Miscellanies

This page will function as a personal theological notebook, much like Jonathan Edwards's Miscellanies. It's just a place for personal research notes that others may find interesting. If you want to look over my shoulder, as it were, and see what I am thinking about theologically, check here on a regular basis. My most recent thoughts will appear at the bottom.

~Miscellanies~

1. Dec. 6, 2014: Write posts on the following subjects: a) On gossip; b) The helpful first and second class essential distinctions in Nicholas Hunnius (a Lutheran), and problems in Richard Hooker (contra Walter Travers) and N. T. Wright on sola fide as an essential; c) Continue blogging Flavel's chapters on Christ Knocking; d) An extensive essay on the varieties of hyper-Calvinism (particularly the modern eclectic sort) with my detailed chart explaining the same; e) A primer on moderate Calvinism; f) On the contemporary misunderstandings of divine odium, and the evangelical reactions to the WBC's hyper-Calvinism; g) A detailed series on the problems with the TULIP acronym; h) The helpful William Twisse distinctions between unconditional election to faith and conditional election to salvation; i) An essay explaining my conference chart on 4 Views of the Will of God and the Cross; j) A chart showing and explaining the stronger and weaker terms to describe God's revealed will among Calvinists (delight when/delight that, wish, desire, seeks, begs, intends, purposes, etc.).
2. Dec. 6, 2014: The EEBO-TCP tool is excellent for finding sources, but unfortunately page numbers are not given for the occurrences. This tool is also useful for Phase I searches in EEBO.
3. Dec 6, 2014: Update Works Cited, Subject Index, and About pages, and create a Links page. Update page on the will of God language in Calvinists.
4. Dec. 6, 2014: Think of a way to include the C&C name index links to my name index.
5. Dec. 6, 2014: Create a distinct post on Phil Johnson's confusion on George Gillespie's seeming denial of God's universal love as stated in the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly (using John Knox and Samuel Rutherford as examples), and critique his Primer on Hyper-Calvinism.
6. Dec. 6, 2014: Blog William Pinke's moderate statements on the extent of Christ's death.
7. Dec. 6, 2014: Continue exhaustively searching through the Dictionary of National Biography for names of interest, using key terms such as "Puritan," "Calvinist," "Nonconformist," "divine," "presbyter," "Reformer," "ejected," "dissent(er)," etc. Update names to search pages on Wordpress.
8. Dec. 6, 2014: Begin outlining, organizing sources, and writing a book on The Difficult Doctrine of the Hate of God to compliment Carson's book on divine love. Type out Elijah Norton's (1802) excellent work on divine hatred for a possible appendix, and perhaps Nathanael Emmons on the same.
9. Dec. 6, 2014: The apocryphal work, The Book of Wisdom, is sometimes cited by Reformers and Puritans as containing some truth, though not as an authority. Read and mark the more interesting verses for future reference. Chapter 11 verse 24 is commonly quoted. The Book of Wisdom 11:23-26 says the following: "23. But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook the sins of men that they may repent. 24. For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned. 25. And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you? 26. But you spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls," Chapter 12 verse nevertheless says, "the ancient inhabitants" in the holy land "whom you hated for deeds most odious..." And again, "equally odius to God are the evildoer and his evil deed" (14:9). The sense is that God loves (amor benevolentiae) all creatures as his creatures, but hates (odium abominationis) evil creatures in so far as they are sinful.
10. Dec. 6, 2014: The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus is well-worth reading. Possibly blog the moderate-sounding portions on the death of Christ and the will of God. See "The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus: The Epistle to Diognetus," in Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, D.D. & James Donaldson, LL.D., rev. by A. Cleveland Coxe (1885; Peabody, Mass.: 2004), 1:27, 28.
11. Dec. 6, 2014: John Robinson (in Of Religious Communion [1614], p. 116) affirms God's common love towards all creatures as their Creator in distinction to redemptive love, but his affirmation is too embedded in theological nonsense to be worth blogging. The same goes for John Stalham (Vindiciae Redemptionis [1647], p. 37.). 
12. Dec. 6, 2014: Now that my Hyper-Calvinism page is complete, I may write my own "Primer on Hyper-Calvinism" to replace Phil Johnson's out-of-date, subjective, overly qualified, and a-historical "Primer" with mostly dead links at the bottom. Dr. Curt Daniel is a much more stable, consistent, objective, and scholarly source on the topic.
13. Dec. 6, 2014: Perhaps post my nearly exhaustive collection of George Whitefield statements from his Works that deal with the death of Christ, most of which seem universal in nature. Include his other rare statements to Wesley (with his appeal to a kind of double-payment argument) that seem inclined to some form of particularlism. Ultimately, there is not enough information to definitively prove Whitefield's views on the extent of Christ's satisfaction, but there is more evidence on the side of those who might think he is a moderate Calvinist. The evidence from the primary sources must be objectively and thoroughly documented.
14. Dec. 6, 2014: The Puritans Oliver Heywood, George Swinnock, Nathaniel Vincent, James Janeway, Joseph Alleine, John Rogers and Thomas Barnes all speak to the lost in their audiences and tell them they are "well-offered" in the Gospel. I have blogged some of these in context already. I need to make sure they are all posted.
15. Dec. 7, 2014: I love finding quotes by Puritans saying that God is "begging" perishing sinners to come to Him. Nothing will make a hyper-Calvinist gag more than this kind of language, especially when it is used in connection with well-meant offer teaching; yet is it mainstream Puritan teaching, as I have thoroughly documented now. Some modern eclectic hyper-Calvinists, as with the free offer and common grace, will try to re-define the idea of God "begging" so as to keep a veneer of orthodoxy, but none of them can really stand it. They know that no one "begs" for something they don't sincerely want, so hyper-Calvinists see that the Augustinian predestinarians using the God-begging language must mean that God truly desires all men to repent, and therefore desires the salvation of all men in the revealed will. As John Murray, Iain Murray, Curt Daniel and others have said, this issue is the very heart of the free offer debate. The denial of God's desire for the salvation of all men is the one thing that all varieties of hyper-Calvinism have in common, though they differ on other topics.
16. Dec. 7, 2014: Compile a name list of all the moderate Calvinists we have discovered so far on the extent of the atonement. 
17. Dec. 7, 2014: Many names of interest, such as certain Puritan authors, are not easily found on EEBO, since they are listed by initials. For example, the Roger Drake (1608-1669) is listed under R. D. with his dates. I have seen many other Puritan authors listed this way on EEBO. Be sure to check for initials during searches.
18. Dec. 7, 2014: For the dispute on whether Judas was at the Lord’s supper, see G. Gillespie, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming (London: Printed by E. G. for Richard Whitaker, 1646), 436–60 R. Drake, A Boundary to the Holy Mount (London: Abraham Miller, 1653), 7; and Daniel, “Hyper-Calvinism and John Gill,” 517, 557–78, and 823. Among past authors who did not believe Judas received the Lord’s Supper, Drake (a high Calvinist and Presbyterian) includes the following: “Clemens, Dionysius, Areopagita, Hilarius, Maximus, Pachymeres, Ammonius Alexandrius, Tatianus, Innocent 3, Theophylactus, Rupertus Tuitiensis, & Victor Antiochenus, Among the Schoolmen, Salmeron, Turrianus, Durandus, Barraditis, and of Protestants, Daneus, Kleinwitzius, Piscator, Beza, Tossanus, Musculus, Zanchius, Gomarus, Diodati, Grotius, &c. See [Gillespie’s] Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, 1.3.c.8.” Drake, A Boundary to the Holy Mount (1653), 7. Of course he cannot include Calvin and Augustine, among others that we have found. Moreover, Luke 22:20–21 makes it clear (as William Prynne said) that Judas was indeed at the table, though Drake attempts to argue the contrary (see pp. 8–11). Interestingly, as an historical note, Hincmar of Reims (AD 806–882), in a letter to Egilo (Archbishop of Sens), used the presence of Judas at the first Lord’s Supper to refute Gottschalk’s (AD 808–867) limited view of Christ’s redemption. See Gottschalk & A Medieval Predestination Controversy, ed. Genke and Gumerlock (Milwauke, WI: Marquette University Press, 2010), 182. This debate, therefore, is quite old.
19. Dec. 7, 2014: Even though William Ames was a high Calvinist, holding a strict view of Christ's death, he said: "As for the intention of application, it is rightly said that Christ made satisfaction only for those whom he saved, though in regard to the sufficiency in the mediation of Christ it may also rightly be said that Christ made satisfaction for each and all." (XXIV.8) The Marrow of Theology, trans. John Dykstra Eusden (Durham, NC: The Labyrinth Press, 1968), 150. Similar statements can be found in William Perkins, where Perkins appears to affirm a kind of "universal redemption," but in a very confused way, as if he can hold to a bare sufficiency view and label it "universal redemption" for the sake of catholicity, as if he is in agreement with "the testimonies of the ancient every where" (or "all the testimonies of the Doctors and School-men"). Perkins says, "I do willingly acknowledge and teach universal redemption and grace, so far as it is possible by the word." William Perkins, "Master Perkinses Epistle to the Reader," in A Christian and Plaine Treatise of the Manner and Order of Predestination (London: Printed for William Welby and Martin Clarke, 1606),  iv. [no pagination; pages numbered manually from the beginning of the Preface] Perkins also said: "...we do acknowledge with glad minds that Christ died for all (the scripture averring so much): but we utterly deny, that he died for all and ever[y] one alike in respect of God, or, as well for the damned as elect, and that effectually on God's part." William Perkins, A Christian and Plaine Treatise of the Manner and Order of Predestination, and of the Largeness of God's Grace (London: Printed for William Welby, and Martin Clarke, 1606), 82. See also page 86 where he calls Christ only the "half redeemer" of some. Pages 105-106 speak of Prosper's sense of sufficiency.
20. Dec. 7, 2014: John Stoughton (in "The heauenly conuersation and the naturall mans condition," 1640), Nathaniel Hardy (in "The first general epistle of St. John the Apostle, unfolded & applied," 1659), and Matthew Mead (in "The good of early obedience," 1683) also distinguish between odium abominationis and odium inimicitiae, just as Thomas Manton does (in "A second volume of sermons preached," 1684). Add these to the collection of quotes. 
21. Dec. 7, 2014: Patrick Gillespie, in The Ark of the Covenant Opened (1677), says that, "Christ paid not the idem, but the tantundem; not the same that was due, but the value: for he suffered not the same pain, numero in number, but specie in kind. Yet its one and the same satisfaction in the Laws sense, which Christ paid, and which we owed, in respect of that Law doth not require of the Surety to pay the same sum in number, which the Debtor borrowed: 'tis satisfaction, if the same in specie, in kind, or in value be paid" (p. 406). Polhill, in his Speculum theologiae in Christo, also makes the distinction in several places.
22. Dec. 9, 2014: "Chrysostome would have informed you [John Goodwin], that those of whom Christ is Redeemer in respect of the sufficiency of the price, may perish, though not those to whom the price is applied." -- William Jenkyn, ΟΔΗΓΟΣ ΤΥΦΟΣ, The Blinde Guide, or the Doting Doctor (Printed at London by M. B. for Christopher Merideth, and are to be sold at his Shop at the signe of the Crane in Pauls Church-yard, 1648), 107. 
23. Dec. 9, 2014: "I find[?] that Master John Goodwin hath alledged some passages in my book, as if I did concur with him, or favor his opinion. I have hereupon considered and weighed well what I have there written, and find nothing tending to the maintaenance of his error; but something expressly against free will to good. I declaring, That notwithstanding Christ may be said to give himself a ransome for all, &c. yet this doth not argue universal Redemption, nor that all men may be saved if they will. I appeal to any judicious and impartial Reader, whether in any thing I have there written, I have justified his opinion; which I am utterly against." Henry Scudder's letter contained in William Jenkyn's ΟΔΗΓΟΣ ΤΥΦΟΣ, The Blinde Guide, or the Doting Doctor (Printed at London by M. B. for Christopher Merideth, and are to be sold at his Shop at the signe of the Crane in Pauls Church-yard, 1648), 112-113. 
24. Dec. 9, 2014: Beza wrote: "But lest thou exclaim that I do wrangle, I confess that the Lord doth do[?] an incredible favor and leniency, even towards the vessels of wrath, ordained to destruction. When is it that he should not destroy Cain by and by? Whence is it that he should protract the flood so many years? Whence is it that he should bless Esau with the plentifulness of the earth? That Ishmael should grow to a great kindred? That he should suffer the Caananites and the Amalachites so long? That he should not take away Saul by and by, but suffer him so long to enjoy the benefit of this life, and also the renown and benefits of the Kingdom of Israel? Finally, that we prosecute antiquities, whence is it that he so nourisheth, and so favorably suffereth so many wicked Turkes, such tyranny of Antichrist, and finally thyself with so many false Prophets, who cease not to seduce whomsoever they may from God's truth. Great, yea great and incomprehensible is this goodness of God towards his enemies, which would God they could once acknowledge, whosoever are elect among them, and be not known, that they might at the last return to him, who truly showeth himself favorable, and slow to wrath even to his adversaries." -- Theodore Beza, An Evident Display of Popish Practices, or Patched Pelagianism, trans. William Hopkinson (London: Imprinted by Ralph Newberie, and Henry Bynnyman, 1578), 62-63. William Strong also says that both Beza and Calvin taught that God had a "fatherly love" for all. This is contrary to Hoeksemian teaching. 
25. Dec. 9, 2014: Menzeis (1624-1684), a high Calvinist, said: "The [Popish] Pamphleter might have known that Protestants do not exclude from the Reformed Churches, the learned Camero, Amyrald, Capellus, Dallaeus who with many others especially in the French Church assert universal redemption." John Menzeis, Roma Mendax (London: Printed for Abel Roper, at the sign of the Sun over against St. Dunstanes Church in Fleet-street, 1675), 190. 
26. Dec. 11, 2014: Check Augustine's De Diversis Quaestionibus Ad Simplicianum (the second question) for different senses of love and hate. He qualifies in this work, unlike elsewhere.
27. Dec. 22, 2014: Check Twitter for past research notes to add here. 
28. Dec. 31, 2014: "Many well-meaning men may err; be not too severe with them, lest prejudice make them obstinate, and so from ‘erring brethren,’ they become heretical." -- Thomas Manton (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/manton/manton05.xx.html). See Manton in this same section on distinguishing between kinds of men and sinners:
    "That ministers had need be wise, to know how to suit their doctrine, to distinguish between persons, actions, circumstances."
    "2. That ministers should give every one their portion. Zwinglius, when he had flashed terrors in the face of the hardened sinner, would add, Bone Christiane, haec niliil ad te—tender conscience! this is not for thee. We must ‘rightly divide the word of truth,’ 2 Tim. ii. 15; that is, not by crumbling and mincing a text of scripture, but giving every one their portion. Terror to whom terror belongeth, and comfort to whom comfort belongeth."
29. Dec. 31, 2014: "St. Augustine hath said, "Errare possum, haereticus esse nolo." [I may be mistaken, but I have not the will to be heretical. or I may fall into error, but I will not plunge into heresy.] And except we put a difference between them that err and them that obstinately persist in error, how is it possible that ever any man should hope to be saved?" -- Hooker (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hooker/just.xiv.html) 
30. Jan. 11, 2015: "Therefore Augustine, Prosper and Fulgentius, still make this difference, That the decree of Damnation goeth on foresight of sin, but the Decree of Salvation containeth a Decree to give that Grace that shall certainly Save us." -- Richard Baxter, An End of Doctrinal Controversies Which Have Lately Troubled the Churches, by Reconciling Explication Without Much Disputing (London: Printed for John Salusbury at the Rising Sun in Cornhil, 1691), 45.
31. Jan. 12, 2015: Thomas Hall (1610-1665) affirms that "God loves all His creatures" in An Exposition By Way of Supplement, on the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Chapters of the Prophecy of Amos (London: Printed for Henry Mortlock, at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard, near the Little North-door, 1661), 326.
32. Jan. 13, 2015: "They [the elect] have the comfort of God's special love, and that is more than what arises but from a general love, which is no more than a reprobate may have." -- John Stalham, Vindiciae Redemptionis (London: Printed by A. M. for Christopher Meredith, at the Sign of the Crane in Pauls Church-yard, 1647), 35. See also page 37. Stalham was a high Calvinist.
33. Jan. 15, 2015: "For a while now, I've thought that a lot of so-called 'Calvinists' in the broader North American church are, unwittingly, hyper-Calvinists (doctrinally speaking)." -- Mark Jones
34. Jan. 15, 2015: Gordon Clark’s rejection of God's universal saving will is explicit: “If this verse [Deut. 5:29] or any verse speaks of God as wishing the salvation of someone whom he has rejected as reprobate, there would be an inconsistency implying hypocrisy.” See Gordon H. Clark, Biblical Predestination (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1974), 130. In this book, Clark follows John Gill’s interpretation of every controversial passage used to argue for God’s universal saving will. Iain Murray accurately described what Gill did: “Gill claimed that all texts appearing to show a favourable desire on God’s part towards all the lost do not have any reference to their salvation.” John Gill, Herman Hoeksema, Gordon Clark, David Engelsma, and Robert Reymond are all on the same page in their denial that God desires the salvation of any who are non-elect or “reprobate,” though they differ on other points and details involved in hyper-Calvinism (e.g., general love, common grace, free offers, etc.).
35. Jan. 16, 2015: "Augustine saith, he hardeneth not, impertiendo malitiam, sed non impertiendo gratiam, not by imparting malice, but by not imparting his mercie and grace: epistol. 105" -- Andrew Willet, Hexapla, that is, A six-fold commentarie vpon the most diuine Epistle of the holy apostle S. Paul to the Romanes wherein according to the authors former method, sixe things are obserued in euery chapter (Printed by Cantrell Legge, printer to the Vniuersitie of Cambridge, 1611), 420. 
36. Jan. 20, 2015: Here are two interesting quotes related to John Owen: 1) "I am very slow to judge of men's acceptation with God, by the apprehension of their understandings." -- John Owen, "Vindiciae Evangelicae: Or, the Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated," in The Works of John Owen, ed. by Thomas Russell (London: Printed by J. F. Dove, St. John's Square; for Richard Baynes, 1823), vol. 8, p. ix.  2) "John Rogers, in his singular work, 'The Heavenly Nymph,' records the cases of two individuals, Dorothy Emett and Major Mainwaring, who ascribed their conversion to the preaching of Owen when he was in Dublin. Mr Orme remarks, that the circumstance confutes a saying attributed to Owen, that he never knew an instance of a sinner converted through his instrumentality; though the saying might so far be true, that he himself might be ignorant of the extent of his own usefulness." -- From William H. Goold's "Preface," to The Works of John Owen, ed. by William H. Goold (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1851), 8:viii.
37. Jan. 20, 2015: "Sin is a practical blasphemy to all the attributes of God. It is the dare of his justice, the rape of his mercy, the geer of his patience, the sleight of his power, the contempt of his love." -- Samuel Bolton, ᾺΜΑΡΤΩΛΟΣ ᾺΜΑΡΤΙΑ: Or, the Sinfulness of Sin (London: Printed by G. M. for Andrew Kemb, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Talbut gate in Southwark, 1646), 9. "there is more good in God, then there is evil in ten thousand hells of sin." Ibid., 10. "His love it runs in divers rivulets and streams, it is dispensed throughout the whole creation, he loves everything he hath made, but now his hatred it runs in one chanel, all against sin." Ibid., 12.
38. Jan. 20, 2015: "Because man could not be won by God's leniency and patience by which he tried to win him, he would no longer withhold his vengeance."—Geneva Bible on Genesis 6:3 This comment in the GB, Jonathan Edwards, D. M. Lloyd-Jones, R. M. McCheyne, and Thomas Watson all speak of God "trying" to save some who ultimately perish.
39. Jan. 22, 2015: "How few consider how they harden wicked men, by an intimacy with them, Whereas withdrawment from them, might be a means to make them ashamed! Whilst we are merry and jovial with them, we make them believe their condition is not deplorable, their danger is not great; whereas, if we shunned them, as we would a Bowed-Wall, whilst they remain enemies to the Lord, this might do them good, for the startling of them, and rousing of them, out of their unhappy security, and strong delusions, wherein they are held."--Lewis Stuckley, A Gospel-Glass (London: Printed for the Author, and are to be sold by Giles Widdows at the Maiden-head in Aldersgate-street, near Jewen-street, 1670), p. 406. Spurgeon quotes this in his exposition of Psalm 26:5.
40. Jan. 22, 2015: "People have not those clear thoughts of things, as they should have. An error in Theory must needs produce an error in practice. An error in the head will soon bring an error into the heart. Wrong apprehensions are not like to have right actions. The understanding is the leading faculty, and if that be out of frame, no wonder if the rest move not in their sphere. As our judgements are of things, so are our endeavors about them more, or less:"--James Votier, Vox Dei & hominis. God's Call from Heaven Echoed by Mans answer from Earth. Or A Survey of Effectual Calling (London: Printed by T. C. for Nathanael Webb, and William Grantham at the Bear in Paul's Church-yard, neer the little North door of Pauls, 1658), 206-207. 
41. Jan. 25, 2015: William Lane Craig quotes a philosopher as saying, "If the philosophical importance of a topic can be judged by the amount of nonsense written about it, then the concept of time comes somewhat ahead of the concept of space, and somewhat behind the concept of God." 
42. Jan. 25, 2015: Referring to Gottschalks teaching in his larger confession, Schaff says, "He [Gottschalk] spoke of two redemptions, one common to the elect and the reprobate, another proper and special for the elect only. In similar manner the Calvinists, in their controversy with the Arminians, maintained that Christ died efficiently only for the elect, although sufficiently for all men." -- Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers,), 4:531-532.
43. Jan. 25, 2015: "In the ring of graces, Faith is the diamond, Joy the sparkle of the diamond." ~ John Arrowsmith on 1 Sam. 7:12 via Henry Jeanes 
44. Jan. 25, 2015: Speaking at the Shepherds 360 Conference during the first session (around 49:09-49:31), Al Mohler said: "That crucial word, 'Now.' Now, He commands; he doesn't suggest, he doesn't offer. He commands. The gospel is not an offer. Well, I mean it is a well-meant offer in terms of telling people the promise of the gospel, in that sense it is. But God doesn't present it to humanity as an offer, He presents it to humanity as a command to repent and to believe, and be saved." I can't make sense of any of that. No doubt the audience was left in confusion. Mohler 1) sets up a false dichotomy between command and offer, then 2) denies that the gospel is an offer. Then he 3) admits that the gospel is a well-meant offer "in terms of telling people the promise of the gospel." Who knows what that means. Then Mohler says 4) God doesn't present it to humanity as an offer, but as a command. One is therefore left with the impression that his 3rd admission merely pertains to human preachers, not to God. None of that makes any sense at all to me.
45. Jan. 29, 2015: The Westminster Larger Catechism, in the answer to question #67, speaks of a "special love" of God to his elect. To speak of a "special" love implies that there is a non-special or common love. 
46. Jan. 31, 2015: Wolfgang Musculus cites Lactantius approvingly, who "gave unto him [God] a certain commotion [of mind] also which we do call anger." See Common Places (London: Imprinted by Henry Bynneman, 1578), 1038. Lactantius, contrary to the Stoics, "doth not take from God the commotion and stir of anger, but that only which is joined with fault, and is unseemly also for man." Ibid. After some exposition of the subject, Musculus says, "However the matter goeth, the godly person must assure himself in this, that God is not moved nor changed, after that sort as man is moved and changed." Ibid., 1039. That last qualifying statement seems to suggest that some sense of change occurs, but not after that sort which is in man.
47. Feb. 7, 2015: Augustine seems to equate the term the true "children of God" with the whole class of the elect in the abstract, not just with the believing elect or the existing elect who do not yet believe: "Whosoever, therefore, in God's most providential ordering, are foreknown, predestinated, called, justified, glorified—I say not, even although not yet born again, but even although not yet born at all, are already children of God, and absolutely cannot perish." -- Augustine, "On Rebuke and Grace (chap. 23)," NPNF, 1st Series, ed. by Philip Schaff (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 5:481. The translation of this part of Augustine in Gottschalk reads: "Whosoever have been foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified in God's most providential ordering, are foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified--I do not mean just those not yet reborn, but also those not yet born--are already children of God and absolutely cannot perish." -- Gottschalk & A Medieval Predestination Controversy: Texts Translated from the Latin. Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation, Volume 47., edited and translated by Victor Genke & Francis X. Gumerlock (Milwauke, WI: Marquette University Press, 2010), 137.
48. Feb. 9, 2015: Schaff wrote: "He [Gottschalk] spoke of two redemptions, one common to the elect and the reprobate, another proper and special for the elect only. In similar manner the Calvinists, in their controversy with the Arminians, maintained that Christ died efficiently only for the elect, although sufficiently for all men." -- Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002), 5:531-532. This statement by Schaff is misleading for several reasons. First, the "common redemption" that Gottschalk teaches only concerns baptized reprobates, not pagan reprobates. Second, Gottschalk thinks that the "redemption" that baptized reprobates have is only one of water baptism the cleanses from past sins, not a redemption in any way related to Christ's death. Last, there is no hint of the sufficiency/efficiency formula in Gottschalk, so comparing him to later Calvinists on that subject has no basis. Moreover, unlike the vast majority of the Reformed, Gottschalk thought that God does not love the reprobate and in no way wills their salvation. In his thought, Christ's death does not relate to the reprobate, and God has no love or evangelical saving will for them. One might think of him as a proto hyper-Calvinist (to use the term anachronistically) on the subject of predestination, not a forerunner to what would later become Reformed orthodoxy. One more problem with Schaff is that he leaves the impression that Gottschalk's remarks about a "common redemption" are in his Larger Confession (Ibid.). That particular confession mainly concerns his views on the predestination of the reprobate to destruction (contra Hincmar of Reims and others). There's nothing in that particular writing (or prayer) regarding the redemption of baptized reprobates. Gottschalk's comments about redemption are rather in his "On Different Ways of Speaking about Redemption," and "On Predestination," with bits and pieces elsewhere, but not in either the shorter or longer (contra Schaff) confessions.
49. Feb. 13, 2015: John Gill, in The Cause of God and Truth, lists Jerome as a particularist on the atonement, and so Michael A. G. Haykin tries to suggest the same in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her. Gottschalk, on the other hand, associates Jerome with Origen on the subject of universal redemption, and says: "But Saint Jerome, who rightly execrated this most false revolving, equally believed, as that one [Origen], that Christ suffered for the reprobate, and conjectured that we are called, become, and are holy not according to the purpose of God, but according to that of each of us, and according to our own will." -- Gottschalk, "On Predestination," in Gottschalk & A Medieval Predestination Controversy: Texts Translated from the Latin. Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation No. 47, edited & translated by Victor Genke & Francis Gumerlock (Milwaukee, Wisc.: Marquette University Press, 2010), 152.
50. Feb. 26, 2015: Hincmar of Reims (806-882), in his letter to Egilo (the archbishop of Sens), used the presence of Judas at the first Lord's supper to refute Gottschalk's limited view of Christ's redemption. See Gottschalk & A Medieval Predestination Controversy: Texts Translated from the Latin. Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation, Volume 47., edited and translated by Victor Genke & Francis X. Gumerlock (Milwauke, WI: Marquette University Press, 2010), 182. See Misc. #18 above. Hincmar says, after quoting Luke 22:19, that "Judas was also present among those to whom he gave them, having the role of the reprobate, while the other disciples had the role of the elect. For he of course did not say "for all" but "for many" because all were not going to believe. For the shedding of the blood of Christ, of the just for the unjust (1 Pt. 3:18), was of so rich a price that if the universe of those held captive believed in their redeemer, the chains of the devil would have retained no one." Note Hincmar's classical sense of the sufficiency of Christ's death when he speaks of "so rich a price."
51. Feb. 27, 2015: "(2) In another place, I said: "God does not seek the death of anyone." This should be interpreted as follows: man brought death on himself by abandoning God and he who does not return to God brings it on himself according to what is written: "For God made not death" (Wis. 1:13). But the following, too, is no less true: "Life and death . . . are from the Lord God," (Ecclus. 11:14) that is, life is from the giver, death from the avenger." -- Augustine, The Retractations, trans. by Sister Mary Inez Bogan (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 91. 
52. Feb. 27, 2015: James Denny understands objective reconciliation in his exposition of 2 Cor. 5:18-21.
53. March 20, 2015: John Forbes (c.1568-1634), a Puritan who argues for a strict atonement in the context, nevertheless affirms Christ's "common love, which he carrieth to all flesh" in A Treatise Tending to Clear the Doctrine of Justification (At Middelburgh: Printed by Richard Schilders, 1616), 48.
54. March 29, 2015: "He [Gottschalk] measured the extent of the purpose by the extent of the effect. God is absolutely unchangeable, and his will must be fulfilled. What does not happen, cannot have been intended by him." Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church: Mediaeval Christianity A.D. 590-1073 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2002), 4:528. 
55. March 30, 2015: "Andrew Fuller opposed Gill's hypercalvinism and, in a letter to Jonathan Edwards' pupil Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803) dated 17 Mar. 1798, he lamented the continuing influence of Owen. (see Fuller's letter in the Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford)." -- Alan Clifford, Atonement and Justification, p. 122, note #13. Clifford says he got the information about this letter from Dr. Robert Oliver.
56. Apr. 3, 2015: Peter Toon quoted this in his work on The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism under the heading on the free offer of the gospel: "Expounding Hebrews 3.3, John Owen wrote: 'They who are judged at the last day (for not receiving the Gospel) will be speechless and have nothing to reply....  Because they despise an overture of a treaty about peace and reconciliation between God and their souls.  God who hath no need of them, nor their obedience or friendship, tenders them a treaty upon terms of peace.  What greater condescension, love or grace could be conceived or desired?  This is tendered in the Gospel, 2 Cor. 5.19.  Now what greater indignity can be offered unto him than to reject his tenders?  Is not this plainly to tell him that they despise his love and scorn his offers of reconciliation?  It is life and salvation that he tenders, on whose neglect he complains that men will not come unto him that they might have life.  Certainly there can be no want of righteousness in the ruin of such persons.'" -- from Owen, Works (ed. Goold), Vol. XX, p. 308.
57. April 19, 2015: For Recto and Verso page numbering, see here in Wikipedia (click). 
58. April 21, 2015: B. M. Palmer notes that R. L. Dabney accepted the sense of the moral/natural ability distinction in “The Proposed Plan of Union Between the General Assembly and the United Synod of the South,” Southern Presbyterian Review 16:3 (April, 1864), 293. Palmer says that “Dr. Dabney attempts at length to show that, whilst the committee rejected these terms as ambiguous and unhappy, the distinction which they express must be retained--that it is indispensable, in order to make out the responsibility of the sinner, and is implied in all the efforts of the preacher in dealing practically with the conscience.” Palmer also quotes J. H. Thornwell at length (see pp. 294-296) from an unpublished manuscript where he makes some interesting distinctions, and seems critical some versions of the moral vs. natural ability distinctions. Palmer also mentions that some “slippery opponents” (i.e. those following Talleyrand--Boyd and possibly Dabney) say that “the sufferings of Christ were not inflicted as the penalty threatened to the transgressor, but what was an equivalent in effect for it...” Ibid., 298.
59. April 30, 2015: John Gill rejects the suffiency-efficiency distinction in The Cause of God and Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 98. 
60. May 7, 2015: For Jean Daillé’s citations of Martin Bucer’s moderate statements, see Joannis Dallæi, Apologia Pro duabus Ecclesiarum in Gallia Protestantium Synodis Nationalibus  (Amstelaedami: Ravesteynius, 1655), 2:998–1008. He cited Bucer’s comments on Matt 23:37, 39; Rom 11; Rom 1:18, 19, 20, 21, 2:4, 1:14; and John 1:4, 5, 3:19, 20 in that order. 
61. May 8, 2015: "...while the Reformed churches excluded the views of Jacob Arminius and Simon Episcopius at Dordt, later synods only scolded the Hypothetical Universalism of Moïse Amyraut. Thus there was no such thing as 'the Amyraut heresy' (contra Armstrong)." -- Raymond A. Blacketer, "Blaming Beza: The Development of Definite Atonement in the Reformed Tradition," in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, edited by David Gibson & Jonathan Gibson (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), 122. As footnote #6 on the same page indicates, Blacketer agrees with and cites Muller, Sinnema, and Godfrey to substantiate what he says. 
62. May 14, 2015: Baxter cited Musculus, Bullinger Calvin, Amyraut, J. Bergius, C. Bergius, Crocius, Calixtus, Camero, Testard, Daille, Blondel, Davenant, Preston, Whately, Fenner, Twisse, Paraeus, Zanchi, Ussher, R. Abbot, for universal redemption. (p. 2:50-53) In the middle of this, Baxter portrays his Arminian critic as saying, “You may spare your labour of citing Bullinger and Musculus, or Melanchthon, or Bucer, or such moderate men: But what are they to the rigid Calvinists?” (p. 2:51) Baxter thought Bucer was a “moderate man.” -- Richard Baxter, Catholick Theologie (London: Printed for Nevil Simmons, at the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-Yard, 1675), 2:50-53. Baxter thought Bucer (along with many others) was among the “moderate men” and “for universal redemption.” 
63. May 14, 2015: “When we lack the will to see things as they really are, there is nothing so mystifying as the obvious.” -- Irving Kristol, “‘When Virtue Loses All her Loveliness’—Some Reflections on Capitalism and ‘The Free Society’ (1970),” in Classics of American Political and Constitutional Thought: Reconstruction to the Present, eds. S. J. Hammond, K. R. Hardwich and H. L. Lubert, vol. 2 (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), 758. 
64. May 15, 2015: “It is then, as appears, the greatest of all lessons to know one's self. For if one knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God...” -- Clement, The Instructor (Paedagogus), Book III, chap. 1. 
65. May 17, 2015: “It should not be forgotten, however, that the question of the extent of the atonement had already been touched on in the wake of the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius and in the debates connected with Gottschalk, and had been addressed by the medieval scholastics. Calvin would have known something of this background, and, having worked alongside Bucer in Strasbourg between 1538 and 1541, would have been aware that the issue had figured in the disputes there in 1533.” -- G. Michael Thomas, The Extent of the Atonement: A Dilemma for Reformed Theology from Calvin to the Consensus (1536–1675) (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997), 12. 
66. June 9, 2015: Rudolph Gwalther, John Howe, George Swinnock and Richard Baxter (among many others) all appeal to Acts 3:26 to support their moderate atonement views.
67. Nov. 10, 2015: “They that say, That all the Mercies of the Non-elect, are no Mercies, because through mens Sin, they end in their Misery, do perversely extentuate Gods Mercies and Man’s Sin, and teach Sinners falsely to plead in Judgment, That they never abused, or sinned against Mercy, which God and their own Consciences will easily confute.”—Richard Baxter, An End of Doctrinal Controversies, p.156.
68. Nov. 10, 2015: When objectively describing Baxter’s views on justification, one must qualify to be fair. It is not as though he did not change or modify his views later on, to an extent. In fact, he acknowledged that he learned a lot from those orthodox divines that wrote against his early Aphorisms. In his preface to Catholick Theologie, Baxter wrote:
    

