christ had not borne the sins of the whole world, He would not have completely eliminated within the divine economy the hostile elements, and as a consequence could not be considered as Lord over all things.[7] He could not eschatologically defeat all the devil and his works, throwing them into the lake of fire. Such is the teaching and system of Luther, as well as Scripture itself.[1]

It should be apparent by now that the extent of the atonement question is not to be studied as an isolated doctrine, but is a question which involves methods and systems of theology. One's position upon the extent of the atonement is most often a product of decisions which have been made in other areas of doctrine. For Duns Scotus, a limited conception of Christ's work has already been determined in his theology proper, in his philosophical ordination of all events around their final end. For Luther, his impetus upon the Christus Victor, as just mentioned, leads logically to the exact opposite result, an unlimited atonement. In addition, even to complicate matters further, the import of "extent of atonement" cannot even be univocally applied to both, seeing that "extent" for Duns relates to amount of merit, while for Luther it relates to destruction of enemies. For one, the issue is salvation; for the other, lordship."

1. LW 26,280.
2. WA 46,678.
3. WA 10/1/2,207. cf. LW 26,280-81.
4. WA 20,638: "Totius.' Dicere enim possum: Ego sum et tu pars mundi. Erigit omnium corda. Non relinquit cogitare: Est propiciatio pro peccatis Petri, Pauli, si etiam pro meis esset! 'Pro totius.' In Christo satis est propiciantionis, si etiam mundus adhuc maior, quia sic effudit sanguinem, ut sit tam copiosa, ut sufficeret multis mundis."
5. LW 26,350.
6. Luther, Works, 2:520-21.
7. WA 45,483;24,24.
1, Eph. 1:10,21: "With a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things upon the earth. In him . . . far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come." cf. Col. 1:20.

Stephen Alan Strehle, The Extent of the Atonement Within the Theological Systems of the Sixteenth and Seventheenth Centuries (Th.D. Dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1980), 71-72.

Samuel Annesley (1620?-1696) on the Love of God

"It is the Duty of every Child of God, to keep themselves in the Love of God.

This proposition is grounded upon a threefold Supposition.
1. That some men are in the Love of God really, and eternally.
2. That this Love wherewith God loveth his Chosen, is a special love, a peculiar and distinguishing Love.
3. That it is a Duty, as well as a Priviledge to keep our selves in this Love of God: our Activity, as well as Gods Act. Which will be hereafter more explained.

Before we come to the main Question, we will answer this Question: How Love can be said to be in God? for Love is a Passion in the Creature, and Passions are Imperfections, which are contrary to Gods Perfection.

A. 1. It is true: Nothing of Imperfection is in God; but Love is in God as a Perfection: because Love is in God in the abstract, that is essentially; for Abstracts speak Essences. God is Love. 1 John 4.8.

The Love of God is either natural or voluntary, thus Divines distinguish, and that well.

1. The Natural Love of God is that wherewith God loves himself.

That is, the reciprocal Love whereby the three Persons love each other.

This Essential Natural Love of God is therefore necessary. God cannot but love himself.

2. The Love of God is voluntary: thus he loves his Creatures with a general Love.

1. Because he made them, and made them good, therefore he preserves them: for though Sin be really evil, and none of Gods making, but contrary to God, and hated of God; yet God loves the Creatures as his Creatures, although sinful, with a general Love.

2. He loves some Creatures with a special Love, and by this he loves Jesus Christ as Mediator.

1. This Love of God to Christ as Mediator, is the Foundation of Gods Love to his Elect.

2. By a special Love God loves his Elect. John 13.1. Of this Love it's said that it is inseparable.

Now this is the peculiar Love which God bears to some above others. Not because they were more lovely than others, nor because God foresaw they would believe and love him; but because God loved them first antecedently to all those things: and because he loved them therefore Christ shall come and die, and therefore they shall believe in him and love him. The summ is this: Our Love to God is the Effect, and not the Cause of Gods Love to us: yea Christ himself as Mediator is the Effect of Gods Eternal Love. This is primitive Doctrine [Annesley goes on to reference Augustine in several places]."

Samuel Annesley, "Sermon VI" in A Continuation of Morning-Exercise Questions and Cases of Conscience, Practically Resolved by Sundry Ministers, in October 1682. (London: Printed by J. A. for John Dunton at the Sign of the Black Raven in the Poultry over against the Stocks-Market, 1683), 127-128.