    In this case I wrote my first Book called Aphorisms of Justification and the Covenants, &c. And being young, and unexercised in writing, and my thoughts yet undigested, I put into it many uncautelous words (as young Writers used to do,) though I think the main doctrine of it sound. I intended it only against the Antinomians; But it sounded as new and strange to many. Upon whose dissent or doubtings, I printed my desire of my friends Animadversions, and my suspension of the Book, as not owned by me, nor any more to be printed, till further considered and corrected: Hereupon I had the great benefit of Animadversions from many, whom I accounted the most judicious and worthy persons that I had heard of: First my friend Mr. John Warren began: next came Mr. G. [George] Lawson’s, (the most judicious Divine that ever I was acquainted with, in my judgement, yet living), and from Mr. Christopher Cartwright’s (then of York; the Author of the Rabbinical Comment on Gen. chap. 1, 2, 3, and of the Defence of King Charles against the Marquess of Worchester). Answers and Rejoinders to these took me up much time: next came a most judicious and friendly MC. from Dr. John Wallis; and Mr. Burgess: the answers to which two last are published. To all these Learned men I owe very great thanks: and I never more owned or published my Aphorisms (but the Cambridge Printer stole an Impression without my knowledge). And though most of these differed as much from one another (at least) as from me; yet the great Learning of their various Writings, and the long Study which I was thereby engaged in, in answering and rejoining to the most, was a greater advantage to me, to receive accurate and digested conceptions on these subjects, than private Students can expect.

    Richard Baxter, Catholick Theologie (London: Printed by Robert White, for Nevill Simmons at the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1675), xii–xiii. [no pagination; pages numbered manually from the beginning of the title page]
69. Feb. 20, 2016: The argument that no where in the NT is the phrase "Christ died for you" is bad for a couple of reasons. First, it is debatable since 1 Cor. 15 says that Paul's initial gospel message to the Corinthians involved his statement "Christ died for *our* sins according to the scriptures." And again, Christ at the table said in the presence of Judas that his blood was shed for "you," which included Judas, a reprobate. Other such arguments from various texts can be made, such as with Acts 3:26, where Christ was sent to turn all Israelites from their iniquity and to save them. Second, the argument is a double-edged sword. Neither is it explicitly said in NT scriptures by any evangelist to a lost person that "God loves you," even though orthodox Calvinists affirm that the idea is implied. Shall we conclude that the Apostles and inspired authors did not believe in God's universal benevolent love since they no where said to the lost, "God loves you"? Hyper-Calvinists use that sort of argument against the universal love of God, and high Calvinists use a parallel sort of argument when they appeal to the absence of explicit "Christ died for you" language in the NT.
70. Mar. 2, 2016: One could write on the importance of nothing (i.e. non-being) as a concept in systematic theology. It seems that no object that God creates ever becomes non-being; it merely changes form. Everything in our universe was created by the word of God alone, not out of pre-existent matter (creation ex nihilo).
71. Mar. 7, 2016: Polhill distinguishes between a constitutive justification and sentential justification. He wrote:

    There is a double justification, whereby God maketh us just in this life; sentential justification, whereby God pronounces us just at death and judgment. Constitutive justification is the foundation of sentential, for the true God will not pronouce us just unless we are such; and sentential justification is the completure of constitutive: for here there is sententia judicis, crowning us as righteous...

    Edward Polhill, “Precious Faith Considered in its Nature, Working, and Growth,” in The Works of Edward Polhill (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998), 264.
72. Mar. 12, 2016: “If the doctrine be not taught in the oracles of God, we have nothing to do with it; but if it be, whether can comprehend it or not, we are required humbly to believe it, and to endeavour to understand so much as God has revealed concerning it.” – Andrew Fuller
73. Mar. 13, 2016: Theophilus Gale refers to "that famose Axiome of Augustin: There is nothing done, which the Omnipotent doth not wil, either by permitting that it be done, or by doing of it."
74. Mar. 16, 2016: "There is no Sin so great, but the Redeemer’s Merit can countervail it. And no Man shall perish for the want of the Payment of his Ransom, or an Expiatory Sacrifice for his Sins. He may perish for his Impenitency and Unbelief, but not merely for the Greatness of his Sin; for what Sin is so great, that it is not, or cannot be expiated by the Blood of Christ? Christ’s Satisfaction maketh the Salvation of the worst possible; you may have Peace with God if you will."
    Thomas Manton, A fourth volume containing one hundred and fifty sermons on several texts of Scripture in two parts : part the first containing LXXIV sermons: part the second containing LXXVI sermons : with an alphabetical table to the whole (London: Printed by J. D. and are to be sold by Jonathon Robinson, 1693), 1153?
    
75.  Mar. 22, 2016: Here is another quote on God begging, but I can't find historical information by this man. He is not to be confused with the Thomas Ford at Westminster.

    Motives to move us to Humiliation.
    
    First may be from God’s Command, O Israel return unto me; turn you from your evil ways, For why will ye die, O house of Israel? Repent and turn you from all your evil ways, so iniquity shall not be your ruin: there [may] be an universal turning from all sins, [and?] a turning to God with the whole heart, My son give me thy heart: It is God’s complaint against the children of Israel after he had brought them out of the land of Egypt, into a land flowing with Milk and Honey, the joy of all Land. Then God said unto them, Obey my voice, turn from the evil of your doings, fo I am the Lord your God: but they rebelled against me and would not hear. Shall God call us to come unto him and shall we reject his call? shall our Saviour Jesus Christ beg of us to be reconciled unto him, to come unto him to take his yoke? his yoke is easy to those that will lie under it. Hath he promised to satiate the hungry soul? salvation to the repentant soul? doth he command us to come unto him and drink it? we thirst; not to sip but drink? and shall we reject this cup of Salvation? O let the mercies of God constrain us, and let his kindness draw us unto him.

    Thomas Ford (d.1656), Grace and Mercy to a Sinner, in a Time of Afflictions (London: Printed by Joseph Moxon, for Francis Cossinett, and sold as his shop in Tower street, at the sign of the golden Anchor at Minisin lane end, 1657), 23–24.
76. Mar. 23, 2016: Jonathan Edwards said, "If ever I should publish anything concerning universal and particular redemption, remember to read [James] Fraser's Treatise on Justifying Faith, from p. 84 to p. 270.
77. Mar. 25, 2016: “Books may speak when men are speechless; yea, when men are lifeless.”--Richard Mayhew, ΧΑΡΙΣΜΑ ΠΑΤΡΙΚΟΝ; A Paternal Gift; Or, The Legacie of a (Dying) Father, to His (Living) Children (London: Printed for John Hancock at the three Bibles in Popes-Head Alley, Cornhill, 1676), A7ᵛ. Recorded elsewhere as: "As one of the Pastor's [Spurgeon's] favorite Puritans declared, 'Books may speak when the author cannot, and what is more, when he is not.'" See Spurgeon's Autobiography, 2:416.
78. Mar. 26, 2016: In the case of some Puritans, they spoke more broadly about the extent of Christ’s death in their sermons and gospel appeals than they did in their formal doctrinal or theoretical statements, so one must be careful. Obadiah Sedgwick (c.1600–1658), a high Calvinist and Westminster divine, is a classic example. See his strong gospel offer language with reference to the death of Christ in The Humbled Sinner Resolved what He Should Do to be Saved: Or, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (London: T.R. & E.M. for A. Byfield, 1656), 88–89, 161–63, 166, 167, 181; along with similar statements in The Riches of Grace Displayed in the Offer and Tender of Salvation to Poor Sinners (London: Printed by T. R. & E. M. for A. Byfield, 1657); and The Fountain Opened: And the Water of Life Flowing Forth, for the Refreshing of Thirsty Sinners (London: Printed by T. R. and E. M. for A. Byfield, 1657). For his arguments against universal redemption, see The Bowels of Tender Mercy Sealed in the Everlasting Convenant (London: E. Mottershed, for A. Byfield, 1661), 280–312. 
79. April 1, 2016:

    ART. 6.  We  believe  that  Christ  died  for  sinners,  and  that  the  sacrifice  which  he  has  made, has  so  honored  the  divine  law  that  a  way  of  salvation  is  consistently  opened  up  to  every  sinner to whom  the  Gospel  is  sent,  and  that  nothing  but their  voluntary  rejection  of  the  Gospel  prevents their salvation.

    Minutes of the First Session of the Union Baptist Association (Houston: Telegraph Press, 1840), 8. 
80. April 4, 2016: David Blondel (1591–1655) approved of Daille’s work advocating for universal redemption. A prefatory remark in Owen’s Works (v. 10) says, “Amyraut had the support of Daille and Blondell.” Blondel’s students included Francis Turretin and Johann Georg Graevius.
81. April 4, 2016: Henry Hickman (bap.1629-1692), in Historia Quinq-Articularis Exarticulata; or Animadversions on Doctor Heylin's Quinquarticular History (London: Printed for Robert Boulter, 1674), considered Calvin to be sublapsarian.
82. April 16, 2016: It is interesting that the original 1644 LBC in article XXV spoke of the "tenders of the gospel," whereas the revised 1646 version and those after refer to the "preaching of the gospel." 
83. April 24, 2016:  “We must know, Evil is twofold. There is the Evil of sin, which is called, malum flagitii: and the Evil of punishment, called, malum flagelli. No Evil but God doth it: Then understand it [Amos 3:6] of penal Evils, not of sinful Evils.” See Francis Warham, Freegrace Alone Exalted in Man’s Conversion (London: Printed by J. C. for Edw. Archer, 1658), 3. This distinction would also apply to the sense of “evil” in Isa. 45:7 according to the KJV.
84. April 30, 2016: Ralph Erskine: The Free Offer of the Gospel – Who is it for? 
85. June 29, 2016: “Volumes of nominally historical theology are actually covert justifications for the grinding of modern theological axes. This becomes clear when instead of speaking of ‘development’ the word ‘betrayal’ slips in; when differences are construed as ‘unfaithfulness’ and ‘distortion’. We need to be brave enough to face what is there: a complex interaction between continuities and discontinuities within a wide spectrum of diversity and development in the Reformed tradition, a tradition committed to Scripture alone.” -- Jonathan D. Moore, “Calvin Versus the Calvinists? The Case of John Preston (1587–1628),” Reformation and Renaissance Review 6.3 (2004): 348.
86. July 11, 2016:  Thomas Gataker mentions “common grace” by name in True Contentment in the Gaine of Godliness (London: Printed for Edward Griffin for William Bladen, and are to be sold at his shop at the signe of the Bible, neere the great north dore of Paules, 1620), 29.
87. July 29, 2016: David F. Wright, senior lecturer in church history at New College, Edinburgh, very ignorantly said that Augustine and even Prosper denied that God willed all people to be saved. See D. F. Wright, “Semi-Pelagianism,” in New Dictionary of Theology, eds. S. B. Ferguson, D. F. Wright, and J. I. Packer (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1988), 636. He said, “Objection was also taken to Augustine’s denial that God ‘willed all people to be saved’, which even Prosper eventually abandoned” (ibid.). R. G. Clouse, however, correctly described Gottschalk as holding the view that “God does not will that all shall be saved, [and] that Christ died only for the elect” (R. G. Clouse, “Gottschalk (c. 803–69),” New Dictionary of Theology, 279).
88.  August 10, 2016:

    Some Protestant Divines urge this Scripture [Heb. 2:9] to shew that Christ dyed for all, though not equally for Judas, as for Peter. Some distinguish thus, they say Christ is sufficiens remedium, there is vertue enough in Christ, but not sufficiens medium, because besides the work of Christ, there is required faith to apply it, Mark 16.16.

    Edward Leigh, Annotations Upon All the New Testament Philologicall and Theologicall (Printed by W. W. and EG. for William Lee, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Turks-Head in Fleetstreet next to the Miter and Phoenix. Anno Dom. 1650), 345.
89. August 11, 2016: "God seems to reckon the instances of his goodness to be more pregnant, cogent proofs of his title to our homage and adoration than the evidences of his greatness; for his goodness is his glory." -- Matthew Henry on Acts 14:17
90. September 15, 2016: “Calvin clearly articulated a universal saving will of God that was conditional on faith, which consisted of the universal offer of the gospel through preaching.”
    
    Jonathan H. Rainbow, The Will of God and the Cross: An Historical and Theological Study of John Calvin’s Doctrine of Limited Redemption. Princeton Theological Monograph Series 22, ed. Dikran Y. Hadidian (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1990), 149.
    
    “This demonstrates that God’s desire for the salvation of all men, the fact of which Calvin clearly accepts, is not the only factor in the equation of man’s salvation.”
    
    Paul N. Archibald, A Comparative Study of John Calvin and Theodore Beza on the Doctrine of the Extent of the Atonement (PhD diss. Westminster Theological Seminary, 1998), 316.
    
    “So, too, in Matthew 23:37, Calvin presses the distinction between the secret and revealed will of God, noting that the indiscriminate and universal call of the gospel expresses the revealed will of God that all ought to be saved, not the secret will or purpose of God to save his elect.”
    
    Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 3:440.
91. September 15, 2016: Among his many other mistakes, Troxel said that Edward Reynolds (1599–1676), the Westminster divine, was a hypothetical universalist. See A. Craig Troxel, “Amyraut ‘At’ the Assembly: The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Extent of the Atonement,” Presbyterion 22.1 (1996): 49.
92. December 14, 2016: “It is clear that a well-meant, sincere offer of salvation as an element in the revealed will of God was a basic part of Reformed thinking at this time [i.e. in the early 1600’s at the time of the Irish Articles and the Canons of Dort].” David McKay, “Review of James Durham (1622–1658) and the Gospel Offer in its Seventeenth-Century Context, Donald John MacLean, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2015, hbk., 317 pages, €79.99.” Reformed Theological Journal 32 (November 2016): 64.
93. January 12, 2017: “God never elects someone unto salvation absolutely, if ‘absolutely’ excludes the means which God has appointed to attain that salvation.” – Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 2:33.
94. March 2, 2017: One should not be surprised at John Gill’s affirmation that God even loves the devils or fallen angels insofar as they are creatures (A Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity, 3 vols. [London: Printed for W. Winterbotham, 1796], 1:115). It’s a doctrine with a strong Reformed pedigree. Appealing to Wisdom 11:24 and commenting on the “Generalis seu communis amor Dei” (the general or common love of God), Amandus Polanus said, “there is no one among men, or even of the demons, that can say that he is not loved by God” (nemo est vel hominum vel etiam daemoniorum, qui dicere queat, se non amaria Deo). See Syntagma theologiæ christianæ (Hanau: Wechel, 1609), 1095. Heinrich Heppe translated Polanus this way: “…no one either of men or even of demons may say that he is not loved by God” (Reformed Dogmatics, rev. and ed. Ernst Bizer, trans. G.T. Thomson [1950; repr. London: Wakemen Great Reprints, 2000], 95). He said the same words in his Analysis Libelli Prophetae Malachiae, Aliquot Praelectionibus Genevae proposita (Basileae: Conradvm Waldkirch, 1597), 10. This seems to have originated with Zanchi, who said, “Hoc pacto, nemo est, vel hominum, vel etiam diablorum: qui dicere queat, se non amori a Deo” (Hieronymi Zanchii, De Natura Dei, Seu De Divinis Attributis: Libri V. (Heidelbergae: Mylius, 1577), 444; or translated in Girolamo Zanchi, Life Everlasting: Or The True Knowledge of One Iehova, Three Elohim and Jesus Immanuel (Printed by Iohn Legat, printer to the Vniuersitie of Cambridge […], 1601), 362. See also Thomas Larkham, The Attributes of God Unfolded, and Applied. The Second Part. (London: Printed for Francis Eglesfield, 1656), 158–59, who got his idea from William Perkins (The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience Distinguished into Three Books [Cambridge: Printed by John Legat (…), 1604], 1:7). Perhaps John Robinson also got the doctrine from Perkins: “And yet, even in the very execution of his most fearful vengeance upon the reprobate, men and angels, he retaineth the general love of a Creator…” Michael Lynch noted that “[John] Davenant (citing [Deigo] Ruiz [de Montoya]) argues that God, by his love of simple complacency, wills the possible repentance, grace, and glory of the Jews or any of the damned because it is necessary that God delights in all the good actions of his creatures, even though this will ‘neither decreeth nor determineth any thing infallibly concerning the being or not being of such good acts in this or that singular person.’ In fact, Ruiz himself proceeds to argue that this is true even for the damned who are already in hell. God could be said at present to be pleased with the possible repentance of the devil himself (insofar as God is able to cause the repentance of any).” See Michael Lynch, John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: A Defense of Catholic and Reformed Orthodoxy, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 150. See John Davenant, Animadversions written by the Right Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Bishop of Salisbury, upon a treatise intitled, Gods love to mankinde (Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1641), 391; and Diego Ruiz de Montoya, COMMENTARIA, Ac Disputationes in primam partem sancti Thomae DE VOLUNTATE DEI, ET PROPRIIS ACTIBUS EIUS (Lugduni: Sumptib. Iacobi, Andreae & Matthaei Prost, 1630), 214. Ruiz wrote: “Unde fatis constat; huiusmodi complacentiam Dei, versari circa poenitentiam, gratiam & gloriam possibilem Iudae, aut cuilibet damnato, etiam postquam est in inferno: quoniam si Lucifer & Iudas in inferno dolerent de peccatis, sicut oportet, & Deum super omnia diligerent amore supernaturali,  Deum viderent, illi actus essent optimi & digni diuina complacentia: ideoque nunc etiam Deo placent, ut possibiles iidem actus.” Richard Baxter said: “…he [God] hath a love to each [a man as a man, or man as a saint] which is suitable to its kind. He hath such complacency in the substance of a serpent, a man, a devil, as is agreeable to their being; that is, as they bear the natural impressions of his creating perfections, yet such as may stand with their pain, death, and misery.” Richard Baxter, “Christian Ethics,” in The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter, 23 vols. (London: James Duncan, 1830), 2:490. And again: “In a devil there is substance, which is good in its natural kind, and therefore so far loved of God; but there is no holiness in him, and that which is not, is not amiable: but if you mean existent holiness, in a saint, then it is false that God loveth the person of a devil better than the holiness of a saint.” Richard Baxter, “Christian Ethics: Appendix,” in The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter, 23 vols. (London: James Duncan, 1830), 2:488. John Robinson, “On Religious Communion, Private and Public,” in The Works of John Robinson, 3 vols. (London: John Snow, 35, Paternoster Row, 1851), 3:254. Also in John Robinson, Of Religious Communion, Private, & Publique (Printed Anno, 1614), 112. John Cotton also said that God loved even the fallen angels in a sense. “God loves the damned as they are his creatures.” See William Twisse’s critical citation of Cotton in A Treatise of Mr. Cotton’s (London: Printed by J. D. for Andrew Crooke, 1646), 140. Samuel Rutherford affirmed that there is a general “love that God beareth to the Reprobate, yea, and to the fallen angels.” See Samuel Rutherford, Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself (London: Printed by J. D. for Andrew Crooke, 1647), 410. Willet said, “...God loveth him [the devil] as his creature, & so he doth also the wicked, suffering the Sunne to shine upon them, Mat. 5.” See Andrew Willet, Tetrastylon papisticum (London: Printed by Robert Robinson for Thomas Man […], 1593), 20. David Clarkson noted that “The devil himself, how hateful soever, yet as he is the workmanship of God, is so far good, but sin has nothing in it of God’s workmanship, nothing in it in any sense good; it is the spawn of the devil, and of him, not as he is a creature, but as he is a devil, and so has nothing in it but what is purely evil, and absolutely hateful.” See “God’s End in Sending Calamities and Afflictions on His People: Isa. XXVII. 9.,” in The Practical Works of David Clarkson, B.D. (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1865), 2:231. Thomas Adams noted that God made Lucifer an angel, and Satan made himself a devil, and so his nature, abstractly considered, is good. So God loves him ut naturam, as he is a nature, but hates him ut diabolum, as he is a corrupted nature, an evil, a devil. See Thomas Adams, “Sermon LX: The Soul’s Refuge (Pet. 4:19),” in The Works of Thomas Adams: Being the Sum of His Sermons, Meditations, and Other Divine and Moral Discourses, ed. Thomas Smith, 3 vols., Nichol’s Series of Standard Divines: Puritan Period (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1861–1862; repr., Eureka, CA: Tanski Publications, 1998), 3:32. See also “Sermon XXIX: The Black Saint; or, the Apostate (Matt. 12:43–45),” in Works, 2:41. Mead said: “God loves the damned spirits, as they are his creatures; but as fallen angels, he hateth them with an infinite hatred.” See Matthew Mead, The Almost Christian Discovered; Or, the False Professor Tried and Cast, 35th ed. (Edinburgh: Johnstone, Hunter, and Co., 1873), 149–150. Matthew Mead, The Almost Christian Discovered; Or, the False Professor Tried and Cast. Being the Substance of Seven Sermons (Belfast: Printed by Patrick Neill and Company, and sold at his Shop, 1700), 107–108. Fuller said: “That God loves all mankind I make no doubt, and all the works of his hands, as such considered, fallen angels themselves not excepted…” See Andrew Fuller, “A Reply to the Observations of Philanthropos,” in The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller, 3 vols. (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1988), 2:494. James P. Boyce said that God’s love of benevolence “exists towards all, even towards devils.” See James Petigru Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology (n.p., 1887), 95. Also in James Petigru Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology (Louisville, KY: Chas. T. Dearing, 1882), 104. John H. Gerstner noted that, according to Jonathan Edwards (as cited in an unpublished MS sermon on Eph. 4:15–16, “In a company of Christians among whom Christianity has its genuine effect, love is the beginning and love is the middle and love is the end of all their affairs,” p. 2, May 1743), God loves men ‘even in damnation’.” See John H. Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 3 vols. (Powhatan, VA: Berea Publications; Orlando, FL: Ligonier Ministries, 1993), 2:38. Gerstner elsewhere noted, when discussing Edwards’s theory of virtue, that “although it is a trivial point, if the virtuous person were to love Satanic being it would be infinitesimally less than the love for God, and pertain only to Satan’s being as such, and not his anti-benevolence, which is his essential moral nature.” Ibid., 3:287. Shedd wrote: “Sinful men—as well as renewed men—are the objects of God’s providential care. Even Satan and the fallen angels are treated with all the benevolence which their enmity to God will admit. God feels no malevolence toward them.”—W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2003), 305. “Love and wrath are from eternity, while he [Klaas Schilder] speaks of a general love of God directed towards men as his handiwork. ‘He always loves his handiwork, also in Satan, also in Antichrist’.”—David R. Hanson, “Common Grace in the Reformed Faith: A Historical Study,” Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Journal 18 (May 1968): 28.
95. March 15, 2017: “I would be cautious and tender, in limiting, restraining, or stinting the death of Christ, and the efficacy of his merits, or in censuring such as hold and teach universal redemption (if they do it out of a desire, and conscience to exalt Christ, in the riches of his grace) yet to me it appears that Christ hath not taken away the sins of those that believe not, but die in unbelief...” Vavasor Powell, Christ and Moses’ Excellency, or Sion and Sinai’s Glory (London: Printed by R. I. for Hannah Allen, at the Crown in Popes-head-Alley, 1650), 109.
96. March 18, 2017: At the 2017 Ligonier conference, Derek W. H. Thomas affirmed that Christ on the cross desired the salvation of those who ultimately perish.
97. March, 26, 2017: As one of “The genuine Hypotheses of of the Predeterminants,” Theophilus Gale affirms this proposition:
    
    21. All God’s invitations, comminations, exhortations, and promises argue in God a real will of approbation, and Evangelic intention that Sinners repent and live, albeit they never repent.
    