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Moore (via Ford) Corrects Trueman's Bad Historiography on Ussher

In footnote #31 of his book and doctoral dissertation, Moore writes:

"31. Ussher, Works, XII: 567. Carl Trueman concludes from the book Body of Divinitie that Ussher was a rigorous particularist (James Ussher, A Body of Divinitie, or the Summe and Substance of Christian Religion, catechistically propounded, and explained, by way of Question and Answer [London: M. F. for Thomas Downes and George Badger, 1645], p. 173; Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen's Trinitarian Theology [Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press, 1998], p. 200). However, even if the evidence in this book had been compelling, it is not relevant, for Ussher was not in fact its author and was displeased at its publication under his name, even expressing disagreement with some of its content (Ussher, The Judgement, II:23-25; Nicholas Bernard, The Life & Death of the most reverend and learned Father of our Church Dr. James Ussher [London: E. Tyler for John Crook, 1656], pp. 41-42; Samuel Clarke, A general Martyrologie, containing a Collection of all the greatest Persecutions which have befallen the Church of Christ, from the Creation, to our present Times [London: For William Birch, 1677], II: 283; Parr, The Life of the most reverend Father in God, James Usher, I:62; Ussher, Works, I:248-50). Breward is another who, on the basis of this book, mistakenly attributes to Perkins a strong influence upon Ussher's thought (Ian Breward, ed., The Work of William Perkins [Abingdon, UK: Sutton Courtenay Press, 1970], p. 102). I am grateful to Alan Ford for clarification on this point."

Jonathan D. Moore, English Hypothetical Universalism: John Preston and the Softening of Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 178-179.

Note: I am not endorsing Moore's book, as I find it highly disappointing and quite misleading in many areas. He himself engages in bad historiography and uses Protestant Reformed Church categories/methodologies (as he has been associated with them in the past), but his correction of others is of some use to observe. I may eventually post his material that corrects the bad historiography of Thomas Boston (and others, like Lachman) on John Preston's views.

Turner on Polhill, Howe and Watts

"Daniel Turner may have shared a love of liberty with John Ryland, but there were significant differences between the two men. In a letter written in 1782, Turner revealed that he did not subscribe to the doctrine of Particular Redemption. He wrote,

I am one with the good Mr Polhill, Mr How, Dr. Watts and many other hold the doctrine of Particular Election and general Redemption as it may be called.[17]

These were unusual sentiments for a Particular Baptist minister in the 1780's."

17. 'Daniel Turner to Mr Mumm, Watford, 14 June 1782', Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.

Robert W. Oliver, History of the English Calvinistic Baptists 1771-1892 (Banner of Truth, 2006), 62.

There are several things to observe here:

1) Note that Robert Oliver calls Turner a "Particular Baptist minister" and yet Turner (at least at the time of the letter) held a Calvinistic form of "general Redemption" while maintaining "Particular Election." Paul Hobson (who signed the 1644 and 1646 Confessions) and Thomas Lamb fall within this category as well. However, Oliver does go on to claim that Turner "was moving away from the orthodoxy both of the 1689 Confession and of Gill's Declaration of Faith and Practice." Contrary to Oliver, I think the 1689 is compatible with a moderate position, as is the Westminster Confession.

2) Turner knew about the position of Polhill, How[e], and Watts on the subject and said he agreed with them.

3) Of particular interest here is Turner's early testimony about the Puritan John Howe's position on redemption. This is one of the earliest references to Howe (a prominent Puritan) being a moderate, and here is a Particular Baptist who knew about it and agreed with it. Since Howe did not expound on the extent of the atonement as did Polhill, Turner shows that he carefully read Howe and understood the moderate categories.

S. Lewis Johnson on the Universal Offer and God's Desire for the Salvation of All Men

"Fifth, the gospel is offered indiscriminately, because God desires that every man believe. God should be guided by his own inner feelings, if I should use that term of God, not by those of sinful man. Why can he not say, as the Bible suggests, "Turn ye, turn ye. For why will ye die?" If a man has a kind and compassionate nature, it's unreasonable to require that he suppress it's promptings in case he sees a proud and surly person who is unwilling to accept a gift. The fact that men are unresponsive does not mean that God should thereby not be compassionate. Good and kind offers may be offered and be sincere, even though those to whom they're given may be individuals of whom it is known that they will reject. The universal offer of the benefit springs out of God's will of complacency. The Bible says he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Further, God may properly call upon the non-elect to do a thing that God delights in simply because he does delight in it. The Divine desire is not altered by the Divine decree of preterition. Resistance does not diminish His desire. There exists in God the desire that men be saved. There exists in God the will, assuming this position, that the elect be saved. These, the will and the desire, exist simultaneously in God, and they do not contradict one another."

Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, The Suffering Savior (1974) - The Design of the Atonement: For Whom Did Christ Die? - IV

After this section, Johnson goes on to approvingly quote R. L. Dabney's work on the will of God in God's Indiscriminate Proposals of Mercy, though Johnson (a strict Calvinist) never seemed aware of Dabney's moderate atonement views. The same can be said about his references to W. G. T. Shedd in the same series.

Herman Kuiper on Calvin's View of a Purpose of God in Common Grace

"In Calvin's writings we also meet with the view that God in various ways manifests His goodness to men at large in order that He may turn them from their sins and allure them to Himself. So for instance our author tells us in several places that God woos men to Himself and urges them to come to repentance by the bestowal of various blessings. (I, 5, 14; Gen. 39, 1-2; Is. 26, 10; Hos. 6, 5; 9, 15; Matth. 22, 4; Acts 5, 12; Rom. 2, 4) According to our author God many a time suspends punishment in order that He may invite men to repent by His long-suffering (Gen. 6, 3; Ex. 9, 14; 9, 31-33; Jer. 25, 27 and 34; Dan. 9, 13; Amos 7, 1-3; Zeph. 3, 6-7), and he would also have us believe that God oftentimes has the same purpose in mind when He threatens men or applies His rods to them without exacting the extreme penalty. (Gen. 6, 13; 20, 7; Lev. 26, 40; Numb. 17, 12-13; Is. 22, 12; Jer. 2, 30; 31, 18; Ezech. 6, 12; 14, 6; 16, 27; Dan. 4, 26; Hos. 5, 9; Amos 3, 3-8; Zeph. 2, 1-2) Again we are told that God is said to have the conversion of men in view and seeks to draw them to Himself when He shines upon them with the light of His Word. (Is. 6, 10; 41, 9?; 65, 2; Jer. 7, 25-26; Math. 23, 37; John 5, 43; 12, 35; Hebr. 3, 16."

Herman Kuiper, Calvin on Common Grace (Netherlands: Oosterbaan & Le Cointre; Grand Rapids, MI: Smitter Book Co., 1928), 207-208.

Jonathan Moore on Owen, Scudder, Polhill and English Hypothetical Universalism

Although language could be very heated at times, and this controversy was deemed by many to be of the utmost importance, polemic fell short of using such emotive language, provided that a common abhorrence of, and separation from, Arminianism could still be established.¹²⁵ Indeed, those sometimes charged with being hard, harsh and obstinate on this point could sometimes prove to be most charitable in the larger context of the Puritan brotherhood. For example, it was John Owen himself who wrote a recommendatory preface in 1674 to Westminster Divine Henry Scudder's The Christians daily Walk, in which a recommendatory preface by Baxter also appeared. In this book Scudder spends a section of five pages defending a hypothetical universalist position, and in his recommendation Owen covers himself accordingly by distancing himself from some unspecified expressions in the book.¹²⁶ But his willingness to commend it warmly on the basis of the plain and practical godliness it promotes is indicative of the relative importance given to this in-house Reformed debate, at least in Post-Restoration England, even by one of the staunchest defenders of particularism.

Indeed there is even evidence that might lead one to doubt whether the later Owen would have ever republished his Death of Death without revising it in terms of its severe tone and language concerning hypothetical universalism.¹²⁷ In his recommendatory preface to English Hypothetical Universalist Edward Polhill's book on the divine decrees, of which 65 pages are taken up with a robust refutation of particular redemptionism and defense of English Hypothetical Universalism,¹²⁸ Owen ventures

to express my own dissent from some of his apprehensions, especially about the Object and Extent of Redemption. Had I seen this discourse before it was wholly Printed, I should have communicated my thoughts unto him upon that Subject, and some few passages in it: but where there is an agreement in the substance and design of any Doctrine, as there is between my judgment and what is here solidly declared, it is out duty to bear with each other in things circumstantial, or different explanations of the same Truth, when there is no incursion made upon the Principles we own.¹²⁹