    Theophilus Gale, The court of the gentiles. Part IV, Of reformed philosophie. Book III, Of divine predetermination, wherein the nature of divine predetermination is fully explicated and demonstrated, both in the general, as also more particularly, as to the substrate mater [sic] or entitative act of sin (London: Printed for John Hill and Samuel Tidmarsh, 1678), 214.
98. April 1, 2017: Thomas Stoughton spoke of a twofold redemption in a unique way, and affirmed common grace. See Thomas Stoughton, The Dignitie of God’s Children (London: printed by Thomas Haueland, for Thomas Man, and are to be sold at his shop in Paternoster Row, at the signe of the Talbot, 1610), 160–163, 425. He also affirmed the universal fatherhood of God, in a sense: “By creation of substance the wicked and reprobate, yea, the devils themselves are the children of God, but the elect only are the children of God by regeneration.” Ibid, 6.
99. April 2, 2017: A. A. Hodge calls Tobais Crisp a hyper-Calvinist in his Outlines of Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1999), 404.
100. May 1, 2017: The Rev. Allan W. MacColl (a minister in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland), in defending the free offer, maintains that God desires the salvation of all men in His revealed will. See A. W. MacColl, “The Free Offer of the Gospel: The Biblical Grounds for the Gospel Offer,” The Free Presbyterian Magazine 122.4 (April 2017): 118–120. He cites David Silversides as a source for his arguments.
101. May 7, 2017: “The Puritan Federalists claimed that God, in the revealed will, wills the salvation of all men, though God does not intend universal salvation in the secret will” (Curt Daniel, Hyper-Calvinism and John Gill [PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1983], 140).
102. May 14, 2017: Even though the perspective of Briggs (one charged with liberalism) won’t be respected by the orthodox Reformed today, what he says in this instance is still true:
     
     “The Westminster divines debated long and keenly the doctrine of the redemption of the elect only; and the final result of that debate, in the definition of the Confession on reprobation, was such that Calamy, Marshall, Vines, Seaman, Arrowsmith, Harris, and many others who advocated the doctrine of Davenant and Amyraut, could subscribe to them.”
     
     Charles Augustus Briggs, Whither? A Theological Question for the Times (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1889), 103. Interestingly, he also said:
     
     “Presbyterianism is not responsible for the abuse of the doctrine of election and reprobation. The burden of that sin rests on the dogmaticians more than upon the Confession. Their limitation of the divine grace to a few is not sustained by the Confession or by the Scriptures. It is rather an inheritance from the mediaeval scholasticism, and is based upon the apocalypse of Ezra.” Ibid., 101.
103. May 15, 2017: “God does not willingly strike mankind, except, as a just God, he be constrained thereunto; but, having no pleasure in unrighteousness and ungodliness, he must therefore suffer the punishment to go on. As I sometimes look through the fingers, when the tutor whips my son John, so it is with God; when we are unthankful and disobedient to his Word, and commandments, he suffers us, through the devil, to be soundly lashed with pestilence, famine, and such like whips; not that he is our enemy, and to destroy us, but that through such scourgings, he may call us to repentance and amendment, and so allure us to seek him, run to him, and call upon him for help.”—Martin Luther, “Of God’s Works: #79,” in Martin Luther’s Tabletalk: Luther’s Comments on Life, the Church and the Bible (Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2003), 123–124.
104. June 1, 2017: “Professor [Robert] Reymond is correct that my position [on annihilationism] is tentative, not dogmatic. Perhaps ‘agnostic’ would be an even better word, which is what Professor F. F. Bruce calls himself on this issue.”—John Stott, “A Response to Professor Robert L. Raymond,” Presbyterion 16.2 (Fall 1990): 127. Stott also correctly described Bruce’s view. He wrote: “I suppose that, as the terms are defined in this work, I would be regarded as neither a traditionalist nor a conditionalist. My own understanding of the issues under discussion would be very much in line with that of C. S. Lewis. Lewis did not systematize his thoughts on the subject (and I have not done so either).”—F. F. Bruce, “Foreword to First Edition [Manchester, England, 1982],” in Edward W. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, Third Edition. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), xii.
105. June 8, 2017: According to Van Mastrict, the act of faith includes the idea of receiving (receptio), and “In a strict sense (Col. 2:6, 7; Rev. 22:17) it means that the will of Christ is that the offer be accepted.” Adriaan Cornelis Neele, Petrus Van Mastrict (1630-1706): Reformed Orthodoxy: Method and Piety (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 123. Petro van Mastrict, Theoretico-Practica Theologia (Amstelodami: Henrici Viduae Theodori Boom, 1682), 97 (II.1.xiii, 97). “Quæ volitionem Christi dicit quà oblati...”
106. June 8, 2017: Gordon Clark removed any divine volition or will out of God's so-called revealed "will", and made it a bare sign or precept of our duty: “It would be conducive to clarity if the term will were not applied to the precepts. Call the requirements of morality commands, precepts, or laws; and reserve the term will for the divine decree. These are two different things, and what looks like an opposition between them is not a self-contradiction.” See Gordon H. Clark, Religion, Reason, and Revelation (Hobbs, NM: The Trinity Foundation, 1995), 222–23. See John Howe for a refutation of this idea.
107. June 12, 2017: “God taking from him [Judas] his common Graces, the devil took possession of him.”—Westminster Annotations, 3rd ed. (1657) on Luke 22:3. For other references in the Annotations to “common graces” and general providence called God’s “goodness” and “blessings,” see Matt. 13:7, 12; Luke 5:10, 19:26; and James 1:7. For a few references related to the free offer in the Annotations, see Matt. 11:19, 24; Luke 13:18, 26; 14:17, 24.
108. June 15, 2017: “It [hyper-Calvinism] is a particular school of thought, as well defined as Arminianism, and associated with such English Dissenting theologians as John Gill. Its philosophical root, like that of Arminianism, is the idea that ability determines obligation and its hall-mark is the denial of the free offer of the gospel: what, after all, is the point in calling men to believe when you know they are unable to believe in the first place. This outlook has never been represented in Scotland. Every one of our theologians, from Knox to Cunningham, regarded the Free Offer as an axiom.” Donald Maclead, “Dr T. F. Torrance and Scottish Theology: A Review Article,” Evangelical Quarterly 72.1 (Jan.–Mar. 2000): 57–58.
109. June 17, 2017: Although Peter Toon does not discuss modern forms of hyper-Calvinism in his book on The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity, he does say this elsewhere: “The most prominent recent theologian [among hyper-Calvinists] is the Dutch-American, Herman Hoeksema, in his Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI, 1966). However, the fact that these and similar books [he includes John Gill’s Body of Divinity] present hyper-Calvinism is only obvious to those who are fully acquainted with authentic Calvinism and orthodox Reformed theology” (Peter Toon, “Hyper-Calvinism,” in New Dictionary of Theology, eds. S. B. Ferguson, D. F. Wright [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988], 324). At least twice in this article he cites the scholarship of Curt Daniel on the subject.
110. June 20, 2017: “4. The hyper-Calvinist denies the universal love of God. He has a fearful caricature of the real nature of God which would present him as fierce, and not easily induced to love. If we fellowshipped more with Christ, said Iain Murray, we would know and love him more. Then there would be no uncertainty that God desired the salvation of sinners. ‘How oft would I have gathered you,’ says the Saviour to recalcitrant Jerusalem.” -- Geoff Thomas, “Spurgeon’s Battle with Hyper-Calvinism,” Evangelical Times 29.7 (July 1995): 10?. Thomas studied at the University College of Cardiff and Westminster Theological Seminary. He is Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.
111. June 20, 2017: For a brief review of Engelsma’s book on Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel, see John Legg, “Preaching the Gospel,” Evangelical Times 29.1 (January 1995).
112. June 21, 2017: For Reymond’s affirmation of general goodness, general love, and common grace, see Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 2nd ed. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), 5n7, 201, 399, 401, 402–03, 452, 913, 1125; ‘What is God?’: An Investigation of the Perfections of God’s Nature (Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus Publications; Mentor, 2007), 100, 234, 239, 243–44, 248, 251–52, 255. W. Gary Crampton also held to a sense of “common grace.” See W. Gary Crampton, He Shall Glorify Me: A Study of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit (Orlando, FL: Xulon Press; Lakeland, FL: Whitefield Press, 2004), 250n139.
113. June 28, 2017: “The destruction of unbelievers is not the end of the gospel; but that is through their own fault, eventus adventitius, an accidental event. God abundantly declares in the Gospel, that he delights not in the death of sinners, but in the saving translation of them by faith and repentance, from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of his dear Son.”—Samuel Annesley, “Sermon 12: The Covenant of Grace,” in The Morning Exercise Methodized (London: Printed by E. M. for Ralph Smith, 1660), 250. Polanus’ Synopsis is referenced in the margin: “Perditio vero infidelium non est Evangelii finis, sed ex illorum vitio eventus adventitius. Deus enim Evangelio suo declarat, quod nullius peccatoris exitio delectetur, sed salutari cujuslibet per resipiscentiam ac fidem translatione e potestate tenebrarum in regnum Filii sui dilecti Jesu Christi” (Amandus Polanus, “Disputatio XII: De Evangelio,” in Synopsis Purioris Theologiae (Synopsis of a Purer Theology), ed. Dolf te Velde, trans. Riemer A. Faber (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1:564).
114. June 28, 2017: “2. Every man that is under the curse, is under the Covenant that inflicts the curse: but all Mankind by nature are under the curse; therefore the curse is the curse of the first Covenant; and the Gospel does not make men miserable but leaves them so. He that believes not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him; that is, only by accident, as the mercy of it is condemned; so indeed it heightens the sin, and aggravates the condemnation: but the curse is properly the curse of the first covenant, the Gospel in itself speaks nothing but blessing. As a Physician that is sent to cure a man, if through the malignity of the Disease, and the frowardness of the Patient he cast away the Potion, the Balm that would cure him, he dies of the Disease, not of the Physick.”—William Strong, A Discourse of the Two Covenants (London: Printed by J. M. for Francis Tyton, 1678), 2. See also Calvin’s Commentaries on 2 Cor. 2:15 in the post The Proper Office of the Gospel.
115. June 28, 2017: Van Mastricht affirms God's universal and common love in Petro van Mastricht, Theoretico-Practica Theologia (Utrecht: W. van de Water, et al, 1724), 1:179^r (2.17.9). "IX. Hinc triplex resurgit, versus creaturas quidem, Dei amor: Universalis [VERSES] per quem omnia creavit, conservat, gubernat [VERSES]. Communis, ad homines quidem peculiariter sese extendens, non omnes quidem & singulos; sed quosvis tamen promiscue, tam reprobos quam electos, cujus generis etiam est, qui beneficia dispensat, quae comemorantur [VERSES]."
116. June 29, 2017: “Just as Edwards made a crucial distinction between natural ability and moral ability, so Augustine before him made a similar distinction. Augustine got at the problem by saying that fallen man has a free will but lacks liberty.”—R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1986), 62.
117. July 1, 2017: For a couple of quotes by Cyril of Alexandria affirming Christ’s death for all, see his Commentary on the Gospel According to S. John, trans. Thomas Randell, 2 vols. (A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church [LFC] 48; London: Walter Smith, 1885 [1874–1885]), 2:483–84 [Lib. iv. c. 5]; 565–66 [Lib. v. c. 2]. Or see here and here.
118. July 1, 2017: Petavius (Denis Petau; Dionysii Petavii), a Jesuit, in de Incarnatione, lib. xiii. 3, 4, endeavors to reconcile the Augustinian statement on 1 Tim. 2:4 with the Catholic mode of expression. He also, in lib. xiii, c. 1, 2, has a large collection of passages from the early fathers that show they believed Christ died for all. See Dionysii Petavii, Opus de theologicis dogmatibus: In quo de Incarnatione Verbi libri posteriores septem, unà cum appendice ad librum XIII. Theologicorum domatum De Incarnatione, Liber Decimus Tertius (Venetiis: Aloysium Pavinum, 1724), 143v –152v; 152v–158r [irregular pagination]. Browne says that Petavius contends that even Augustine, like the later Prosper, recognized a general and an absolute will of God. See Henry Browne, "Note A," in S. Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel According to St. John, and his First Epistle, trans. H. Browne, 2 vols. (A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church 29; Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1848–1849), 1245. He also says: "The doctrine of St. Augustine gave occasion to much discussion during most part of the fifth century, especially in the Churches of Gaul. It was vindicated, against the remonstrances of the 'Semi-pelagians' and others, by Prosper of Aquitain: in whose writings especially, and in the treatise de Vocatione Gentium, those expressions of the Augustinian doctrine which had given most offence are considerably softened down. Especially the distinction between a general and an absolute Will of God, (which Petavius contends is recognised even by Augustine,) is now distinctly enunciated, apparently for the first time, and the expression of universality in the text 1 Tim. ii. 4. is no longer sought to be limited" (ibid.). He notes that S. Cyril, "on St. John xvii. 12. Lib. xi. t. iv. p. 975 sqq. speaks most clearly of our Lord as having done His part towards the salvation of Judas; and so as to assert the general principle of a real offer of salvation to those who reject it, through free-will, foreseen, not compelled" (ibid., 1245). Browne's entire section of "Note A" runs from pages 1238–1246.
119. July 1, 2017: “5. The classic Reformed formulation of double predestination asserts eternal divine reprobation based on God’s will alone, but historical damnation is based on the sins of man. Neither Calvin nor subsequent Reformed theologians that this book reviews placed God’s decree in immediate causal relation to the sins and damnation of the wicked. Calvin attributed the proximate cause of damnation to the voluntary sins of Adam and his offspring. They also attributed the ultimate cause of an individual’s damnation to God’s will, because God chose not to bring them to glory by the grace of His Son. This distinction was a key part of the Reformed apologetic for its view of predestination, for it placed the blame for sin and damnation on sinners, but glorified God as the sovereign Lord and Savior.”—Joel R. Beeke, Debated Issues in Sovereign Predestination: Early Lutheran Predestination, Calvinian Reprobation, and Variations in Genevan Lapsarianism (Reformed Historical Theology 42; Göttingen/Bristol, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), 221. “8. Amyraldianism was not regarded as a heresy by the Reformed orthodox writers, but did introduce dangerous instability into the system of Reformed theology. Though Francis Turretin counted divines of the school of Amyraut as Reformed, he also noted that they posit two contradictory decrees coexisting in the eternal mind of God, the will to save all through Christ’s redemption and the will to save only some through the application of Christ’s redemption. When embraced in Geneva, Amyraldianism rapidly degenerated into Arminianism and Socinianism, and Reformed orthodoxy was swept away by a flood of man-centered theology.” Ibid., 222.
120. July 9, 2017: Increase Mather, the sixth President of Harvard, preached an ordination sermon for Nathaniel Appleton, in which it is said, “The only book of theology he recommended was Ames’ Marrow.”
121. July 10, 2017: I am not sure if the following work is by this same John Everand (click), but these comments are interesting in light of 17th century disputes: “It is not proper to call the Elect the World; for Christ saith, If you were of the World, the World would Love you; but I have chosen you out of the World: Therefore ‘tis not proper to call Believers or the Elect the World.”—John Everand [of Chatteris], The Universal Love of God to Mankind Defended, Against the Misapprehensions of Some People about the Doctrine of Election and Reprobation (London: Printed and Sold by T. Sowle, next Door to the Meeting-house in White-Hart-Court in Gracious-street; and at the Bible in Leaden-hall street near the Market, 1697), 6. “But thou mayest yet say, Jacob have I Loved, and Esau have I Hated: So it was not said in Genesis, but in Malachi 1:2. But the Elder shall serve the Younger; which, if it had Related to their Eternal State, it would imply Esau is now in Heaven serving Jacob; but it was said to Jacob, Thy Brethren shall serve thee. But Isaac Blessed Esau also, though Jacob had the Dominion for a time: But the People of Edom were called in Christ, as well as the seed of Israel, as it is written,  In thee, and in thy Seed, shall all the Families of the Earth be Blessed.” Ibid., 10–11. This Everand may have been an Arminian or Quaker. I am not sure.
122. July 16, 2017: “Mark saith, that Jesus beholding him, loved him; not with a special saving Love, (for he sent him away sad; upon his going, he tells his Disciples that it was a very hard thing for a Rich Man to come to Heaven, he tells him, One thing was wanting to him) but he loved him with such a common Love, as he loveth all his Creatures with, and more especially such as are better than others. All that can be concluded from hence is, That Acts of Moral Righteousness are pleasing to God.”—Matthew Poole, “Annotations on the Gospel According to St. Matthew: Matthew 19:21,” in Annotations Upon the Holy Bible, 2 vols. (London: Printed for Thomas Parkhurst, et al., 1700), 2:Fff7r. It is interesting that this comment not only refer to God having a “common love” for all his creatures, but that it seems to refer to God’s love of complacency for the Rich Young Ruler, due to virtue in him, even as an unbeliever.
123. July 16, 2017: Jonathan Edwards, in a Miscellany on the “Economy of the Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption,” discusses ad extra subordination as it relates to ad intra priority of persons.
124. July 19, 2017: Muller addressed some of the complexity in the Reformed tradition on the morally good acts of unbelievers in Richard A. Muller, “Forward,” to Dewey J. Hoitenga, Jr., John Calvin and the Will: A Critique and Corrective (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 6, 8, 10, 11. He mentions Calvin, Turretin, Vermigli, and Bullinger.
125. July 20, 2017: “...properly used, the label [hyper-Calvininism] means something quite different from ‘high’ or even ‘extreme’ Calvinism. It is a particular school of thought, as well defined as Arminianism, and associated with such English Dissenting theologians as John Gill. Its philosophical root, like that of Armininianism, is the idea that ability determines obligation and its hall-mark is the denial of the free offer of the gospel: what, after all, is the point in calling men to believe when you know they are unable to believe in the first place? This outlook has never been represented in Scotland. Every one of our theologians, from Knox to Cunningham, regarded the Free Offer as an axiom.”—Donald Macleod, “Dr T. F. Torrance and Scottish Theology: A Review Article,” The Evangelical Quarterly 72.1 (Jan.–Mar. 2000): 57–58. “But the free offer of the gospel was never questioned in Scotland. Even those who opposed the Marrowmen accepted the legitimacy and urgency of the gospel call: they questioned only the terms in which that offer was expressed. They never questioned that the gospel was to be preached to every creature.” Ibid., 63.
126. July 22, 2017: “Andrew of Caesarea in Cappadocia, in the sixth-century, made a distinction between an antecedent and consequent will of God in his Commentarius in Apocalypsin (PG 106:403–406), but if it was written during Fulgentius’ lifetime, he was probably unaware of it. On Rev. 19:17–18, it reads: ‘First there is an antecedent will of God which is also called the will of His good pleasure. In the supper He shows what He most of all desired, that all be saved and come to knowledge of the truth, and having been converted to God they live eternally. Secondly, however, there is a consequent will to punish those who have taken unto themselves, of their own accord, the cause of punishment.’”—Francis X. Gumerlock, Fulgentius of Ruspe on the Saving Will of God (PhD diss., Saint Louis University, 2004), 63n74. The concept is also in the homilies of John Chrysostom. See Homilia 18 in Hebraeos, NPNF 14:451.  John of Demascus said: “Also one must bear in mind that God’s original wish was that all should be saved and come to his kingdom. For it was not for punishment that he formed us but to share in his goodness, inasmuch as he is a good God. But inasmuch as he is a just God, his will is that sinners should suffer punishment. The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us.”—John of Damascus (De fide orthodoxa, 2.9. NPNF, 2nd series, 9:42. “John of Demascus popularized a distinction of significance for medieval theology: By his antecedent will God wills all to be saved, because he is good; out of his consequent will he wills to punish eternally those who sin and remain in sin, because he is just.”—Donald W. Sinnema, The Issue of Reprobation at the Synod of Dort (1618–19) in Light of the History of This Doctrine (PhD thesis, Toronto School of Theology, 1985), 9. See John of Demascus, “Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,” in NPNF, 2nd series, trans. S. D. F. Salmond, eds. P. Schaff, and H. Wace (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899; repr. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 9:42 [De fide orth., II, 29]. As Sinnama also said, “This distinction originated with Chrysostom, Homil. 1 on Eph. 1:5” (ibid., 41n3).
127. July 29, 2017: “Dr. Abraham Kuyper has described Antinomianism as ‘a dreadful sin which occurs almost exclusively in the Reformed churches’. He says that what accounts for this phenomenon is a one-sided emphasis in much Reformed preaching on God’s decretive will at the expense of his preceptive will. He deems it essential to hold that Scripture distinguishes between the sphere of divine sovereignty and the sphere of human responsibility and ‘that this distinction is so absolute that one can never pass from the one into the other’ (Dictaten Dogmateik, Locus de Deo, part 3, pp. 113f.).”—The Text of a Complaint Against Actions of the Presbytery of Philadelphia in the Matter of the Licensure and Ordination of Dr. Gordon H. Clark, 13. Kuyper wrote: “De Gereformeerde dogmatici poogden te veel dit in 't gelijk te praten, maar die pogingen houden geen steek, en wat het Antinomisme betreft, dat voortdurend wortel schoot, moet erkend worden, dat het eene schrikkeljke zonde is, die bijna alleen in de Gereformeerde kerken voorkomt; de Gereformeerde belijdenis gaf voortdurend aanleiging tot het ontstaan daarvan.”
128. July 29, 2017: The Gilson reference where he described the medieval schoolmen as building a “cathedral of the mind” (“cathédrale de la pensée”; a cathedral of thought or ideas) is in Étienne Gilson, La philosophie au moyen âge (Paris: Payot & Co., 1922), 56. “…nous verrons apparaître les Sommes qui sont, au moyen âge, les cathédrale de la pensée.” Many follow Alister E. McGrath (Christian Theology: An Introduction, 5th ed. [The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011], 28) in referring to this description from Gilson, but no one ever cites the primary source.
129. July 30, 2017: This letter never gets reported by those who discuss the Clark/Van Til controversy: “Since certain expressions used in the Complaint have been understood as skeptical in character and since the Complaint cannot disavow all responsibility for producing such misunderstanding of its intent, we gladly affirm that, when the objects of knowledge are contemplated, human knowledge does have contact with the objects of divine knowledge within the compass of the divine revelation, and that within that sphere of revelation the objects of knowledge as such are the same for God and for man . . . . Accordingly, while our interest in and concern for the doctrinal issues remain, we deeply regret that our language was not pervasively so precise and guarded as to preclude misunderstandings concerning our fundamental positions and our personal motives.” See John W. Betzold, et al., “A Letter,” The Presbyterian Guardian 17.8 (May 10, 1948): 130. This letter is signed by John W. Betzold, Eugene Bradford, R. B. Kuiper, Arthur W. Kuschke, Jr., LeRoy B. Oliver, Leslie W. Sloat, N. B. Stonehouse, Murray Forst Thompson, Paul Woolley, Cornelius Van Til, Edward J. Young.
130. August 1, 2017: "If the CRC made too strong statements about the positive characteristics of common grace in these points, Rev. Hoeksema went to the other extreme in denying this doctrine altogether."--Joel Beeke, "A Watered Garden: A Brief History of the Protestant Reformed Churches in America, by Gertrude Hoeksema: A Review," Church History 64.4 (Dec. 1995): 740.
131. August 2, 2017: "Query: Is there any such thing as the "race" apart from the individuals which constitute the race? How could the incarnation and Atonement affect the "race" and leave the individuals which constitute the race untouched?" (B. B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation [Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2000], 111n62).
132. August 3, 2017: James Durham seems to acknowledge William Twisse as a hypothetical universalist, or having “many hints to this purpose” [i.e. a conditional redemption], in A Commentary Upon the Book of Revelation (Edinburgh: Printed by Christopher Higgins, in Harts Close, over against the Trone-church, 1658), 314; cited by Donald John MacLean, James Durham (1622–1658) and the Gospel Offer in its Sixteenth-Century Context (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprect, 2015), 120.
133. August 3, 2017: “...all men as they are partakers of any mercy, or of common favours, may be said to have grace extended to them...”—James Durham, Christ Crucified: Or, the Marrow of the Gospel, Evidently holden forth in LXXII Sermons, on the whole 53. Chapter of Isaiah (Edinburgh: Printed by the Heir of Andrew Anderson, Printer to the Kings most Sacred Majesty, 1683), 235.
134. August 7, 2017: For an argument that John Davenant's atonement theology falls within the boundaries of the Westminster Confession, see Michael Lynch, “Confessional Orthodoxy and Hypothetical Universalism: Another Look at the Westminster Confession of Faith,” in Beyond Calvin: Essays on the Diversity of the Reformed Tradition, eds. W. Bradford Littlejohn and Jonathan Tomes (Lincoln, NE: The Davenant Trust, 2017), 127–48.
135. August 15, 2017: “Grace is that aspect of divine action by which God blesses his rebellious creatures, whether through preservation (common grace) or salvation (special grace). It characterizes the manner in which he deals with those who through their rejection of him as their Creator and sovereign deserve nothing from him and yet whom he still chooses to bless” (Carl R. Trueman, Grace Alone: Salvation as a Gift of God—What the Reformers Taught . . . and Why It Still Matters [The 5 Solas Series, ed. Matthew Barrett; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017], 25).
136. August 27, 2017: These are all or most of the places where Gottschalk says Christ only suffered on behalf of the elect: Gottschalk, “Reply to Rabanus Maurus,” in Gottschalk & A Medieval Predestination Controversy: Texts Translated from the Latin, eds. and trans. Victor Genke & Francis X. Gumerlock (Medieval Philosophical Texts in Translation No. 47, ed. Roland J. Teske; Milwauke, WI: Marquette University Press, 2010), 67; “Tome to Gislemar,” 69, 70; “Answers to Various Questions: On Syllogisms,” 105, 106; “On Predestination,” 109, 113, 114, 121, 122, 123, 124, 129, 131, 133–34, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 148, 149; “Another Treatise on Predestination,” 162, 163, 164.
137. The ultimate origin of the old proverb, “Religio peperit divitias, et filia devoravit matrem,” seems to be unknown. The most common citation for it is in Cotton Mather, who refers to that “Old Observation, Religio peperit Divitias, & Filia devoravit Matrem: Religion brought forth Prosperity, and the Daughter destroyed the Mother,” in Magnalia Christi Americana: Or, the Ecclesiastical History of New-England (London: Printed for Thomas Parkhurst, at the Bible and Crowns in Cheapside, 1702), 1:14. This maxim is certainly older than Mather, and is also in Isaac Ambrose, Media: The Middle Things, in Reference to the First and Last Things, 2nd ed. (London: Printed by T. R. and E. M. for Nathanael Web and William Grantham, 1652), 27; Ulrich Zwingli, The Defense of the Reformed Faith, trans. E. J. Furcha (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 1984), 194; William Perkins (A Commentary or Exposition Upon the Five First Chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians [1604], 533); Oliver Heywood (Works [1825], 2:172); John Flavel (“The Fountain of Life,” in Works [1820], 1:451). Richard Sibbes, in Bowels Opened, attributes this saying to Theodoret (lib. 5). John Foxe (in The Acts and Monuments of the Christian Church), Thomas Brooks, (in “Precious Remedies,” in Works, 1:43), William Thomas, in The Mammon of Unrighteousness (1688; p. 7), John Trapp, in his comments on Deuteronomy 32:15, and William Pemberton, in The Godly Merchant (p. 105), and many others attribute it to Augustine. Joseph Hall and John Milton attributed it Chrysostom, and a few others possibly to Bernard. A similar expression, “Religio peperit divitias, divitiae, religionem destruxerunt,” is attributed by P. Schaff (History of the Christian Church, vol. 5, p. 324n2) to a homily (Hom. III. 96) of Caesar of Heisterbach, who lived ca. 1180 to ca. 1240.
138. August 27, 2017: Quod Dominus noster Jesus Christus non pro omnium hominum redemptione sit passus & mortuus.
     
     Responsio.
     
     Hic primus etiam Augustino fuit falso impositus articulus. Communem igitur cum Augustino defensionem nos habemus. Quod ad magnitudinem & poteniam pretii attinet, inquit ille, sanguis Christi est redemptio totius nundi. Sed qui hoc seculum sine fide pertranseunt, redemptionis alieni sunt. Cur sic pertransire a Deo sinantur, occulta causa est, injusta esse non potest. Ista sufficiebant pro defensione Augustini. Sufficiant etiam pro nostra.
     
     David Pareus, Irenicum Sive De Unione Et Synodo Evangelicorum Concilianda Liber Votivus Paci Ecclesiae, & Desierius Pacifcorum Dicatus (Heidelberg: Johannes Lancelloti, 1615), 243. “This first article [which read: ‘That our Lord Jesus Christ did not suffer or die for the redemption of all men’] was also falsely imposed upon Augustine.”
139. September 2, 2017: “God loves every single human being [benevolently], and we should have no reluctance in saying that.”—Albert Mohler, “Ask Anything Live,” Thursday, August 31, 2017. Source: Facebook or YouTube
140. September 24, 2017: “Men tell us that God is, by the very necessity of His nature, incapable of passion, incapable of being moved by inducements from without; that He dwells in holy calm and unchangeable blessedness, untouched by human sufferings or human sorrows for ever ... Let us bless our God that it is not true. God can feel; God does love.”—B. B. Warfield, “Imitating the Incarnation,” in The Saviour of the World (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1913), 261.
141. December 12, 2017: The “author of sin” has “very different meanings [that] are annexed by different persons ... Some persons understand by it the immediate and efficient cause of sinful volitions: others not only mean the efficient, but the guilty cause of such volitions: others still, such a cause as in any manner, however remote, lays a foundation for the existence of sin: and others, a cause supposed to be intelligent, which when possessed of sufficient power to prevent the existence of sin, did not interfere to prevent it.”—Timothy Dwight, “Sermon XV: The Decrees of God,” in Theology Explained and Defended, in a Series of Sermons (Glasgow: Printed at the University Press, for Thomas Tegg and Richard Griffin, 1831), 73.
142. December 12, 2017: “Though I affirm that He [God] ordained it so [the fall of man for an end most just and right], I do not allow that He is properly the author of sin.”—John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans. J. K. S. Reid (London: James Clarke, 1961), 123; “God” is not “implicated as associate in the fault as the author or approver of transgression.” Ibid., 124; “First, it must be observed that the will of God is the cause of all things that happen in the world; and yet God is not the author of evil.” Ibid., 169; “...though the first cause of all things is His will, I nevertheless deny that He is the author of sin.” Ibid., 181; “Certain shameless and illiberal people charge us with calumny by maintaining that God is made the author of sin, if His will is made first cause of all that happens.” Ibid., 181.
143. December 21, 2017: "Sometimes I think that's all this place [Alcatraz] is … one long count." Paul Benjamin, as "English," in Escape from Alcatraz (1979). Though the glorified and the damned will both remain temporal, the perception of time will be different. When we are enjoying life, or the company of a lover or friend, it is as though time does not exist. This seeming absence of time will be the case for the glorified, who experience unabated joy in the presence of God. On the contrary, when we are not enjoying life, time seems to drag on. Each second seems like a minute, and each hour like a day. So it will be with the damned. Each moment has no rest or relief within it, and the anticipation of the next moment, or the hopeless contemplation of the future, will also bring no relief. The damned, like the character "English," will be especially conscious of time or attentive to each passing moment, as if hell itself is one unending count.
144. December 23, 2017: Although his worldview is not Christian, this testimony is true: "Nothing in this universe is wasted. Nothing ever ceases to exist really. The essence always remains preserved." -- Chris Langan
145. December 26, 2017: “Quest. 4. Whether be the Arminians Heretiques? 10. A. The opinion of the Arminians, as it is received of the most that doe favour them, is not properly an heresie, but a dangerous error in the Faith, and tending to heresie: but as it is defended by some of them, it is a Pelagian heresie; because they deny the effectuall operation of internall grace to be necessary for the working of conversion and Faith.”—William Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof. Devided into V. Bookes. ([Leyden and London]: Imprinted [by W. Christiaens, E. Griffin, J. Dawson], 1639), 4:12 [De Conscientia, IV:iv, q. 4]; also cited in Latin by William Cunningham, Historical Theology (London: Banner of Truth, 1960), II:378. “An Arminian may be a truly regenerate Christian; in fact, if he is truly an Arminian and not a Pelagian who happens to belong to an Arminian church, he must be a saved man. But he is not usually, and cannot consistently be assured of his salvation. The places in which is creed differs from our Confession confuse the mind, dilute the Gospel, and impair its proclamation.”—Gordon H. Clark, What Do Presbyterians Believe (Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1965), 174.
146. January 1, 2018: John Evans gives the listing of authors who completed Matthew Henry’s commentary, according to Isaac Watts, in “To the Editor of the Protestant Dissenter’s Magazine,” in The Protestant Dissenter’s Magazine, vol. 4 (London: Printed for T. Knott, 1797), 472: Romans (John Evans), 1 Corinthians (Simon Browne), 2 Corinthians (Daniel Mayo), Galatians (Joshua Bays), Ephesians (Samuel Rosewell), Philippians and Colossians (William Harris), 1 and 2 Thessalonians (Daniel Mayo), 1 and 2 Timothy (Benjamin Andrews Atkinson), Titus and Philemon (Jeremiah Smith), Hebrews (William Tong), James (Samuel Wright), 1 Peter (Zechariah Merrell), 2 Peter (Joseph Hill), 1, 2 and 3 John (John Reynolds of Shrewbury), Jude (John Billingsley), and Revelation (William Tong). This list is also contained in the “Original Preface to Volume Six” in Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992), xxi.
147. January 28, 2018: “Much of the doctrine, which is industriously promulgated at the present day, tends to form a counterfeit philanthropy, to make men sympathize with the misfortunes of the criminal, rather than with injured virtue, or with public morals, to weaken the arm of the law and reduce government itself into a compact remarkable for nothing but its weakness.”—B. B. Edwards, “The Imprecations in the Scriptures,” Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review 1.1 (1844): 110.
148. January 28, 2018: “Stated negatively, God’s reconciling of the world involved ‘not counting their trespasses against them.’ God could act in this way because He placed those sins on Christ instead (5:21; Isa 53:6). In actual performance, therefore, God through Christ was involving Himself in the work of reconciling sinners, not the task of condemning them (cf. John 3:17, ‘For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him.’) The announcement of this tremendous act of grace on God’s part had been committed to Paul and the other apostles, and in a sense to every believer in the Great Commission” (H. A. Kent, A Heart Opened Wide: Studies in II Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982], 89–90).
149. January 28, 2018: “Most commentators understand 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 as Paul’s appeal to the Corinthian church to be reconciled to God, taking Paul’s use of first person plural (“we,” “ us”) as an “epistolary plural,” that is, the singular “I” is mean even though the plural form is used. But in light of the context, in which Paul sees himself as allied with his audience of believers, the passage is better understood as a concerted appeal to the unreconciled. “We therefore are ambassadors for Christ, as God makes his appeal through us: ‘We be you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.’” Paul includes himself with other Christians (“we” as ambassadors on behalf of Christ. The message of 2 Corinthians 5:20b is addressed to those to whom the Corinthian believers are ambassadors, to those being called to reconciliation.”—S. Porter, “Peace, Reconciliation,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. G. Hawthorne, R. Martin, and D. Reid (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 696.
150. January 31, 2018: Qui bene distinguit, bene docet [He who distinguishes well, teaches well].
151. February 3, 2018: “It is not enough that a doctrine be erroneous, or that it be dangerous in its tendency; if it be not subversive of one or more of the constituent elements of the Reformed faith, it is not incompatible with the honest adoption of our Confession. It cannot be denied taht ever since the Reformation, more or less diversity in the statement and explanation of the doctrines of Calvinism has prevailed in the Reformed Churches. It is equally notorious that for fifty or sixty years such diversities have existed and been tolerated in our own church; nay, that they still exist, and are avowed by Old-school men. If a man holds that all mankind, since the fall of Adam, and in consequence of his sin, are born in a state of condemnation and sin, whether he accounts for that fact on the ground of immediate or mediate imputation, or on the realistic theory, he was regarded as within the integrity of the system. In like manner, if he admitted the sinner's inability, it was not considered as a proper ground of discipline that he regarded that inability as moral, instead of natural as well as moral. If he taught that the work of Christ was a real satisfaction to the justice of God, it was not made a breaking point, whether he said it was designed exclusively for the elect, or for all mankind. If regeneration was referred to the supernatural and almighty power of the Holy Spirit, and election to eternal life to the sovereign grace of God, the integrity of that doctrine, as presented in our standards, was secured. If justification was regarded as a forensic or judicial act of God, declaring the sinner just, on the ground of the righteousness of Christ, and not because of anything done or experienced by the sinner himself, then the essentials of that cardinal doctrine were retained.
     