So by the 1670's, it was not hypothetical universalists by "Papists, Socinians, Arminians, [and] Quakers"¹³⁰ that Owen wanted to see attacked, and that from the apparently much safer vantage point of a Reformed Orthodox fortress free from the embarrassing cracks of vituperous intra-Reformed debates, and lined with a good insulating layer of warm fellowship for the godly.¹³¹

125. Davenant’s opposition to Arminian/Remonstrant theology was strenuous and extensive. Accordingly, Owen never attributed heresy to Davenant, but, on the contrary, spoke reverently of him, and especially appreciated Davenant’s treatise on justification, employing it in the 1670s in his own writings an justification and perseverance (Owen, Works, 3:218-219; 5:208, 368; 11:497). On the other hand, Owen’s chief opponent in Death of Death was an altogether different case. Unlike Davenant, Thomas Moore was unlearned and unqualified, and went far closer to Anninianism and even Pelagianism in his bold efforts to defend his system of universal redemption. This provoked sustained and open contempt from Owen and repeated charges of “abominable” or “gross error” as well as “heresies” (ibid., 10:189, 356-358, 379, 381-382, 398-399, 403, 415). Cf. the sentiments expressed in Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 1st edn, 4 vol. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 1:76-77, 80 and Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 29-31.

126. Henry Scudder, The Christians daily Walk, in holy Security and Peace. Being an Answer to these Questions: 1. How a Man may do each present Days work with Christian Cheerfulness?, 2. How to bear each Present Days Cross with Christian Patience? Containing familiar Direction, shewing 1. How to walk with God in the whole Course of a Mans Life. 2. How to be upright in the said Walking. 3. How to live without taking Care or Thought in any thing. 4. How to get and keep true Peace with God, wherein are manifold Helps 10 prevent and remove damnable Presumption; also to quiet and ease distressed Consciences [...] commended to the Practice of all Professors, by Dr Owen and Mr Baxter, [1627] 11th edn (London: For Lodowick Lloyd, 1674), 331-336, Alv. Scudder’s defense of hypothetical universalism also appeared in the edition that had most likely enthused Owen as a young man (Henry Scudder, The Christians daily Walke, in holy Securitie and Peace. Being an Answer to these Questions: 1. How a Man may doe each present Daies Worke with Christian Chearfullnesse?, 2. How to bear each Present Daies Crosse with Christian Patience? Containing familiar Directions, shewing 1. How to walk with God in the whole Course of a Mans Life. 2. How to be upright in the said Walking. 3. How to live without taking Care or Thought in any thing. 4. How to get and keepe true Peace with God, wherein are manifold Helpes to prevent and remove damnable Presumption; also to quiet and ease distressed Conscences. First intended for private Use: now (through importunity) published for the common Good, [1627] 8th Corrected and enlarged edn [London: I.L. for Henry Overton, 1642], 350-357; Scudder, Christians daily Walk, 1674, Alr).

127. We have already noted above that Owen would have revised it in terms of his change of mind on the necessity of the atonement.

128. Edward Polhill, The Divine Will considered in its eternal Decrees and holy Execution of them, 1st edn (London: For Henry Eversden, 1673), 281-346.

129. Polhill, Divine Will, A6r-A6v. The other recommendatory preface to this volume was written by English Hypothetical Universalist and Westminster Divine Lazarus Seaman.

130. Ibid., A7r.

131. Soon after the Restoration, a disillusioned Owen had given up hope for a Christian unity based on confessional uniformity (Owen, Works, 14:314-315).

Jonathan Moore, "The Extent of the Atonement: English Hypothetical Universalism versus Particular Redemption," in Drawne into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism (Oakville, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 154-156. Other material from Moore's article concerning Hypothetical Universalism and Westminster Assembly can be read here (click) and the same at the Synod of Dort here (click). Worth reading as well are Richard Muller's comments in the same book. He, like Moore, says these were "in-house Reformed debates," i.e. indicative of a plurality of trajectories within the Reformed orthodox camp.

Scudder's moderate views first appeared on this blog in October of 2007 (I know of no other source affirming him as moderate before that date), and then in David Allen's article on the atonement in 2010 in Whosoever Will (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010), 73-74. Moore's comments now in print regarding Scudder's "hypothetical universalism" are further vindication of our reading of Scudder's moderate position.

Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) on God's Love and Hate

"2. Our Divines say God loveth the persons of the Elect, but hateth their sins, M. Denne offendeth at this, and so doth the Arminians with the same reason, if God hate the works of iniquity he cannot but hate the persons, and workers of iniquity also: Its true, the Lord hateth so the persons of the Elect for their sins; as he taketh vengeance of their sins on their Surety Christ, but this consisteth with the Lords loving of their persons to eternal salvation: The truth is, Gods affection ad intra of hatred and displeasure, never so passeth on the persons of the Elect, as on the persons of the Reprobate; he had thoughts of love and peace in secret, from eternity, to his own Elect, he did frame a Heaven, a Saviour for them, before all time.

3. Propos. Our Divines do rightly teach, that there is a twofold love in God; Amor benevolentia, A love of well willing, which he did bear to them before the world was, & it is called the love of Election: Of this love, Rom. 9.13. Paul speaketh, I have loved Jacob and hated Esau; this is fountain love, the well-head of all our salvation: There is another love called Amor complacentiae, A love of complacency, a love of justification (so M. Denne termeth it) which presupposeth faith: Without which its unpossible to please God, Heb. 11.6. of this Christ speaketh, Joh. 14.21. He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him, ver. 23. If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and will come unto him, and make our abode with him; so Christ the wisdom of God saith, I love them that love me, Pro. 8.17. And so Christ speaketh of his love to his redeemed and sanctified Spouse, Can. 4.9. Thou hast ravished my heart my sister, my Spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thy eyes, with one chain of thy neck: Holiness and the image of God is the object of this love, not the cause nor any hire: it is not so properly love as the other. God rather loveth persons, desiring well and good to them, then things. Mr. Denne is not content with this distinction; and why: The love of Election, and the love of Justification (saith he) are not diverse loves, or divers degrees of love, but divers manifestations of one and the same infinite love; as when a Father hath conveyed an Inheritance to his son, here is no new love from the Father to the son, but a new manifestation of that love wherewith the Father loved the son before. Answ. Men should not take on them to refute they know not what; not any Protestant Divines ever taught, that there is a new love in God, or any new degree of love in God, that was not in him before: Arminians indeed tell us of new love, new desires, and of ebbing & flowing; love and hatred succeeding one to another in Gods mind, these Vorstian blasphemies we disclaim; it is indeed, one and the same simple and holy will of God, by which he loved Peter and John from eternity, and choose them to salvation, & by which he so loveth them in time, as of Free-grace he bestoweth on them Faith, Holiness, Pardon in Christ, and followeth these with his love; and the former is called his love of good will to their person, ere they do good or ill: the latter his love of complacency to their State, and the Lords new workman-ship in them, as with the same love the husband chooseth such a one for his wife, and loveth her being now his married Spouse.

Obj. 2. Men like those whom they love, and so doth God. Ans. We grant all; these termes of Gods good loving, and good-liking, are chosen of Divines to express the thing. God loveth and liketh Jacob not Esau, from eternity, ere he believe or do good: but he doth not so love and like Jacob from eternity, to bestow Faith and the Image of the second Adam on him, while in time he hear the Word and be humbled for sin, and the truth is, the love of complacency is not a new act of Gods will that ariseth in God in time, but the declaration of Gods love of good will in this effect, that God is pleased to bestow faith & his beauty of holiness which maketh the soul lovely to God, and it is rather the effect of eternal love, then love And God hath a love of complacency toward the persons of the Elect, & love of good will (though not of chusing good will toward them) for their holiness, Cant. 4.9.

Obj. 3. It is absurd that God should love the Elect with infiinite love to chuse them to salvation, as touching their persons, and withall to hate them with an infinite hatred, as workers of iniquity. Answ. It were absurd I grant, if Gods hatred to the Elect as sinners, were any immanent affection in God opposite to his love, by which he should be averse to their persons. But Gods hatred to the Elect, because they are sinners, is nothing but his displicency against sin (not against the person) so as he is to inflict satisfactory punishment on the surety Christ for their sin. A Father may so love his Prodigall Son, as to retain a purpose to make him Inheritor of a Kingdom (if he had a Crown for himself) and to pay his debts, and yet both hate and punish his profuse and lavish wasting of his goods."

Samuel Rutherford, The Tryal & Triumph of Faith (London: Printed by John Field, and are to be sold by Ralph Smith, at the Sign of the Bible in Cornhill neer the Royall Exchange, 1659), 398-401. David Silversides cites this section of Rutherford's Trial in order to counter the Hoeksemian view that God never hated the elect. See The Free Offer: Biblical & Reformed (Marpet Press, 2005), 41-42.