     We do not say that the diversities above referred to are unimportant. We regard many of them as of great importance. All we say is, that they have existed, and been tolerated in the purest Calvinistic churches, our own among the rest” (Charles Hodge, “Retrospect of the History of the Princeton Review,” in The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review: Index Volume [Philadelphia: Peter Walker, 1870–1871]: 22–23).
152. February 8, 2018: “His justice that every soul that sins should die; but his mercy desires not the death of a sinner. Ezekiel xxxiii. 11.” – John Boys in Spurgeon’s Treasury of David on Psa 85:10.
153. March 18, 2018: Robert Govett was a moderate Calvinist. See Calvinism by Calvin: Being the Substance of Discourses Delivered by Calvin and the Other Ministers of Geneva on the Doctrines of Grace (Miami Springs, FL: Conley & Schoettle Publishing, 1984), 21ff.
154. March 22, 2018: "As though God did beseech you] God’s grace even kneels to us."---John Trapp on 2 Cor. 5:20. Like the Puritans Richard Baxter, William Strong, and Thomas Watson, John Trapp taught that God "kneels" in his merciful appeals to sinners in the gospel call.
155. March 25, 2018: "Calling is an action of God’s love, whereby he calleth men to salvation."---Elnathan Parr, A Plain Exposition Upon the Whole Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth Chapters of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans (London: Printed by George Purstowe for Samuel Man, 1620), 222. Parr goes on to distinguish between the outward and inward call, and shows that the inward call is a matter of special love.
156. March 27, 2018: A fascinating read: Irena Backus and Aza Goudriaan, “‘Semipelagianism’: The Origins of the Term and its Passage into the History of Heresy,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 65.1 (January 2014): 25–46.
157. May 21, 2018: “But it is some great sin, and not every sin, that He would have to be understood, as it were, under the general designation. For this is the sin wherein all sins are included; and whosoever is free from it, has all his sins forgiven him: and this it is, that they believed not on Christ, who came for the very purpose of enlisting their [the unbelieving Jews] faith.”--Augustine, “Homilies on the Gospel of John: Tractate LXXXIX,” in NPNF, First Series, 8 vols., ed. P. Schaff (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 7:357–58.
158. May 27, 2018: “God does not wish you [the Donatists] to be lost, cut off from your mother, the Catholic Church, in the midst of a sacrilegious dissension.”—Augustine, Letter 105, p. 205
159. June 20, 2018: “hyper-Calvinism. A deviant form of Calvinism that denies any human freedom or moral responsibility, usually with respect to matters of faith and repentance. Hyper-Calvinists embrace hard determinism and discourage open invitations to sinners to believe on Christ for salvation. God’s love is restricted only to the elect.”—Scott Christensen, What About Free Will? Reconciling Our Choices with God’s Sovereignty (Phillipsburg, NJ: 2016), 256.
160. June 25, 2018: In the Puritans, “common gifts,” “common restraining grace,” “common operations of the Spirit,” and “common favors” are all equivalent to the idea of “common grace”. Richard Bernard, Joseph Hall, John Brinsley, David Dickson, Alexander Gosse, Jeremiah Burroughs, John Hewit, and Benjamin Keach refer to God’s “common favors” that are bestowed upon all, including reprobates.
161. June 25, 2018: “For as our sun, through no choice or deliberation, but by the very fact of its existence, gives light to all those things which have any inherent power of sharing its illumination, even so the Good (which is above the sun, as the transcendent archetype by the very mode of its existence is above its faded image) sends forth upon all things according to their receptive powers, the rays of Its undivided Goodness.”—Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, trans. C. E. Rolt (Translations of Christian Literature: Series I. Greek Texts; London: SPCK; The Macmillan Company, 1920),  87; De Div. Hom. iv. 1.
162. June 27, 2018: “I should not take it at all amiss, to be called a Calvinist, for distinction’s sake: though I utterly disclaim a dependence on Calvin, or believing the doctrines which I hold, because he taught them; and cannot justly be charge[d] with believing in everything just as he taught.”—Jonathan Edwards, “Freedom of the Will,” in Works (Yale), 1:131.
163. June 28, 2018: “[Henry Boynton] Smith was a thoroughly orthodox theologian who was open to insights from contemporary theology, while clearly retaining an historic Reformed theology of an Edwardsian cast. His theology deserves to be re-examined and rescued from historical neglect.”—John R. Wiers, “Henry B. Smith: Theologian of New School Presbyterianism,” in Pressing Toward the Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, ed. C. G. Dennison & R. C. Gamble (Philadelphia, PA: Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1986), 196.
164. July 10, 2018: For the most extensive bibliography of the writings of Machen, see James T. Dennison, Jr. and Grace Mullen, “A Bibliography of the writings of J. Gresham Machen,” in Pressing Toward the Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, ed. C. G. Dennison & R. C. Gamble (Philadelphia, PA: OPC, 1986), 461–485.
165. July 10, 2018: “...he [the Lord Jesus] wishes all souls to be subject to him...”—Martin Bucer, Concerning the True Care of Souls, trans. Peter Beale (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2016), 80. In Bucer’s view, the Lord is also “offering” salvation to all and “inviting” the lost to come to him (ibid., 76, 77).
166. July 15, 2018: There is a popular quote attributed to Augustine, which says, “Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.” Sometimes it is also put as follows: “To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.” The original actually says: “Multi quidem facilius se abstinent ut non utantur, quam temperent ut bene utantur”—Augustine, De Bono Conjugali, §25. Modern translation: “Many indeed with more ease practice abstinence, so as not to use, than practice temperance, so as to use well.”—“On the Good of Marriage,” in NPNF, 3:410. Another translation has this: “Many, indeed, more easily abstain from them so as not to use them at all, rather than control themselves so as to use them well.” Augustine, “The Good of Marriage,” in Treatises on Marriage and Other Subjects, trans. Charles T. Wilcox (The Fathers of the Church 27; New York: The Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1955), 41.
167. July 21, 2018: I've been struggling articulate this concept to Christian friends for many years (at least since the mid 1990's), and this morning I finally found a theologian who said the same thing, and so profoundly. I love this quote from Herman Bavinck: “The human consciousness in him [Christ], though having the same subject as the divine consciousness, only to a small degree knew that subject, that ‘I,’ indeed knew it as a whole but not exhaustively. Just as behind our limited consciousness there also lies within us a world of being, so behind the human consciousness of Chirst there lay the depths of God, which could only very gradually and to a limited degree shine through that human consciousness” (Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. J. Bolt, trans. J. Vriend, 3 vols. [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006], 3:312).
168. July 23, 2018: “Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the ‘problem’ and therefore defined as the enemy.”—Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 23.
169. July 26, 2018: Read and blog any sources found in Walter Campbell Campbell-Jack, “Grace Without Christ? The Doctrine of Common Grace in Dutch-American Neo-Calvinism” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1992).
170. August 1, 2018: On whether or not we might be sinning in dreams, see Augustine, On Genesis, trans. E. Hill, ed. J. E. Rotelle (The Works of Saint Augustine 13; Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2002), 480–81 [Gen. ad lit., xii, §15]; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae: Prima Pars, 50–119, ed. J. M. Mortensen and E. Alarcón, trans. Fr. L. Shapcote (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012), 14:342 [Ia, Q. 84, A. 8, ad. 2]; Summa Theologiae: Secunda Secunda, 92–189, ed. J. M. Mortensen and E. Alarcón, trans. Fr. L. Shapcote (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012), 18:472–74 [IIa–IIae, Q. 154, A. 6]; Philip Goodwin, The Mystery of Dreams, Historically Discoursed (London: Printed by A. M. for Francis Tyton at the Three Daggers near St Dustans Church in Fleet-street, 1657/8). Daventant also makes a relevant comment on dreams and an inclination or propensity of the faculties to sinful suggestions. See John Davenant, A Treatise on Justification, trans. Josiah Allport, 2 vols. (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1844), 1:126–27.
171. Sept. 26, 2018: “Most commentators understand 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 as Paul’s appeal to the Corinthian church to be reconciled to God, taking Paul’s use of first person plural (“we,” “us”) as an “epistolary plural,” that is, the singular “I” is meant even though the plural form is used. But in light of the context, in which Paul sees himself as allied with his audience of believers, the passage is better understood as a concerted appeal to the unreconciled: “We therefore are ambassadors for Christ, as God makes his appeal through us: ‘We beg you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.’” Paul includes himself with other Christians (“we”) as ambassadors on behalf of Christ. The message of 2 Corinthians 5:20b is addressed to those to whom the Corinthian believers are ambassadors, to those being called to reconciliation.”---Stanley E. Porter, “Peace, Reconciliation,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, IVP Dictionary Series, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grover, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 696.
172. Nov. 24, 2018: “Now you make light of sin, but then [in hell] you won’t make light of it. You will then find the least sin to be a mountain and that it lies on your soul like the weight of a mountain. And you will be then willing, if it were possible, to give then thousand worlds to have so much as the punishment of one sin taken off, though you will have the punishment of so many thousands to endure. . . .The damned in hell would be ready to give worlds if they could, to have the number of their sins to have been by [sic] one less—to have one idle word or sinful thought forgotten and blotted out, and to be released from the punishment of it.”—Jonathan Edwards, “A Man May Eternally Undo Himself in One Thought of His Heart—A Sermon on Acts 8:20–22 [Preached on June 1736],” in Knowing the Heart: Jonathan Edwards on True and False Conversion, ed. William C. Nichols (Ames, IA: International Outreach, Inc., 2003), 317–18.
173. Dec. 12, 2018: Paul Helm said: “One has the impression, from [Calvin’s] ‘The Secret Providence of God’ and from other writings such as the ‘Institutes,’ that deploying this distinction [between different senses of permission] is not Calvin’s preferred option just because of the confusion between a ‘willing permission’ and a ‘bare permission’ that it engenders. But it is going too far to say that Calvin repudiates the idea of a divine permission of evil” (From Paul Helm’s “Introduction” to John Calvin, The Secret Providence of God [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010], 27). On the other hand, Richard Muller wrongly said, “The concept of a divine permissio was denied by Calvin but accepted by virtually all later Reformed theologians, including Beza and Zanchi, as a means of explaining the origin of sin and the continuing instances of sin in the course of human history.” Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2017), 259. However, in a 2023 lecture on “Calvin and the Problem of the Divine Will, Permission, and Contingency,” Muller has maintained that Calvin did affirm divine permission.
174. Dec. 15, 2018: According to Junius, “...God has the possibility to choose between different good things, but he is not necessitated to choose good things, only because they are good. He can decide not to choose a good thing” (B.J.D. van Vreeswijk, “An Image of Its Maker: Theses on Freedom in Francis Junius (1545–1602),” in Reformed Thought on Freedom: The Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology, ed. Willen J. van Asselt, J. Martin Bac, and Roef T. te Velde [Texts & Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought, ed. Richard A. Muller; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010], 119). In other words, I would say, God has a sort of liberty of indifference between choosing to do good things, such as creating or not creating, but God is not free in that sense to choose between good and evil things, or to choose to do logically contradictory things (i.e. creating square circles, etc.).
175. Dec. 18, 2018: “147 [Franciscus] Gomarus, De perseverantia (1608), xvi, distinguishes between, on the one hand, God’s love, grace, and general benevolence shown commonly to all, and, on the other hand, God’s grace and infinite love conferred in Christ. Although it parallels Arminius’s distinction between God’s general and saving love, Gomarus’s general love is not for the purpose of saving” (Keith D. Stanglin, Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603–1609 [Brill’s Series in Church History, ed. Wim Janse, vol. 27; Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007], 226).
176. Dec. 30, 2018: According to James Dalrymple of Stair (1619–1695; in A Vindication of the Divine Perfections Illustrating the Glory of God in Them, by Reason and Revelation: Methodically Digested into Several Meditations [London: Printed by J.D. for Brabazon Aylmer, at the Three Pigeons in Cornhill, 1695], 309), Jean Claude (1619–1687), in his posthumous works on the topic of the priestly office of Christ (see Les oeuvres posthumes de Mr. Claude. Tome Second. [Amsterdam: Pierre Savouret, 1688–1689], 1–46), refutes the idea that the “world” is the elect alone, and argues for a sense of universal grace. Claude was a moderate Calvinist (see pp. 27ff).
177. Dec. 30, 2018: In Hebrews 1:4, 5, 6, 13 and 2:5, the Son of God (Jesus) is clearly distinguished from the angelic race. This, among other things, might count as evidence, though not an air-tight case, against those (e.g. SDA’s) who think Jesus was/is Michael, the archangel. It should be noted, however, that the following men also thought the Son of God is Michael: Ephraim Huit, Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, Giovanni Diodati, Johannes Oecolampadius, Johann Wigand, 1638 Dutch Bible, 1645 English Annotations, John Trapp, Matthew Poole, Geneva Bible, Andreas Osiander, Andrew Willet, Herman Witsius, Thomas Brightman, Adam Clarke, John Gill, and Charles Spurgeon. Calvin allowed for the view, so as not to object to it, but he was tentative about it. Other names might include W. L. Alexander, Jacobus Ode, Campegius Vitringa, Hugh Broughton, Franciscus Junius, Havernick, Amandus Polanus, Samuel Horsely, William Kincaid, Isaac Watts, John Brown, and James Wood, but I have yet to verify them in the primary sources.
178. Dec. 30, 2018: If one takes the “world” as believers in John 3:16, then does the sense of “love” in the same verse refer to complacency rather than benevolence?
179. Jan. 2, 2019: William Fenner (1600–1640) affirms common grace in Remains of That Reverend & Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, Mr. William Fenner, Late Minister of Rochford in Essex (London: Printed for Joseph Cranford, 1657), 46.
180. Jan. 2, 2019: On Tuesday, April 30th of 1619, during session #145 at the Synod of Dort, Johannes Maccovius (1588–1644) was warned, among other things, against saying “God [or Christ] in no way wills the salvation of all people [mankind].” See Willem J. van Asselt, “On the Maccovius Affair,” in Revisiting the Synod of Dort (1618–1619), ed. A. Goudriaan & F. van Lieburg (Brill’s Series in Church History, vol. 49, ed. W. Janse; Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011), 225, n. 23.
181. Jan. 11, 2019: "Strictly speaking, there is no other satisfaction for the sins of the world than the precious death of Christ. It alone has satisfied the divine justice on our behalf and reconciled us to God. But no one shares in that satisfaction except believers in the Gospel of Christ." Urbanus Rhegius, Preaching the Reformation: The Homiletical Handbook of Urbanus Rhegius, trans. and ed. Scott Hendrix (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2003), 73. "Proprie nulla est alia Satisfactio pro peccatis mundi, quam preciosa mors Christi, haec una satisfecit pro nobis iusticiae divinae et nos Deo reconciliavit. Sed illius Satisfactionis nemo fit particeps, nisi credentes Evangelio Christi. Ibid., 72; also in Urbanus Rhegius, Formulae quaedam caute et citra scandalum loquendi de praecipuis Christianae doctrinae locis, pro iunioribus Verbi Ministris in Ducatu Luneburgensi (Vitebergae [Wittenberg]: Johann Lufft, 1535), D5ʳ.
182. Jan. 11, 2019: Johannes Scharpius (†1648), Bénédict Pictet (†1724), Petrus van Mastricht (†1706), Marcus Friedrich Wendelin (†1652), and Johann Heinrich Heidegger (†1698) all teach God’s general love for mankind, in addition to electing love. See Johannes Scharpius, Cursus theologicus, in quo controversiae omnes de fidei dogmatibus ..., 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Geneva : Petrus et Jacobus Chouët, 1620), 1:201–202; Bénédict Pictet, La Théologie Chrétienne, et la Science du Salut, ou l’exposition des Véritez que Dieu a révélées aux hommes dans la Sainte Ecriture, 3 vols. (Geneve: Chez Cramer, Perachon, & Cramer Fils, 1721), 1:210–211; Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretico-practica theologia, qua, per singula capita theologica, pars exegetica, dogmatica, elenchtica & practica, perpetua successione conjugantur, 2nd ed. (Utrecht: Apud W. van de Water, 1724), 1:179–180; Marcus Friedrich Wendelin, Christianae theologiae libri duo (Amsterlodami: Joannem Janssonium, 1657), 1:81–82; and Johann Heinrich Heidegger, Corpus theologiae christianae ... (Zürich : Typis Joh. Henrici Bodmeri, 1700), 1:96. For a secondary source confirmation of this, see also Dolf te Velde, The Doctrine of God in Reformed Orthodoxy, Karl Barth, and the Utrecht School: A Study in Method and Content (Studies in Reformed Theology, vol. 25; Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013), 208. Also in Roelf Theodoor te Velde, “Paths Beyond Tracing Out: The Connection of Method and Content in the Doctrine of God, Examined in Reformed Orthodoxy, Karl Barth, and the Utrecht School” (PhD diss., Theologische Universiteit Kampen, 2010), 176.
183. Jan. 11, 2019: “Questions about the universal saving will of God, and of limits on Christ’s saving work do not much arise for [Martin] Bucer, who rather emphasizes the universal nature of external vocation, and of the ‘gospel’ that God ‘loves’ all men, or at least does not will that any be lost” (David Neelands, “Predestination and the Thirty-Nine Articles,” in A Companion to Peter Martyr Vermigli, ed. T. Kirby, E. Campi, & F. A. James III [Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, vol. 16; Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009], 359).
184. Jan. 11, 2019: “When, on rare occasions, [Guillaume] Farel speaks of ‘reprobates’ (reprouvez?), it is in a non-technical sense. The term is bracketed with ‘unbelievers,’ ‘the lost,’ ‘the wretched,’ and designates those who refuse the gospel offer of forgiveness. (See SBD, n. 1v, n.2r–2v.)”--Robert White, “An Early Doctrinal Handbook: Farel’s Summaire Et Briefve Declaration,” WTJ 69 (2007): 30, n. 39.
185. Jan. 27, 2019: “The church fathers before Augustine usually speak very universalistically about the saving will of God and the atonement of Christ” (Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols., ed. J Bolt, trans. J. Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 3:456. Under this statement, Bavinck references D[ionysius]. Petavius [Denis Pétau (1583–1652); a French Jesuit theologian], “De incarn.,” Op. theol. XIII, 1.2; and C[ampegius]. Vitringa [1693–1723; a Dutch Protestant theologian and Hebraist], Doctr. christ., VI, 147.
186. Feb. 10, 2019: John Rogers (c.1570–1636) refers to some gospel rejectors as being "well offered" by God. See The Doctrine of Faith Wherein are Practically Handled Ten Principall Points, Which Explain the Nature and Use of It (London: Printed for N.N. and William Sheffard, and are to be sold at his shop at the entring into Po[p]es-head-Alley out of Lumbar-street, 1627), 90. So does Thomas Barnes (fl.1622-1626), in Sions Sweets: Or, The Spouses Spikenard; and Mysticall Myrrhe (London: Printed by I. D. for Nathaniell Newberry, 1624). "Have we no regard to our own good? can we not see when we are well offered..."
187. Feb. 19, 2019: "Quest[ion]. Say you then that good works be needful to salvation? An[swer]. If faith be needful to salvation, and works do of necessity accompany true faith, as which cannot be idle: sure the other followeth also, that good works be needful to salvation, howbeit not as a cause of salvation, (for we be justified and therefore also do live by faith only in Christ) but as a thing that of necessity cleaveth unto true faith. So saith Paul, that those be God's children, which are led by God's Spirit, and John saith that those be righteous which work righteousness: And James also declaring, not by what means we be justified, but whereby true faith and justification are discerned, proveth by Abraham's example, and those are not justified which utter[?] no works of faith. For in such wise must James be made to agree with Paul, to the end it may plainly appear, how they be but babblers which condemn the necessity of good works for false doctrine."---Theodore Beza, A Book of Christian Questions and Answers, trans. Arthur Golding (Imprinted at London: By William How, for Abraham Veale, dwellyng in Paules Church yarde at the signe of the Lambe, Ano. 1572), 53r–v. “…the path to eternal life is only through keeping the divine commandments.”—Martin Bucer, Instruction in Christian Love [1523], trans. P. T. Fuhrmann (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008), 40. ESV Romans 2:7: "...to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;" If we endure to the end, we shall be saved (see Matt. 10:22; 24:13; Mark 13:13; James 1:12, et al).
188. Feb. 19, 2019: Beza seems to suggest that God delights in the sparks of righteousness that may remain in unbelievers, as it is a result of the good he does to them. See Theodore Beza, A Book of Christian Questions (Imprinted at London: By William How, for Abraham Veale, dwellyng in Paules Church yarde at the signe of the Lambe, Ano. 1572), 51v. He says, "Then delighteth he [God] *much more* in the works of them that be regenerated, although they be imperfect." This suggests, by implication, that those unbelievers who have remaining virtue in them, God delights in their works, in a sense, and to some extent, as well.
189. Mar. 3, 2019: "For many have learned how to offer the other cheek, but do not know how to love him by whom they are struck. But in truth, the Lord Himself, who certainly was the first to fulfil the precepts which He taught, did not offer the other cheek to the servant of the high priest when smiting Him thereon; but, so far from that, said, “If I have spoken evil, hear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?” Yet was He not on that account unprepared in heart, for the salvation of all, not merely to be smitten on the other cheek, but even to have His whole body crucified."--Augustine, "Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount," in NPNF¹, ed. P. Schaff, trans. W. Findlay (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 6:26; De Sermone Domini in Monte secundum Matthaeum, 1.19.58.
190. March 17, 2019: "For though the common love of God (as the bare offer of grace is) may be manifested without having Christ, yet special actual love cannot be actually our own, without having and first receiving of him..."---Thomas Shepard, Theses Sabbaticæ, or, The doctrine of the Sabbath wherein the Sabbaths I. Morality, II. Change, III. Beginning. IV. Sanctification, are clearly discussed, which were first handled more largely in sundry sermons in Cambridge in New-England in opening of the Fourth Commandment (London: Printed by T.R. and E.M. for John Rothwell, 1650), 123.
191. March 17, 2019: "God doth not only love, but he doth greatly love Christians: He loves all the Creatures with a common love, but he loves Christians with a special love, with a far greater love."---Richard Kentish, καθ΄ υπερβολήν ὁδός. Or, The Way of Love, Set Forth in a Sermon Preached at Pauls Septemb: 10. 1648. (Printed for Hannah Allen at the Crown in Popes-head-Alley, 1649), B2ʳ.
192. March 17, 2019: "...there is matter in Christ's common love in his satisfaction, for us to plead with sinners for gratitude (before assurance of special love) though they have not hearts to perceive it to purpose, till God open their hearts by his Spirit."---Richard Baxter, Rich. Baxter's Admonition to Mr. William Eyre of Salisbury; Concerning his Miscarriages in a Book Lately Written for the Justification of Infidels, Against M. Benj. Woodbridge, M. James Cranford and the Author (London: Printed by A. M. for Thomas Underhill, ... 1654), E1ʳ.
193. March 27, 2019: Roger Nicole led Gordon Clark and others to think that Jerome Zanchi was a supralapsarian in the same modified teleological pattern that Clark held, in the sense that “the order of history is the reverse of the [logical] order of decrees.” Nicole portrays Clark’s supralapsarianism as follows: 1. Decree to elect and reprove; 2. Decree to apply salvation to the elect; 3. Decree to provide salvation in Christ for the elect; 4. Decree to ordain the fall; 5. Decree to create. Robert Reymond, relying on Nicole, inferred the same thing about Zanchi, though he does not cite Nicole directly. Reymond seems to be clearly relying on what Nicole said in “The Theology of Gordon Clark,” in The Philosophy of Gordon Clark: A Festcshrift, ed. R. H. Nash (Philadelphia, PA: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1968), 396, 484, 512n.10, and Reymond even cites Louis Le Blanc’s Theses Theologicae with the same 1683 (or 3rd edition date) that Nicole provides instead of the 1675 edition. See Robert L. Reymond, “A Consistent Supralapsarian Perspective on Election,” in Perspectives on Election: 5 Views, ed. C. O. Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2006), 178. Reymond is actually tentative about Zanchi, and says he was “possibly” a supralapsian, and also notes (on p. 178, n. 30) Richard A. Muller’s remarks on Zanchi’s infralapsarianism in Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986), 112. See also what Muller says on page 116, especially about Otto Gründler’s claim that Zanchi was supra (cf. Muller’s CTJ article [on pages 205 and 206] cited below for more on this), since Reymond also references Gründler to substantiate the historical claim. Clark, however, seems to infer that Nicole is clearly saying Zanchi was supralapsarian in the same sense he was, saying, “I am happy to learn that Zanchius preceded me in this [supralapsarian] view...” (“Reply to Roger Nicole,” in The Philosophy of Gordon Clark, 484). Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu (1614–1675), whom Nicole cites, in the 1675 edition of Theses theologica, says: “Non sic decreta divina comminuit Zanchius, sed tamen vult quoque ordinem decretorum divinorum colligi ex eventu & ordine quo res eveniunt, juxta regulam illam, ‘Quod primum est in intentione, id est, in consilio & cogitatione, illud ultimum est in excutione.’ Ut videre est apud ipsum de Natura Dei, lib. 5. cap. 2 [De natura Dei, in Omnium operum theologicorum, vol. 1 (Geneva, 1619), 568].” Richard Muller, in addition to what he says in Christ and the Decree, also argues that Zanchi was infralapsarian in “The Placement of Predestination in Reformed Theology: Issue or Non-Issue?,” CTJ 40 (2005): 202, 205, 206. Muller references Zanchi’s (which is supposed to be Maccovius’s) Distinctiones et Regulae Theologicae ac Philosophicae, ed. Nicholas Arnold (Oxford: Henry Hall, 1656), ca vi–vii; as well as Zanchi’s De natura Dei, in Operum theologicorum D. Hieronymi Zanchii, 10 vols. in 9 (Geneva: Samuel Crispin, 1617-1619), 2:col. 481, 485; in addition to similar definitions in De praedestinatione sanctorum, in Opera, 8:col. 305–307 (“[Election is God’s] eternal, most wise, and immutable decree, constituted by Him in eternity, by which certain men in the trap of deepest sin and death, and one with all the fallen are, according to his merciful will, rescued graciously through Christ,” De Praedestinatione, col. 307; cf. Christ and the Decree, p. 112); idem, De ecclesia, in Opera, 7:2, col. 65; and De religione christiana fides, 3:iii. Cornelis P. Venema agrees with Muller’s views on Zanchi. See Heinrich Bullinger and the Doctrine of Predestination: Author of “the Other Reformed Tradition”? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 81. Byung Soo Han similarly thinks Zanchi presents a clear infralapsarian pattern, and cites Zanchi’s De natura Dei, cols. 485–486, as follows: “Deum ab aeterno, firmo decreto constituisse, primum quidem creare omnes homines: deinde eos in peccatum labi & propter peccatum morti aeternae obnoxios fieri permittere: postremo aliquos inde per Christum, ea qua fecit ratione, liberare, & aeterna vita donare: reliquos vero ab hac gratia retinere, & in suis peccatis relictos, eandem aeterno supplicio propter peccata afficere.” See Byung Soo Han, Symphonia Catholica: The Merger of Patristic and Contemporary Sources in the Theological Method of Amandus Polanus (1561–1610) (Gottingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2015), 255. It is also clear that Augustus Toplady (another infralapsarian) translated Zanchi in an infralapsarian way. In his edition, Zanchi said: “Consider predestination relating to the elect only, and it is ‘that eternal, unconditional, particular and irreversible act of the Divine will whereby, in matchless love and adorable sovereignty, God determined with Himself to deliver a certain number of Adam’s degenerate offspring out of that sinful and miserable estate into which, by his primitive transgression, they were to fall,’ and in which sad condition they were equally involved, with those who were not chosen, but, being pitched upon and singled out by God the Father to be vessels of grace and salvation.” See Jerom Zanchius, “Doctrine of Absolute Predestination States and Asserted,” in The Works of Augustus M. Toplady, 6 vols. (London: Printed for the Proprietors, and Sold by W. Row, et al., 1794), 5:237–238; also in Absolute Predestination (Lafayette, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers, 2001), 49–50; and The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination, trans. A. M. Toplady (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 83–84. Now one might ask, given Zanchi’s clear statements about God’s election of some men out of a fallen mass, does it make any sense to place him within Robert Reymond’s more expanded and modified supralapsarian view, which is as follows: 1. The discriminating decree, or the election of some sinful men to salvation in Christ (and the reprobation of the others in order to make known the riches of God’s gracious mercy to the elect); 2. The decree to apply Christ’s redemptive benefits to the elect sinners; 3. The decree to redeem the elect sinners by the cross work of Christ; 4. The decree that men should fall; 5. The decree to create the world and men (Reymond, “A Consistent Supralapsarian Perspective on Election,” 178). Given the seeming novelty of this view, it is not likely. The only other person Reymond names as possibly holding this type of view prior to the 20th century is Johannes Piscator, and it may be that Reymond is also relying on Nicole (and Le Blanc) for this information since Piscator is also cited by Nicole (in The Philosophy of Gordon Clark, 512, n. 10). Le Blanc (in Theses theologicae, variis temporibus in Academia Sedanensi editae et ad disputandum propositae [Londini: venales apud Mosem Pitt, ad insigne Angeli in Coemeterio D. Pauli, 1675], 183) does discuss the views of Piscator, Twisse, and Zanchi in the context of his work. It is more likely the case that Zanchi was following earlier schoolmen and Reformers in the trajectory of his thought, as Muller and others have pointed out using primary sources.
194. April 7, 2019: In his commentary on John 1:3, Calvin chides Augustine for being "...excessively addicted to the philosophy of Plato..." See Calvin's Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 17:31. Augustine himself acknowledged, "I have been rightly displeased, too, with the praise with which I extolled Plato or the Platonists or the Academic philosophers beyond what was proper for such irreligious men, especially those against whose great errors Christian teaching must be defended."—Augustine, The Retractations, trans. M. I. Bogan (FC 60; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 10; Retractationes, 1.4. Check A. H. Armstrong's more balanced praise of Plato here (click).
195. April 8, 2019: On things happening to God in time, see Augustine, “On the Holy Trinity,” in NPNF¹, ed. P. Schaff (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 3:95–96 [De Trinitate, 5.16.17]; Peter Lombard, The Sentences. Book 1: The Mystery of the Trinity, trans. G. Silano (Mediaeval Sources in Translation 42; Toronto, Ontario, CA: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010), 162–164 [Sent. 1, Dist. 30, c. 1., 1–7]; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. Prima Pars 1–49, ed. J. Mortensen and E. Alarcón, trans. Fr. L. Shapcote (Opera Omnia 13; Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012), 132–136 [Summa theol., 1, qu. 13, art. 7]; Anselm, Monologion and Proslogion, trans. T. Williams (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1996), 27–29 [Monologion, c. 15]; Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Volumes 2: God and Creation, ed. J. Bolt, trans. J. Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004), 133–134. These sources appear on page 134 in Bavinck, but he includes one more from Augustine (De ordine [Divine Providence], II, 7), and several other sources from Bonaventure (Sent., I, dist. 30, art. 1), J. Zanchius (Op. theol., II, 24–26), and A. Polanus (Syn. theol., 192).
196. April 23, 2019: “According to His nature, God does good abundantly and wishes to make every man blessed (1 Timothy 2:4).”—Martin Bucer, Instruction in Christian Love [1523], trans. P. T. Fuhrmann (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008), 26–27. In the context, “every man” is unlimited.
197. June 6, 2019: “Belief in the exclusivity of the gospel is essential to true Christianity, as is the well-meant offer of the gospel.”—Al Mohler
198. July 5, 2019: Simon J. Kistemaker, even though he thinks the "you" or "us" refers to believers in the context, he affirms God's love for all men (even Cain) and His desire for "the redemption of the entire race" in his comments on 2 Peter 3:9 in Exposition of the Epistles of Peter and the Epistle of Jude, NTC (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 334–335. He  references Rom. 2:4, 1 Tim. 2:4, and Ezek. 18:23, 32 for these ideas.
199. July 15, 2019: About Judas, Cyril said that Jesus "continually exhibited the marks of His own love [toward him] and not letting loose His anger till He had tried every kind of remonstrance."—S. Cyril, Commentary on the Gospel According to S. John—Vol. II: S. John IX–XXI (A Library of the Fathers 44; London: Walter Smith, 1885), 181.
200. August 29, 2019: Robert Morey is often thought to have denied that God has any love for the non-elect, and understandably so. Morey often seemed to speak that way. Yet, it is probably better to understand him as holding something like John Gill's view of a mere temporal love for the non-elect. For example, Morey wrote: “It was at this point of looking upon this young man [the rich young ruler] that we read, “Jesus felt a love for him.” It was not continuous love which Jesus had for him from all eternity. It was a temporary love which came into being upon looking at the man. It was a pleasant positive feeling which was produced in Christ when He observed these virtuous attitudes and actions in the young man. Christ loved His own from the beginning to the end (John 13:1). The love spoken of in this passage clearly began when Jesus looked upon him. And a temporary sorrow replaced this temporary love after the man forsook Christ. Both the context and the construction of the verse points to a temporary love. They cannot be twisted to refer to eternal redemptive love. Yet, even if one is determined to see redemptive love in this verse, then the only conclusion which we can come to and be consistent with the rest of the New Testament is that the young man was eventually saved. There is even an ancient tradition that says that this young man was actually Saul of Tarsus who later became the Apostle Paul.”—Robert A. Morey, Studies in the Atonement (Las Vegas, NV: Christian Scholars Press, 1989), 294.
201. August 29, 2019: Now, as it concerns predestination to initial grace, everyone agrees, in opposition to Pelagianism, that it is unmerited (Rom. 9:16; John 6:44). It does not occur on account of foreseen merit; also, in contrast to semi-Pelagianism, it precedes the human will; it is “prevenient grace.”—Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. J. Bolt, trans. J. Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 2:354.
202. August 31, 2019: “Why, then, doth truth beget hatred and that man of thine, preaching the truth become an enemy unto them, whereas a happy life is loved, which is naught else but joy in the truth; unless that truth is loved in such a sort as that those who love aught else wish that to be the truth which they love, and, as they are willing to be deceived, are unwilling to be convinced that they are so? Therefore do they hate the truth for the sake of that thing which they love instead of the truth. They love truth when she shines on them, and hate her when she rebukes them. For, because they are not willing to be deceived, and wish to deceive, they love her when she reveals herself, and hate her when she reveals them.”—Augustine, “The Confessions of St. Augustin,” in NPNF¹, ed. P. Schaff, trans. J. G. Pilkington (1886; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 1:152; Confessiones, 10.23.34.
203. October 7, 2019: All truth is God's truth: "A person who is a good and true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found."—Augustine, On Christian Teaching, II.18; "If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him, not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears."—Calvin, Institutes, II.2.15; "All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God."—Calvin, Commentary on Titus, 1:12
204. January 13, 2020: "The predestination of their creator (namely, God) is not harmful to the reprobate, that is, the predestination which most justly punishes their persistent and untameable wickedness. Crushed by the use of that wickedness and by its very grievous burden, they are plunged into Tartarus, falling into the abyss like a stone, drowning in the raging waters like lead."—Remigius or Florus? [Church of Lyons], "A Reply to the Three Letters [Libellus de tribus epistolis]," in Early Medieval Theology, ed. G. E. McCracken (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 175. Entitled A Reply to the Three Letters and written in the name of the church of Lyons, it is customarily attributed to Remigius, who was enthroned as bishop of the diocese between March 31, 852 (the date of Bishop Amulo's death) and September 12, 852 (the date of Emperor Lothair's first communication to Remigius as bishop), and who died on October 28, 875. For Florus's sermon on predestionation, see Henry Newland, A New Catena on St. Paul's Epistles: A Practical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians (Oxford: J. H. and J. Parker, 1860), 15–20.
205. January 13, 2020: “No matter how badly man may abuse His [God’s] graces, they are graces nevertheless. No matter how little use the goodness of God may have been to him because [of] the inconsistency of his spirit, it doesn’t mean that it was not still marvelous in its place. It would be an excessively perverted judgment to measure God‘s goodness by the ingratitude of man, rather than by the goodness in itself.”—Moise Amyraut, Brief Treatise on Predestination, trans. M. Harding (Weston Rhyn; Oswestry; Shroshire, UK: Charenton Reformed Publishing, 2017), 77.
206. January 19, 2020: “…the Bible teaches that God desires and sincerely offers salvation to every man—Judas and the reprobate included.”—Edwin H. Palmer, “The Significance of the Canons for Pastoral Work,” in Crisis in the Reformed Churches: Essays in Commemoration of the Great Synod of Dort, 1618–1619, ed. P. Y. De Jong (Grandville, MI: Reformed Fellowship, Inc., 2008), 181.
207. January 20, 2020: This documents every location in the Reformed(ish) Confessions where they repudiate that God is the author of sin. I do not think they could have shouted their denial of it any louder to their slanderous critics: “Vallérandus Poullain: Confession of the Glastonbury Congregation (1551),” in Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation, 4 vols., ed. J. T. Dennison, jr. (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008–14), 1:649; “Rhaetian Confession (1552),” 1:671, 672; “The French Confession (1559),” 2:143; “Lattanzio Ragnoni’s Formulario (1559),” 2:165; “Theodore Beza’s Confession (1560), 2:242; “The Hungarian Confessio Catholica (1562),” 2:481; “The Confession of Tarcel (1562) and Torda (1563),” 2:654; “The Second Helvetic Confession (1566),” 2:821; “Documents of the Debrecen Synod (1567),” 3:19; “The Bohemian Confession (1573),” 3:409; “Confession of the Evangelical Church of Germany (1614),” 4:55; “The Irish Articles (1615),” 4:94–95; “The Canons of Dort (1618–1619),” 4:125, “The Colloquy of Thorn (1645),” 4:211; “The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646),” 4:238; “The London Confession (1646),” 4:274; “Benjamin Cox’s Baptist Appendix (1646),” 4:292; “Waldensian Confession (1655),” 4:438, 443; “The Savoy Declaration (1658),” 4:462; “Waldensian Confession (1662),” 4:501; “The London Baptist Confession (1677),” 4:536.
208. January 28, 2020: It is a shame that Théodore Tronchin (1582–1657), Antoine Léger (1594–1661), and Joannes Jacobus Sartorius (1619–1690), three staunch anti-Amyraldians, put the following in the Geneva Theses (1649), which rejected as an error those: "2) Who teach that by His revealed disposition, God wills the salvation of each and every one [Voluntante revelate Deum vellit omnium et singulorum salutem]" (Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation: Volume 4, 1600–1693, ed. J. T. Dennison [Grand Rapids, MI, Reformation Heritage Books, 2014], 421). This confession served as a prelude to the Helvetic Consensus of 1675. Francis Turretin even insisted that Charles Maurice sign the 1649 Geneva Theses (ibid., 4:414).
209. January 31, 2020: "Some have denied that the existing [or the preceptive] will has the character of a will, and they wish to degrade it to merely a prescription. One must observe, however, that in God’s prescriptions His holy nature speaks and that in fact they are founded upon a strong desire in God."—Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics: Theology Proper, ed. R. B. Gaffin (Grand Rapids: Lexham Press, 2012–2014), 1:23.
210. February 1, 2020: "We have the task to preach the gospel to all. We must also desire the salvation of all to whom we preach and need never fear that by so doing we contradict the will of God by which He sovereignly decreed to reprobate some."—Fred H. Klooster, Calvin's Doctrine of Predestination, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 60.
211. February 3, 2020: Yet since His property is to have mercy, He draws from Himself the matter and cause for mercy; the cause for judgment He finds in us, for mercy seems far nearer to His heart than condemnation."—Sermons of St. Bernard on Advent & Christmas (London: R. & T. Washbourne, 1909), 128; Sermon on the Nativity: 2 Cor. 1:3. See Isaiah 28:21 for God's judgment described as a "strange work."
212. February 4, 2020: "The word irresistible was applied to it [effectual grace] first by the opponents of Calvinism, but is explained by Calvinists in this sense—that the will goes with the divine will and influence, and there is no thought of resistance."—Henry Boynton Smith, System of Christian Theology, 2nd ed., ed. W. S. Karr (New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son, 1884), 521.
213. February 16, 2020: "St. Peter prophesied accurately when he said in 2 Pet. 2[:1], “There will be false teachers among you who shall deny the Master who bought them.” Who is this Master but Christ, who has bought us with his own precious blood? Who denies him more than those who ascribe too little to his grace and too much to free will? For while they will not allow that to be sin and evil which is indeed sin and evil, neither will they allow that to be grace which is indeed grace and which should drive out sin. Just as a man who refuses to admit that he is sick will not allow medicine to be medicine for him."—Luther, M. (1999). Luther’s Works, vol. 32: Career of the Reformer II. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.) (Vol. 32, pp. 93–94). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
214. May 18, 2020: J. I. Packer, in his chapter on "Arminianisms," called John Gill "a hyper-Calvinist, but no antinomian," in Through Christ's Word: A Festschrift for Dr. Philip E. Hughes, ed. W. R. Godfrey and J. L. Boyd III (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1985), 137n30. He's right on the former claim, but a bit off on the later claim, since Gill was a theoretical antinomian, but not a practical one.
215. May 26, 2020: "The Lord had some harsh and bitter rebukes for the Jews, but it was out of love. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (Mt 23:13)."—Augustine, Sermon 317.5; "Singing is what a lover does [Cantare amantis est]."—Augustine, Sermon 336.1
216. June 6, 2020: "This regular self-love is the rule of our loving our neighbor. As our love ought not to center in our selves, but to extend to others, so in our application of it, we ought to take our measure from our self-love, to regulate us in our love to others."—Samuel Willard, "Sermon CLII," in A Compleat Body of Divinity in Two Hundred and Fifty Expository Lectures on the Assembly's Shorter Catechism [...] (Boston in New-England: Printed by B. Green and S. Kneeland for B. Eliot and D. Henchman, and Sold at their Shops, 1726), 584.
217. June 11, 2020: "It [God's waiting in the day's of Noah; 1 Pet. 3:20] expresses the ardent desire for repentance as well as the great exertion to bring it about and also to postpone judgment and, if possible, to avert it.... God did not desire the death of those wicked ones."—Seakle Greijdanus's Kommentarr on 1 Petrus; as noted by Jochem Douma in Common Grace, p. 356, and translated by Albert H. Oosterhoff
218. June 15, 2020: On the basis of Deuteronomy 32:6, 18, the Westminster Annotations call God "universal parent" in their note on Luke 3:38.
219. June 16, 2020: According to Richard Snoddy, Bullinger, Musculus, and Ursinus are all Hypothetical Universalists.—See Richard Snoddy, The Soteriology of James Ussher: The Act and Object of Saving Faith (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, ed. D. C. Steinmetz; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 78.
220. June 25, 2020: “Regarding the reprobate, on one hand he declares in La maniere et fasson: ‘Jesus offered Himself to the Father for our redemption, dying in order to assemble all who were scattered, that all might make up one body and one thing.’”—Henri Heyer, Guillaume Farel: An Introduction to His Theology, trans. B. Reynolds (Texts and Studies in Religion 54; Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 38; "Jesus died as if He had done all that men and women have done and will do from the beginning to the end of the world, since all is put on Him."—Guillaume Farel, quoted in ibid., 90; "Farel, however, does not overlook the point that if several passages of Scripture, principally in St. Paul, seem to support this doctrine [i.e. God's will of good pleasure or His decree in election], others affirm, in a manner no less categorical, that God wishes all men be saved and arrive at knowledge of the truth. Thus, he recommended pastors work actively to lead new souls to Christ, without being disturbed by the incomprehensible counsel of God."—Ibid., 94.
221. June 25, 2020: “Let them [the wicked] know, however, that if they are not penitent the gentle Jesus who awaits them with mercy will greatly avenge the injury they do to him in scorning his holy word and putting to death his servants who bear and announce it.”—Guillaume Farel, “A Summary and Brief Exposition (1529/34),” in Jason Zuidema and Theodore Van Raalte, eds., Early French Reform: The Theology and Spirituality of Guillaume Farel (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 178.
222. June 26, 2020: “Bullinger cites Ambrose (Ambrosiaster) in support: that God wills all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, that salvation depends on grace, not merit, and that human understanding cannot grasp the depths of God's judgements. We ought, therefore, not to enquire why God who wishes everyone to be saved, does not save everyone. There is no iniquity in God whose ways are mercy and truth” (William Peter Stephens, The Theology of Heinrich Bullinger, ed. J. West and J. Mock [Göttingen, EU: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019], 168; Historiae 800.12–803.4).
223. August 18, 2020: In the main text, Calvin spoke of  "wretched souls redeemed by the blood of Christ [which] shall perish." Lane said: "Unlike some later Calvinists, Calvin does not appear to limit Christ's redemption to those who will eventually be saved" (an editorial footnote by Anthony N. S. Lane in The Bondange and Liberation of the Will: A Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice against Pighius, ed. A. N. S. Lane, trans. G. I. Davies [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002], 19).
224. August 30, 2020: "The way [to immortal glory] is known, for Christ the Master is opening it for everyone; He summons us to lead us both with Himself and in Himself [Nota via est, Christo cunctis reserante magistro: qui vocat, et secum nos decucturus et in se]" (Prosper of Aquitaine, De Providentia Dei: Text, Translation and Commentary, trans. Miroslav Marcovich [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989], 17; IV.206–07).
225. September 1, 2020: Luther on deliberate and deceptive ambiguous speech: “So great a rhetorician and theologian ought not only to know, but to act according to, that which Fabius says, ‘An ambiguous word should be avoided as a rock.’ Where it happens now and then inadvertently, it may be pardoned: but where it is sought for designedly and purposely, it deserves no pardon whatever, but justly merits the abhorrence of every one. For to what does this hateful double-tongued way of speaking tend? It only furnishes an opportunity of disseminating and fostering in safety the seeds of every heresy, under the cover of words and letters that have a shew of Christian faith. And thus, while religion is believed to be taught and defended, it is, in reality, utterly destroyed, and subverted from its foundation before it is understood . . . . For if in religion, in laws, and in all weighty matters, we should be allowed to express ourselves ambiguously and insidiously, what could follow but that utter confusion of Babel, where no one could understand another!”—From APPENDIX II.—MARTIN LUTHER TO NICOLAS ARMSDOFF CONCERNING ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM, in THE BONDAGE OF THE WILL
226. September 6, 2020: "Because God does not desire the death and ruin of sinners, therefore in mercy he desires their chastisement."—Matthew Henry on Hosea 10:9–15.
227. January 9, 2021: Wolfgang Musculus: "Next in those two verses, he sets forth God’s kindness in that general providence by which he may provide the necessary food to all living creatures. He thus sings that God’s kindness is universal, so that the eyes of all may look to it just as to a hand, from which God’s kindness is consulted abundantly and completely for the necessities of all."—Selderhuis, H. J., & George, T., ed., Psalms 73–150: Old Testament, RCS (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018), 8:377.
228. January 31, 2021: “Furthermore, the reason God did not choose all to eternal life was not because He did not wish to save all, but that for reasons which we cannot fully explain a universal choice would have been inconsistent with His perfect righteousness.”—Lorraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, 97.
229. February 2, 2021: There are hints in Carl Henry’s writings that indicate he was moderate in his Calvinism. For example, in a “Supplementary Note” on “Contemporary Debate over Divine Election,” with respect to passages such as John 3:16; 2 Cor 5:14–15; 1 Tim 2:4; 1 Tim 2:6; Heb 2:9; 1 John 2:2; and 1 John 4:4, Henry said, “To explain the terms ‘world’ and ‘all’ in these verses as meaning ‘all the elect’ seems contrived. … Exegesis of Hebrews 9:28 seems to require that Jesus Christ’s death covers everyone’s guilt in Adam, in that event final condemnation would concentrate on each impenitent’s individually committed sin. … Even if the indicated verses require the view that Christ’s atonement in fact covers both the racial and the personal sins of all human beings, no automatic inference requires the view that all persons are therefore elect. Since God’s action is often strikingly munificent, the objection need not be fatal that, in view of the election of only some to salvation, an unlimited atonement involves divine inefficiency in the outworking of the redemptive plan. … Verses that imply God’s sincere and strong wish for human salvation are not necessarily inconsistent with the divine election of only some to eternal life.” Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 6 vols. (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1976–1983), 6:106. So while Henry followed Gordon Clark in some aspects of his theology (e.g., in areas of his epistemology insofar as he affirmed univocal knowledge and a form of presuppositionalism), he most certainly was not Clarkian in terms of his Calvinism.
230. February 11, 2021: Johann Gerhard quoted Augustine as saying, "To the extent that the devil has being, he is good; to the extent that every nature has being, it is good,” and attributed it to De nat. bon. c. 1, but the first part seems more like an inference from what Augustine implicitly said.
231. February 20, 2021: There is a sense in which Jesus both is (Matt. 11:19; 20:13; 22:12; 26:50 [cf. Psalm 41:9]; Luke 7:34) and is not (James 4:4) the friend of sinners.
232. April 22, 2021: “The damned in Hell would be ready to give worlds if they could to have the number of their sins to have been one less, to have one idle word or sinful thought forgotten & blotted out & to be released from the punishment of it.”—Jonathan Edwards, “396. Acts 8:20–22,” in Sermons, Series II, 1736 (WJE Online Vol. 51).
233. May 12, 2021: ESV Matthew 21:31a "Which of the two did the will of his father?" In this verse, the will (θέλημα) of the father includes compliance to what he commanded, not merely in the giving of a command. So it is with God's revealed will, contextually.
234. June 3, 2021: “So you see that no one is free from trials. However, we can defend ourselves against them and check them by entreating God’s help in prayer. Thus we read in the book of hermits [i.e., Jerome’s Lives of the Hermits] how a young brother longed to rid himself of his thoughts. The aged hermit said to him, ‘Dear brother, you cannot prevent the birds from flying over your head, but you can certainly keep them from building a nest in your hair.’”—Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 42: Devotional Writings I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 73. Also in Martin Luther, “The Lord’s Prayer Explained,” in Luther’s Catechetical Writings: God’s Call to Repentance, Faith and Prayer,  trans. John Nicholas Lenker (Minneapolis, MN: The Luther Press, 1907), 1:305 (§161).
235. June 11, 2021: For Basil of Caesarea’s  (Basil the Great’s) comments on God’s knowability and on divine simplicity, see Letter 234 (AD 376) to Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, in NPNF², 14 vols., ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 8:274; or Saint Basil, Letters: Volume 2 (186–368), trans. Sister Agnes Clare Way (FC 28; Washington, D. C., The Catholic University Press, 2008), 159–161.
236. July 9, 2021: “Holy Lot offered up his daughters’ honor. For although that impurity was also disgraceful, it was however less so to have sexual intercourse according to nature, than to commit an offense against nature.”—Ambrose (De Abrahamo, 1.6.52 [PL 14. 440; “Offerbat sanctus Lot filiarum pudorem. Nam etsi illa quoque flagitiosa impuritas erat; tamen  minus erat secundum naturam coire, quam adversum naturam delinquere.”]). “The venerable Lot offered his daughters’ virginity [cf. Genesis 19:8]. For although that violation was infamous, yet it is a lesser offence to come together according to nature than to sin against nature.”—Saint Ambrose of Milan, On Abraham, trans. T. Tomkinson (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2000), 26.
237. December 19, 2021: “I Preach'd, as never sure to Preach again, And as a dying man to dying men!”—Richard Baxter, Poetical Fragments: Heart-Imployment with God and It Self, 2nd ed. (London: Printed for J. Dunton […], 1689), 30.
238. January 22, 2022: Donald John MacLean, “Knocking on Sinners’s Doors? Revelation 3:20, Ecclesiology and the Gospel Offer in Seventeenth-Century Puritanism,” Foundations 77 (November 2019): 53–67.
239. February 12, 2022: Edwards wrote: II. They who object, that this doctrine makes God the author of sin, ought distinctly to explain what they mean by that phrase, “the author of sin.” I know, the phrase, as it is commonly used, signifies something very ill. If by “the author of sin,” be meant the sinner, the agent, or actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing; so it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the author of sin. In this sense, I utterly deny God to be the author of sin; rejecting such an imputation on the most High, as what is infinitely to be abhorred; and deny any such thing to be the consequence of what I have laid down. But if by “the author of sin,” is meant the permitter, or not a hinderer of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted or not hindered, will most certainly and infallibly follow: I say, if this be all that is meant, by being the author of sin, I don’t deny that God is the author of sin (though I dislike and reject the phrase, as that which by use and custom is apt to carry another sense), it is no reproach for the most High to be thus the author of sin. This is not to be the actor of sin, but on the contrary, of holiness. What God doth herein, is holy; and a glorious exercise of the infinite excellency of his nature. And I don’t deny, that God’s being thus the author of sin, follows from what I have laid down; and I assert, that it equally follows from the doctrine which is maintained by most of the Arminian divines.—Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, ed. Harry S. Stout and Paul Ramsey, Revised Edition, vol. 1, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2009), 399 (Part IV, §9.2). Also in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 vols., ed. E. Hickman (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1992), 1:76. See also Miscellany 141 above, concerning Timothy Dwight.
240. February 14, 2022: "…it is most manifest, that Crocius did in the Synod maintain the Universality of Christ's death, by a Letter written to him from one of his Colleagues from Brente, during the Session of the Synod Anno 1619, Feb. 25. For in that Letter, he hath thanks given him for maintaining the Universality of Christ's death; and is told, that his Opinion was approved by all to whom he had shewn it. Vide Crocii Disser. secundam de Peccato Originis, pag. 61, 62."—Henry Hickman, Historia quinq-articularis exarticulata, or, Animadversions on Doctor Heylin's quintquarticular history (London: Printed for Robert Boulter, 1674), 108. According to Hickman, Ludwig Crocius (in Duodecas dissertationum exegeticarum et apologeticarum … [1642]) discusses the state of the question regarding the universality of Christ's redemption in the tenth dissertation, and gives his own opinion in the eleventh (ibid., 107).
241. May 7, 2022: “XXI. What justifies [i.e., faith] as an instrument does not forthwith justify as a work, although that instrument is a work. It is one thing for it to be a work and another to justify as a work. What justifies as a work ought to be the meritorious cause of justification, but what justifies as an instrument does not justify meritoriously, but only apprehensively and receptively; not by giving, but by receiving. Therefore the action of faith justifies us, but not as an action simply (as if it were our righteousness with God), but in relation to its object inasmuch as it receives Christ. As the extension of the beggar’s hand is indeed the act of the beggar prescribed by the rich man, still as an act it does not enrich the beggar, but insofar as in this way he applies the gift of the rich man to himself and makes it his own.”—Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, 3 vols. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992–1997), 2:674; Institutio theologiae elencticae, 16.6.21.
242. May 20, 2022: “Quintilian [Institutiones oratoriae, B. VII, c. 9] warns most properly that an ambiguous word should be avoided like a rock. And one should also be very careful to point out to those who teach that they should shun equivocation. There is also an old verse used in the schools which says: ‘Equivocation is always the mother of error.’”—Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 8: Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 45–50, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 8 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 195.
243. June 7, 2022: “Therefore, believe very definitely and realize, brethren, that as often as the Lord said: ‘I will make Pharao[h] obstinate,’ (Exod. 4:21) He wanted nothing else to be understood except: I suspend my plagues, and by removing my scourges, through my indulgence allow him to be hardened against me.”—Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 101.2.
244. June 19, 2022: “Of greater help [to James Ussher] were the sermons in which Ambrose taught that Christ became incarnate for all and suffered for all, but that those who did no believe cheated themselves out of the benefit of Christ’s death, just as a man who shuts up his windows deprives himself of the light of the sun.”—Richard Snoddy, The Soteriology of James Ussher: The Act and Object of Saving Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 63. In Snoddy’s footnote, he refers to this passage from Ambrose: “Plena est ergo terra misericordiae Domini; quia omnibus est data remissio peccatorum. Super omnes sol oriri jubetur. Et hic quidem sol quotidie super omnes oritur. Mysticus autem sol ille justitiae omnibus ortus est, omnibus venit, omnibus passus est, et omnibus resurrexit: ideo autem passus est, ut tolleret paccatum mundi. Si quis autem non credit in Christum, generali beneficio ipse se fraudat, non ideo sol non ortus est omnibus, quia calore ejus se ipse fraudavit: sed quod solis est praerogativam suam servat: quod imprudentis est, communis a se gratiam lucis excludit. Super omnes pluvia est, et hoc divinae misericordiae deputatur; quia pluit super justos et injustos. Aut certe sic interpretandum, quod misericordiae divinae plena sit terra; quia Domini est terra, et plenitudo ejus .... ipse super maria sundavit eam, et super flumina praeparavit illam (Psal. XXIII, 1 et 2). Etenim per Ecclesiam in omnes gentes diffusia est misericordia Domini, in omnes gentes diffusa est fides.”—Ambrose, In Psalmum David CXVIII Expositio, Sermon 8 (PL 15, col. 1318C). Or see Expositio de psalmo CXVIII (CSEL 62), 186.
245. June 20, 2022: “For the Word of God, who said to us, ‘Love your enemies, and pray for those that hate you,’ Himself did this very thing upon the cross; loving the human race to such a degree, that He even prayed for those putting Him to death.”—Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, 6 vols., ANF (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 1:447; Adversus haereses, 3.18.5.
246. April 7th, 2023: “Anger, revenge, hatred, when attributed to God, are by some referred to this head. Where we are to note, that these words are not ascribed to God by way of anthropopathy, for God most truly, properly, and for infinite reasons, is justly angry with sinners, takes vengeance on them, or afflicts them, Jer. 9:9, Nahum 1:2, &c. He truly hates sinners and hypocrites, Psal. 5; 6, Isa. 1:14, &c., ([Licet absque ulla perturbatione, αταξια aut imperfectione hæc sint Deo tribuenda] although these things are ascribed to him without any perturbation, confusion, or imperfection,) yet there is an Anthropopathy in certain words and phrases by which these affections are wont to be expressed. Thus breath, or to breathe, do sometimes note the anger of God, by a metaphor taken from men, who in the vehement commotion of anger, do draw their breath more strongly than ordinary, Exod. 15:8, Job 4:9, Isa. 30:28, Ezek. 21, 31.”—Benjamin Keach, Tropologia: A Key to Open Scripture Metaphors (London: William Hill Collingridge, 1856), 50.
247. November 18, 2023: “Ego proinde fateor me ex eorum numero esse conari, qui proficiendo scribunt, et scribendo proficiunt.”—Augustine, “Epistola CXLIII,” in S. Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi Opera Omnia post Lovaniensium Theologorum Recensionem, Patrologia Latina, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris, 1861), 33:586 (“Epistularum CXLIII,” CSEL 44:251). “I therefore admit that I am among that number who write while developing and develop while writing.”—Saint Augustine, Letters (Epistulae) 100–155, ed. Boniface Ramsey, trans. Roland Teske, vol. II/2 of The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2003), 302; Epist. 143.2. “Therefore I admit that I try to be of the number of those who write by advancing in knowledge, and advance by writing.”—Augustine of Hippo, Letters (131–164), ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, trans. Wilfrid Parsons, vol. 20 of The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1953), 150; Epist. 143.2. “I freely confess, accordingly, that I endeavour to be one of those who write because they have made some progress, and who, by means of writing, make further progress.”—Augustine of Hippo, “Letters of St. Augustin,” in The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustin with a Sketch of His Life and Work, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. J. G. Cunningham, vol. 1 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), 490. “I confess that I endeavor to be one of those who write by progressing, and who progress by writing.”—Denis J. Kavanagh, “Introduction,” in Augustine of Hippo, Commentary on the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount with Seventeen Related Sermons, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Denis J. Kavanagh, vol. 11 of The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1951), 13.
248. November 25, 2023: Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, in late 5th to early 6th century, spoke of Christ begging sinners to embrace his love. He said, “Does he not contend with them and beg them not to spurn his love [Greek: καὶ ἔτι αὐτοῖς ἀπέχουσιν, ὅμως προσιοῦσι προστρέχει καὶ ὑπαντᾷ, καὶ ὅλος ὅλους περιφὺς ἀσπάζεται, καὶ οὐκ ἐγκαλεῖ περὶ τῶν προτέρων, ἀλλὰ ἀγαπᾷ τὰ παρόντα; Latin: Quid quod a se deficientes amore prosequatur, contendatque ac roget, ne dedignentur amores]?” (Pseudo-Dionysius, “The Letters,” in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, ed. John Farina, trans. Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987), 271; Letter 8). Another translation has, “Because He clings lovingly to those who even depart from Him, and strives and beseeches not to be disowned by those beloved who are themselves coy…” (Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, “The Letters,” in The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, trans. John Parker, 2 vols. (London; Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1897), 1:151–53; Letter 8, sec. 1).
249. March 17, 2023: John Gill wrote: “…and, indeed, the universal offer, cannot be supported without supposing universal redemption; which those, who are fond of, and yet profess particular redemption, would do well to consider.”—Tobias Crisp, Christ Alone Exalted: The Complete Works of Tobias Crisp, ed. John Gill, 2 vols. (London: John Bennett, 1832), 1:114.
250. May 9, 2024: “Damn all false antithesis to hell, for they generate false gods, they perpetuate idols, they twist and distort our souls, they launch the church into violent pendulum swings whose oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ.”—D.A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 234.
251. August 23, 2024: “Hoeksema and his followers linked the rejection of common grace with their denial of the free offer of the gospel, resulting in a distinct Dutch Reformed version of Hyper-Calvinism that went beyond the Hyper-Calvinism of John Gill and other English Hyper-Calvinists. Gill and others at least held to a modified form of common grace. Curiously, Hoeksema’s successor David Englesma claims that the Protestant Reformed Church is true Calvinism and is not Hyper-Calvinism, when in fact they are more Hyper than their English compatriots”—Curt Daniel, The History and Theology of Calvinism (Darlington, UK: Evangelical Press, 2019), 579.
252. September 17, 2024: For the proper understanding of “many” as a Hebraism for “all,” see Jeremias, “Πολλοί,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 6:536–545; Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (Basil; Blackwell: Oxford, 1955), 123–25; I. Howard Marshall, “Universal Grace and Atonement in the Pastoral Epistles,” in The Grace of God and the Will of Man, ed. Clark Pinnock (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1989), 59–61. Also, see David Ponter’s references in Calvin under the subheading “when ‘the many’ is all.” Example verse: NKJ Daniel 12:2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, Some to everlasting life, Some to shame and everlasting contempt.
253.